Yep, those were different times.
Battlecruiser 3000AD. This advert was later revised and they drew black knickers on the model.
Psycho Pigs UXB. Another British classic?
Well-placed censorship of pictures was the best purpose of a Battlefield 3000AD box. That was one of those games where the drama around it was far better than the game itself.
Isn’t this the game that had to run full page adverts claiming a new, updated version was available and “the bugs have been squashed!” Obviously this was pre-internet, so updates like this were quite uncommon.
Might have been. That game was so bugged that the installer crashed for a lot of people. Once it got patched enough that you could actually play it–which took years–it was supposedly pretty good, but nobody cared by then.
Now i want to see the reviews for Psycho Pigs UXB because it cant have been very memorable.
Honestly, might be nostalgic for guys, but as a girl who was playing games in this era, it made me feel like I wasn’t a part of the culture, rarely if ever were there ads marketed towards me, but man were there a lot of half naked ladies. Glad we don’t do this as much, but god this caused a lot of younger girls to feel ashamed of playing games “for boys”.
There were lots of half-naked men, too. Including in this ad.
Most of them in games were more male fantasy stuff…ripped, shirtless dudes with big weapons. Not really appealing to most women, but checks the “I want to BE him” aspect for lots of guys, lol
Yeah, but that is just another facet of marketing for men. Sexy dress-up vs tighty whities. Definitely not intended to get women interested.
Are you really out here in public view still trying to use the “not all men” to tell a woman her feelings are invalid?
No, I was supporting the previous comment. The idea that the ads were mostly about “male fantasy”, and probably wouldn’t be (positively) nostalgic for most women gamers.
How does that comment invalidate the previous one? If anything it actually reinforces it. Are you just looking for an excuse to shame someone?
The weird thing is, as a guy, I never even paid attention to the sexualized stuff in games. To me these are like two different brain activities. So, as far as I’m concerned, there was never any point in this kind of marketing. I’ve never in my life purchased a game because it featured sexy ladies.
It’s supposed to be subconscious, like with most marketing. It hits the animal part of the brain, rather than the thinking part.
It really sucks looking at the detrimental effect this had on gender ratios in gaming to this day. It’s gotten a lot better but it’s still not there yet.
Yeah, we need to level the playing field by having half naked sexy guys on the cover of games. ^please
Like Fabio? Pretty much any depiction of a barbarian is some muscular dude wearing only a loincloth and his broadsword.
Doubt that’s going to be enough, I think if you want to make a sexually objectifying 90s magazine ad that appeals to female nerds you’re going to have to break out the homoerotic innuendos
People used to bring up Kratos in these discussions but before these new games he seemed far more likely to bite someone’s face off than to kiss anyone. There’s a difference.
Fair
I’m ok with that
🤤
looking in your direction, clive rosfield
I’d rather we stop sexualizing characters altogether. If anything, it’s silly and makes it more difficult to take them seriously.
I think there is space for both sexualized and non-sexualized characters, as long as they are treated evenly. This is entertainment, they don’t need to be all business serious.
I dread that in trying to be perfectly respectable, the medium might err to the side of prudishness and sexual repression.
After a woman says she doesn’t like being sexualized, your response is to not worry because the sexualization of women will continue, but you’ll start to sexualize men, too?
Yeah. Even just around a decade ago I’d explain the demographics shift to more women gamers to clients and they’d not believe it.
Stereotypes stick around for a long time, even when (or maybe especially when) untrue.
It’s a shame that “girl gamers” were considered such a rarity when it really seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Oh, a game with only male protagonists with activities only primarily associated with boys doesn’t have many girls playing it? I guess girls aren’t that into games and we should double down on the focus on dudes.”
As a result, the market effectively abandoned around half of two generations of a potential continued audience and had a significantly reduced pool of interested labor to make games.
It’s a bit frustrating given my love for games that they could likely have advanced even further had it not been an exclusionary industry for as long as it was (though that can be said about pretty much every business vertical in existence too given our generalized collective history of exclusion).
