this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
635 points (98.3% liked)

Games

40655 readers
1135 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
fxomt
[email protected]
[email protected]
635
Vintage gaming advertising pictures: a gallery (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
107 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is probably going to seem wildly low-effort compared to my usual posts here, but I've found a bit of a treasure trove of print media gaming ads from magazines and sites. And they're amazing. I found it so fun to see what companies used to do to promote their games.

Things have clearly changed a lot over time, some of them are insensitive or even outright sexist, but if you just look at it through a lens of being a time capsule, it's fun.

This one's going to be very image-heavy. If you're using Boost on iOS then you might struggle to scroll through this (or maybe not? It's happened with all my other posts though, so you've been warned), if that happens just visit using your browser :)

Game Boy Advance/SP:

The 'feet' collection were from an ad company in Stockholm, in 2005. I think it is to mean you're using hands to play the GBA, and only have feet left to use for real life:

PS2:

Nintendo Game Cube:

And that's that! Just interesting to see a time when gaming was a little more experimental and edgy.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 58 points 2 days ago (1 children)

PS3 did some wierd shit, too.

And PSVita... The PSVita had this:

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I hate to say it actually depicts the concept pretty good

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is probably going to seem wildly low-effort compared to my usual posts here

My man, you just compiled tons of obscure posters from the corners of the Internet. I admire your dedication, and this does take an effort.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 days ago (3 children)

*Miss, not man!!!

(I'm just glad people enjoy all this weirdness as much as I do!)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

My apologies, I missed that one!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 71 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The gameboy with the tribal tats is killing me.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I like the Nintendo ones, there were 'risky' ads here, now they're very conservative

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago

My thoughts exactly. Some of these ads are just plain weird in a way that they would never dare today.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

Sony had some fucking weird ads back in the day.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm surprised you didn't post that PSP ad with the white lady beating the shit out of the black lady....to promote the sale of a white PSP.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Never heard of this ad since i was a kid at the time and not Dutch. Here it is.

Wow.

https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/5/15190396/sony-psp-ad-white-is-coming-pepsi-kendall-jenner

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

OK this cements my belief that people who work in marketing are batshit insane.

Even after seeing backlash, they doubled down and kept running the ad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

It's all the cocaine. When I watched madmen I thought it was an exaggeration. Then I dated a guy who worked in marketing and met his coworkers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

See they should have done a Charlie's Angels type thing, have them standing kind of back to back like they're on the same team. But I guess that won't have been as controversial.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

There is only one magazine video game advertisement I really remember from seeing in the wild in an actual magazine, and that was the Quake 3 Arena one of a computer in a crusty-as-fuck basement bathroom in front of a toilet with just a super dirty setup.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago

It feels VERY Quake-esque, too. So they nailed that image!

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

I remember seeing these ads as an impressionable young gamer and getting the idea that Playstations had games that were scary and weird, and Nintendo games and handhelds were for boys. Generally the ads told me "this is not for you". Because I only ever saw ads for specific PC games and never for PCs themselves, (they were aimed at adults, not in the kind of magazines and comics young me was perusing) even though I was still not the target market it clicked more with me. I think that might be a part of why I've only ever really gotten into PC games over the years. I knew there were games I'd like and games I wouldn't, and never got the same platform level messaging.

I remember seeing an ad for Thief and thought it looked cool, and I remember being super grossed out by that Quake 3 ad, but I never felt unwelcome or out of place playing PC games. In contrast, the focus on marketing to young males is really obvious in those console ads.

Examples of some PC game ads I remember working for me and led to me getting them:

https://cdn.mobygames.com/promos/18308445-thief-the-dark-project-magazine-advertisement-pc-gamer-usa-issue.jpg

https://www.retromags.com/rmg_fs/gallery_imgs/monthly_2022_06/large.1061174590_LordsofMagic02(December1997).jpg.82c9c4e56622e154a87711d93647ccc3.jpg

https://cdn.mobygames.com/promos/6568546-the-elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind-magazine-advertisement-pc-gamer-.jpg

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

You put your finger on it. Most of the ads say, "this is not for you," to a young girl.

Old ads for cars, alcohol, cigarettes etc. were like that as well. They're aimed at the hotshot guy who has a chick he's treating poorly, or more accurately, the guy who wants to have chicks throwing themselves at him. They have nothing to offer a woman or girl, because why would she want to be ignored arm candy?

I guess the one with the woman holding a controller in the bathtub may be an exception.

I'm sure a lot of boys and men were weirded out by these ads too.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I've seen Pokemon condoms but I don't think they were licensed, fortunately none of them said "gotta catch em all" though

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Those PS2 underwear ones are fucking wild

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (3 children)

They had bizarre TV adverts as well. You could never accuse early 2000s Sony of not getting weird with it.

I don't know if any of it really helped. It rode in on the already wildly successful PS1. It had a DVD player in it back when a DVD player was quite expensive. It had SSX and Tekken Tag at UK launch. It could play all your PS1 games and "upscale" them. The only competition it had at launch was the Dreamcast. It was going to sell anyway.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 days ago (4 children)

What the fuck were the PS2 marketing team smoking?!

