Submitted 9 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website to retrogaming@lemmy.world
https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/7555c132-2e86-45d4-abc9-01230006b867.jpeg
This kind of marketing ruined gaming culture.
There is a throughline between gendered marketing; the idea that young hetero men owned gaming; and chud gaming culture like gamergate.
The idea of the young horny gamer dude is sexist toward men too. Never mind the accompanying stereotypes of gamers as loosers and nerds.
cough big bang theory
Nerd blackface.
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.
Blizzard used to give me such warm fuzzies.
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.
Old fart here. I played Wolfenstein 3d, then played the shit out of Doom and Duke Nukem 3d but missed out on Half life until recently. Knowing the context of the era it came out in, I can totally see how amazing it must have been. Hell, it’s still incredibly fun for me in this era.
Bro, 2010 is retro now
You are a bad person.
Why must you be so hurtful.
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.
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.
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
You mean the late 1900’s
Bro that’s so last century
Hell, I can remember when the word retro meant something new inspired by something older. Now it just means old / classic.
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.
Hate to break it to you, but they play rock from the 90s and 00s on the CLASSIC rock stations now.
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.
If you really want to get depressed, Farmville is probably retro for some people.
The early 00s was pretty mysoginistic.
I originally came from a conservative country, and yet there were plenty of ads for softcore porns in TVs and billboards in those days. Even as a child, I questioned why do they show such images in front of full view to everyone.
The thing is, such mysoginy was the norm without us even realising it. I remember reading an article of a woman reminiscing her college days in early 00s. There were pictures of college girls on pin up boards and they get graded on how beautiful they are. The author said no one thought bad about it but looking back, it was very degrading and also invading privacy. There was also the matter of the infamous wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson. She got all the public spotlight afterwards because she is a woman, but Justin Timberlake pretty much got away with it for free. JT also shamed Britney Spears about losing her virginity to him, instead of keeping his mouth shut, while Britney was branded as slut.
I’m sure in the 2040s, people will say the 2020s were misogynistic too. And they’ll be right. Equality isn’t here yet.
Progress always seems to mostly march onwards, but you only have to watch Beverly Hills Cop 2 to see Eddie Murphy calling Brigitte Neilsen “that big bitch” like it was perfectly acceptable. And even that was probably considered pretty forward thinking at the time having a woman being cast in an action role, rather than just being fucked or fridged like pretty much every other 80s action movie.
This. The funny thing is some folks think that progress just happens. The amount of people who died or ruined their lives in the name of progress is baffling to me.
The Man Show was on air for 6 consecutive seasons starting in 1999. Their premier episode featured Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel sitting outside trying to get people to sign a petition to end women’s suffrage (as a joke, bro. Obviously it’s a joke!)
Was that not just to take advantage of the fact that “suffrage” sounds like a bad thing (like “suffering”)?
yeah the whole Janet Jackson thing wouldn’t have happened today
Oh, man, you have NO idea:
Oh my god, this is dark.
Bro, using ads in the graveyards this is new for me…
I bet this will make a comeback…
This would’ve been great for a game like DOOM.
[Here lies your loved on]
“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.
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.
Best played with a DeathAdder mouse.
My favorite old school game ad is one for Quake 3 Arena of a computer sitting in a grungy-ass basement with empty soda bottles, coffee, cigarettes etc all over the desk and a toilet as the chair.
i0.wp.com/…/quake_is_for_everyone_german_.jpg?res…
This German ad for Quake is awesome too!
Ah, fun for the whole family. Very wholesome, that Quake game is.
I thought they were cringy even then.
Dreamcast ads got real weird. I vividly remember this one ad for Seaman: It showed a pair of feet and a fish tail sticking out from under a blanket. The accompanying text was "I will not mate outside my own species " repeated several times.
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.
Am I the only one cringing at the perspective in the mirror more than literally anything else in the ad?
They were going with a “sex sells” approach to marketing, but what they got was just an unrelatable and cringe piece of 90s trash.
Is there a reason they used the “You wouldn’t download a car” font?
It took me a couple seconds to understand that it wasn’t a before/ after set of pictures. It was a little confusing.
but why is he wearing a diaper?
I’m still waiting for John Romero to make us all his bitch.
and above all - sexy new outfits
The most important part of a game.
This one is newer: …blogspot.com/…/alison-carroll-kick-1210867833.jp…
Man, 90s video game ads were wild lmao
Media today might be less sexist but I think part of it is also that it became drastically more sex averse. Mortal Kombat is gorier than ever for anyone to see, but god forbid anything shows a nipple.
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 recommend this Mastodon account for more retro ads l: botsin.space/@gamemagprintads
Since she’s a a Tomb Raider, a dungeon crawler, a spelunker, does that mean he wants her to peg him? Color me interested.
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.
Fun fact Tomb Raider was the first game with a nude mod.
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 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.
Who does she looks like Aphex Twin?
The Rayman one was great, “small man, huge features” iirc :d
Nerdybynature@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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”.
Daxtron2@startrek.website 9 months ago
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.
Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Yeah, we need to level the playing field by having half naked sexy guys on the cover of games. ^please
xyzzy@lemm.ee 9 months ago
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.
molochthagod@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
otp@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
It’s supposed to be subconscious, like with most marketing. It hits the animal part of the brain, rather than the thinking part.
ShustOne@lemmy.one 9 months ago
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.
agent_flounder@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
otp@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeah, but that is just another facet of marketing for men. Sexy dress-up vs tighty whities. Definitely not intended to get women interested.
BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Are you really out here in public view still trying to use the “not all men” to tell a woman her feelings are invalid?
Empricorn@feddit.nl 9 months ago
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…
kromem@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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).