Ever since the launch of Fall Guys, brands have been piping up on social media with mock-ups of their likeness in-game. whipping their fans into a frenzy.
Yesterday, the official Twitter account for the game amplified that scramble, with a simple premise: Battle of the Brands.
For the price of a donation to UK-based charity Special Effect, Mediatonic will include that brand in the game, some basic conditions notwithstanding.
The rules? Simply bid the highest amount of money.
The bids quickly came rolling in. Within minutes the amount had passed $10,000, from indie fighting game Rivals of Aether. Free-to-play title Warframe raised that to $20k, and streamer Tyler "Trainwrecks" Niknam upped that further to $25,000.
Several other brands made their intentions known, with Walmart Canada saying "time to make a PowerPoint" and peripheral manufacturer ROCCAT declaring they were "scheduling some meetings".
Server hosting firm Bisect Hosting, known for their Minecraft servers, emerged as a major player, tabling several bids and promising — depending on permission from Microsoft and Mojang — to make their skin Minecraft-themed.
Some brands bid, apparently serious, but without much connection to gaming. Adult site Nutaku was swiftly 'yeeted' — the term used in the rules — for being NSFW, while bidet manufacturer Tushy actually led proceedings with a bid of over $40k...
Bisect Hosting came right back into it, saving Mediatonic their blushes — before Jimmy Donaldson, better known as the rather generous YouTuber "MrBeast", doubled their offer to $100,000.
Following another bid by Bisect, it was time for Carlos "ocelote" Rodríguez and his org to get involved, pushing the bid up to a massive $130,003 — not without playing on their "we either 3-0 or 0-3" meme.
As of the time of writing, 11:30 AM CEST, they remain the highest bidder. With the auction due to last two weeks, and less than 24 hours having elapsed, this is surely not over.
One thing is for sure — a whole lot of people are going to benefit from this wonderful cause.