It’s not really nostalgic for me, TBH. It’s actually kind of embarrassing that marketing like this existed and that it worked. I love T&A as much as the next female-loving guy, but ads like this are condescending. But again, they sold units…
Yeah as a boy I didn’t like these either. They were sexy but made me feel a little weird. I was young enough not to realize it was targeting only boys, but now that I’m older I think that’s why I didn’t like them. I wasn’t in to sex at the time.
I was a senior in high school at the time and even back then I thought this kind of advertising was crass, gross, and unnecessary. No nostalgia here, just second-hand embarrassment.
I can imagine. I’m glad this is less prevalent now. Seeing it now in middle age makes me go ick. I wished I had been much more aware of this kind of sexism as a boy.
It was a super gross and embarassing era.
Oh, man, you have NO idea:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/mar/15/games.advertising
Hahaha, yeah, that one was great.
Also the one where they paid parents to name their baby ‘Turok.’
I sometimes wonder what those little Turoks are up to today (at least a half dozen parents took them up on it IIRC).
The shock advertising campaigns around games really were something. They worked - got a ton of free media coverage. But this was also at the time that video games were the Boogeyman like rock n’ roll had been to a generation before. The media loved nothing more than a “look how terrible video games are” story and PR firms were playing into that environment.
So campaigns like this were basically the equivalent of Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat.
As games became more normalized, the campaigns shifted accordingly and - like Ozzy - tamed quite a bit out.
Oh my god, this is dark.
This would’ve been great for a game like DOOM.
[Here lies your loved one]
“Ah! Fresh meat! Journey into Tristram and see what the Butcher is up to today!”
Please be the onion…
Sorry, but Acclaim really was that wild for a bit there. They also had a promotion where you’d get a free copy of one of the Turok games if you named a newborn child after him. For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone took them up on either offer, but it certainly brought in the publicity.
I currently work with someone who worked with acclaim back then and Virgin at one point too. The stories he tells me of some of the game Devs of the time. Insane. Some of them Devs still exist to this day and knowing what happened behind closed doors I have no idea how they got more business.
I feel that you owe us some anonymous gossip now.
One UK based dev that worked on some edgy PC games had a “Red Room” at their offices that was purely there for them to take drugs and trip inside. It was just a room completely painted in red.
Best played with a DeathAdder mouse.
Bro, using ads in the graveyards this is new for me…
I bet this will make a comeback…
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Pretty amusing to see what they were up to with ads.
I guess it really was a different time back then where people were able to laugh about things instead of being uptight and serious.
Am I the only one cringing at the perspective in the mirror more than literally anything else in the ad?
My cock is lost in the jungle and it’s up to you to find it~~~ Oh Laura, no panties… You know I like it like that…
I can’t believe you came on my mom
The 90’s were just better.
People could have a joke and a laugh without everyone being so serious about everything and getting offended.
I’ve been joking and laughing with people for decades since then (today even), and nobody was all serious or offended!
And it isn’t even with a group of old white men all the time! Lol
The world has got far more serious.
My comment was obviously exaggerating for effect. You’d have to be stupid to think I meant there are no jokes anymore.
I can’t even process what’s going on with the reflection in the mirror being from an angle at about head height over the bed. I like that they didn’t even trust teen gamers to understand the allusion of a woman standing in a bedroom doorway without comping in this extra element.
In order to make the reflection work the bed would have to be angled against the wall.
It’s funny how the brain instantly notices that the perspective is nonsensical but can’t really pinpoint the issue ^^
It’d also need to be pressed against the mirror I think…?
Not if you’re a literalist exec that saw the creative and didn’t think it was clear enough - “where’s the target audience? How are they going to see themselves in this ad?, she’s clearly out of our average user’s league”
Man, 90s video game ads were wild lmao
I remember TR3 was a huge disappointment after 1 and 2. The new mechanics weren’t very good and the level design was more confusing. I remember they added the Desert Eagle pistol and it was a giant brick (seriously the model consisted of probably 3-4 polygons total).
It really felt like they were just milking the franchise at that point.
milking lara croft? 🤔
This is a case study in the phenomenon where reading comprehension drops at the mention of Lara Croft
let’s not kink shame…
Is there a reason they used the “You wouldn’t download a car” font?
Default late-90s design intern font.
Gen X edgy font?
