A while ago, McDonalds in Japan teamed up with Square Enix to create a downloadable game called McDonalds Travelers. It's an ingenius marketing scheme that exploits Japan's love of Dragon Quest and could well see use in the West some time soon. The way it works is simple, but quite clever indeed.

Players take their DS systems to a local McDonalds, where they can download and play a Dragon Quest-themed battle game. The only way to play it is to go to the "restaurant," and players are also limited to just one play session per day. However, if customers rack up five play sessions (which means five trips to McDonalds), they get a free burger for their efforts. It's a brilliant scheme. 

The good news for the companies behind the plan is that McDonalds Travelers has so far had over a million downloads. The promotion was scheduled to end on September 3, but has proven so popular that it will run through the month until October 1. 

McDonalds is also offering exclusive Dragon Quest IX items, the first of which is a red afro for characters. Players can soon expect nine "wedding themed" items in the near future too. 

I have to doff my cap at whoever came up with this marketing stunt. You can more than likely expect similar things to happen in North America. Any company with Wi-Fi would be an idiot not try and emulate this, and I'm not just saying this because I'm fat and want free burgers.