I’ve had the same position on branded games (and branded apps… and sites…) for a long time.

Read Idea of iPhone Games Attracts Only a Handful of Brands.

I don’t think people typically care about games (or apps) made by brands – especially if the concept has anything at all to do with the brand. There are some exceptions, but they’re rare. If you think your brand is the exception, prove it: build a highly-optimized mobile site and show that people want to engage with you at all from their mobile devices.

If folks do engage, passive sponsorship of (and strong PR around) an in-progress game or app with good legs and a lot of value to users is a great move. Saying, “Hey, we brought you a great game at a lower cost by sponsoring it.” with PR (versus splash screens and heavy branding inside the game) is going to get more traction than anything else.

In the article, Jon Epstein says:

I guess I’d like to see some numbers, and some analysis of how the branding was done, how the audience was modeled, and how the gameplay and download stats coalesce.