Hmm, 1998. Is that Gen. X or Millenials? Makers are Gen. X, target group probably Millenials.
The entire design is just janky somehow.
Also, do y’all remember the time Arby’s of all people used this concept for an ad? It was a TV commercial, we see a guy waiting on a bed and hear a woman’s voice from the bathroom “This is really what you want? Well I’m only doing it once.” and she comes out dressed as an Arby’s cashier with a tray of meat sandwiches.
Tomb Raider 3 came out in 1998. Well before the anti-piracy campaigns.
I’ll fight anyone who says 1998 is retro. I’m getting old, but give me a few more years damn.
Those few years between 1992-1998 were as … game-changing … for games as probably the two decades that followed. We started it with side scrollers, Dune and Doom and ended it with Diablo II, StarCraft and Half-Life.
I spent sooooooooo much time on StarCraft and Diablo II. First video game I remember playing was Wolfenstein 3D, then Duke Nukem. Found RTS soon after.
I remember upgrading my PC from 4MB to 8MB, just to be able to play Duke3D, cost me a pretty penny as well
Blizzard used to give me such warm fuzzies.
Now they just price gouge you, and sexuality harass the employees.
Hate to break it to you, but they play rock from the 90s and 00s on the CLASSIC rock stations now.
You mean the late 1900’s
Bro that’s so last century
Last millennium, even.
Hell, I can remember when the word retro meant something new inspired by something older. Now it just means old / classic.
Bro, 2010 is retro now
You are a bad person.
Why must you be so hurtful.
I launched Arkham Asylum on steam earlier this week and it recommended a 9800GTX lmao.
1GB ram, 2GB if you were running Vista.
We’re gonna have to rethink definitions at some point. Yes, video games are still a comparatively new medium, but nobody would call a 2010 film a retro film, nevermind books or paintings.
I define “retro” as anything made before an average Army Private was born, so about 19-20 years. By this standard, games released in the early 80’s were retro when the current generation of Privates was born, so how do we call that ? I propose the term “paleogaming” for those.
By that definition, 9/11 is retro.
Bro, we lost that fight. I was watching a Youtube video of a guy clearing games from his Steam backlog and introduced one with, “So, many of you watching probably weren’t alive when this game came out. Everyone talks about what a classic this is, but I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has actually played this game.”
I died a little inside when it turned out he was talking about the first Half-Life.
You and me both, but to be fair it’s a year closer to the creation of console gaming to modern day. So I’ll let it pass.
People who call my music vintage or classic can get right the fuck back, though.
I understand saying you don’t feel like 2010 is retro, but 1998? That’s been retro for a long time. You’re in a really extreme place in your head when you stick to not calling something that’s 25 years old retro.
If in 1998 you would have argued that 1972 is retro, then I’m sorry to tell you that 1998 is retro
No, you’re retro! runs away sobbing
I am retro. You have no power here.
Embrace it! Gonna happen anyhow whether you want it to or not
I’ve hurt my hip. Leave me alone.
Come, now. Let’s settle you down for your 3rd nap, huh?
I’m still waiting for John Romero to make us all his bitch.
He can’t do it without his friend Superfly.
They were going with a “sex sells” approach to marketing, but what they got was just an unrelatable and cringe piece of 90s trash.
Never played it, did they fuck up the triangles?
That shiny green top is definitely not as sexy irl
Yeah I’ve seen several IRL actresses portraying classic Lara Croft as wearing like a polished vinyl top for some reason?
It’s like older superhero movies with spandex. No imagination.
Well I mean, Superman’s costume is pretty unusual. People don’t dress like that, so when you turn to your wardrobe department and say “make me a Superman costume” there’s some head scratching.
Lara Croft wears a tank top, shorts, a pistol belt, white socks and boots. Extremely easy cosplay to source, but so many folks interpret Lara’s shirt as some stiff glossy plastic, I guess because that pre-rendered cover art of the first game looked shinier than cloth?
Superman wore a carnival strongman’s outfit. That’s why he’s got the trunks. They just added a full sleeve shirt and leggings to it.
But yeah all you need for Lara Croft is a tank top, short shorts, and some belts.