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 days ago (2 children)

There's more, but I suppose...back then shock was a tactic, the gaming industry wasn't as clean cut and commercialized as it is now, and they were appealing to a certain demographic?!

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Blame Nintendo.

Back in the early 1980s fresh off the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo was on the verge of releasing the Famicom in Japan, and needed a way to market the console in America.

There was just one rule. In America, video games were dead. A fad. Disco was dead, and so were video games. So it wasn't a Famicom. It was a Nintendo Entertainment System.

In stores like Woolworths (think Walmart but not terrible) and Hills (think Target, but also a bit shady) they tried marketing the NES as an Entertainment system. It wasn't a video game. It was an appliance. Like a VCR. It was the only way to get stores to agree to stock the damn thing. No store wanted the risk of a video game.

Well, after a year of selling, and research Nintendo found kids were the main target of their product.

So they shifted away from the electronics section and into the toy isle. There was just one problem. Toy stores in America were divided. Some isles carried toys for boys, and the other half of the isles carried the toys for girls.

A bit of market research showed that interest in Nintendo shifted slightly more towards boys. 55%‐45%.

What happens next is the key to the PS2 ads.

Nintendo chose to carry the NES in the boys section of the toy isles. Which had an IMMEDIATE influence over not only the marketing in America, but also the direction developers took their games.

There was a clear shift towards the games AND the marketing being geared towards boys 5-13.

Nintendo then DOMINATED the video game landscape. Seriously. If your mom today is roughly 80 years old, theres a pretty good chance she calls all video games "Nintendos" (regardless of brand), the same way she calls all tissues "kleenex". Or if you're from the south (especially Georgia) all soft drinks "coke". Could be orange soda, it's a coke. Just like it's one of those Xbox 1080p Nintendos.

Well by the time of the PS2 days, that influence, even though Sony had nothing to do with it, had caked over. Video games were now very male centric, and the age range grew up with them.

In the late 80s, you were 5 years old playing super mario bros. In the mid 90s, you were 13 playing tomb raider and argueing with friends over the validity of a nude cheat code. And by 2001 you were 18 and horny, and....hey, look at these ads for the PS2. They're edgy!

And that is my TedTalk on why raunchy dreamcast ads, and raunchy PS2 ads goes all the way back to the atari 2600 game crashing the whole industry worldwide 20 years earlier.

That, and puberty.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Probably creates by a group of middle-aged men who never touched a console.

People with no idea about the product who simply looked at the target demographics and thought:

"What do teenage boys like? Sex.

Let's go with that since research is hard."

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I'm surprised you didn't include this one:

Edit: Link to creator:

https://xcancel.com/notshysmith/status/1407072918945812481

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

I just wanted to have actual, official ones shared!

This one is not official, it was done by a girl who goes by shy smith three years or so ago, she just tried her best to make a photo in the 'style' of the old Y2K era, and the days of PS2 ads and...everyone ended up believing it was real. She did such an amazing job of it, this one often gets shared as if it were done for Sony.

And...to be fair, the actual official ones got way worse than those I included:

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Oh god how is that meant to boost PS2 sales 😂😂😂

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 days ago

Whatever we gained by losing these, it was not worth it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

The kirby choking one has to become a meme template !

[–] codexarcanum 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The GBA SP really was a great portable. I carried my black\silver "executive" model everywhere and felt cool as shit at the time.

Those PS2 ads though, holy shit, what was Sony smoking back then?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

They need to give it to the current marketing team. And save some for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

me pullign out the playstation Condoms

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I wish there was an easy way to quote/reference specific images. Golden Sun literal fire was nice, but those PS2 ads were... What the fuck

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I loved the Golden Sun ad. Literally how little me felt playing that basic ass fantasy game. Basic but still love it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (3 children)

The over-the-top edgy/"how do you do, fellow kids?" vibes of the early y2k years is definitely something that I don't miss from that era.

I can somehow hear Linking Park in the distance while scrolling this post.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Those PS2 ones are fucking awesome, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago

Half of that ad budget went to cocaine for sure.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (6 children)

We need to go back. Everything now is too sterile. Publishers do not take any risks on games anymore. We don't get games like Illbleed or Burnout from AAA funding anymore. Games that look at a genre and really ask what actually belongs in that genre.

Nowadays its all unoptimized Unreal Engine copy-paste Over the Shoulder perspective slop.

Indie is being more experimental these days simply because of how easy it is to develop video games now, but still lacks the necessary funding to create experiences on par with what AAA can offer.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

this isn't low effort. These are freaking great!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Love the PS2 ones. They almost have a Goth vibe in their aesthetics.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I thought "gnostic vibe", but yes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My wife and I still have all three of these systems. All three still work. They are still fun.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

But do you have the Tribal Edition?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

The nineties was the best decade.

Not low effort posting IMO, this is a part of our culture & has historical value.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (3 children)

It strikes me that I have no point of reference because I haven't seen any ads for 20 years. If they stopped doing y2k edgy-style ads, what are they like now?

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›