T1’s popular mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok now has his face on ice cream treats in Korea.
It’s been a good year for Faker. His team won its 9th LCK championship after beating Gen.G in the Spring Split finals. And now the Esports Hall of Famer with multiple World Championship titles to his name has been selected as Lotte Confectionery’s World Con Model. The Unkillable Demon King has his face on chocolate, vanilla, and apple ice cream treats all across Korea.
Lotte Confectionery stated that they chose Faker to represent World Con because of the League of Legend star’s influence on teenagers and young adults. The top-selling frozen ice cream company also revealed that an ad featuring Faker will be coming in the next few days. Lotte is also planning to sponsor League of Legends competitions this year, as well as several other esports events and tournaments.
“We expect that the meeting of the national ice cream and the national professional gamers will have a positive synergistic effect,” a statement from Lotte was translated as saying.
Esports makes it way into mainstream through food
This may sound pretty out there, but Faker is surprisingly not the first esports figure to be featured on a food item.
In 2013, Ninjas in Pyjamas came up with the McNip burger, a spicy Swedish McDonald’s burger with roasted onions.
A year later, NiP revealed a chocolate bar in collaboration with Candy People. The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team originally released it as an April Fool’s joke, but the chocolate bar was re-released the following day.
Overwatch hero Lucio got his own cereal produced by Kellogg’s in 2019. Overwatch fans who purchased the special cereal were able to get free loot boxes, making it the first such loot box cereal promotion of its kind.
As gaming and esports become more and more mainstream, it’s definitely possible that we’ll see more food collaborations like Lotte’s bold move with Faker. The Faker ice cream has gotten some very positive responses so far.
