Coca-Cola’s first “gamer” flavor—and the history of game-and-soda tie-ins

Enlarge / Hats off to the marketing director who thought “Coca-Cola Byte” had a nice ring to it. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

If you’re looking for a TL;DR on what the first “gamer” flavor of Coca-Cola tastes like, I can answer that at the top: It’s weird. Blueberry, maybe? But only if a blueberry was dunked in a pool of Red Bull. That’s “Coca-Cola Byte.”

Upon its announcement, I asked Coca-Cola if I could sample Byte, slated to launch in the United States in early May, because I found its gaming-adjacent existence fascinating. Many other soda and junk-food makers have enjoyed a cozy commercialization relationship with video games for decades—so much so that you can close your eyes and imagine a stereotypical “gamer” holding a sugary, carbonated beverage by default. (It’s probably Mountain Dew. So much “gamer” Mountain Dew out there.)

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  Coca-Cola Byte’s recycling plea, written in l33t speak.

Yet somehow, Coke has avoided direct tie-ins with the gaming universe in most of the world. We’ve never seen limited-edition Super Mario cans of Coke. We’ve never had bottles of Coke hide codes under their caps that give away free XP in online games. And the stuff basically never appears inside games’ virtual worlds, despite so many brands clamoring to capture gamers’ eyeballs and disposable budgets.