[HN Gopher] Old video game advertisements
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Old video game advertisements
Author : rayrag
Score : 115 points
Date : 2021-09-29 10:36 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (retrocgads.tumblr.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (retrocgads.tumblr.com)
| hubblesticks wrote:
| The font gore is strong on some of these ads.
|
| "How many different a fonts can we jam into a single ad!?"
|
| Apparently all of them!
| ArtDev wrote:
| Yes, so much cringe.
|
| "quit smoking? Hey, you've got two lungs!"
| https://retrocgads.tumblr.com/image/663553593320898560
| anarbadalov wrote:
| nice! i love this poster for Final Fantasy Mystic Quest:
| https://www.etsy.com/listing/690646890/1992-final-fantasy-my...
|
| edit: they also have Chuck Rock!
| https://www.etsy.com/listing/690598064/1992-chuck-rock-super....
| This is bringing back good memories.
| et-al wrote:
| How do we get these mirrored on Archive.org?
|
| I noticed the Wayback Machine doesn't fare well with Tumblr and
| images.
| rayrag wrote:
| Use https://github.com/Liru/tumblr-downloader to download
| images then upload them to Internet Archive.
| acheron wrote:
| See also the CGW Museum: http://www.cgwmuseum.org
|
| Scans of every issue of Computer Gaming World, ads and all.
| drivers99 wrote:
| One of the fun things about reading 90s and 00s comic books is
| seeing the full color full page video game ads for whatever
| system was current at the time.
| thought_alarm wrote:
| So mid-90s. Seeing this makes me want to program my VCR to record
| the series premiere of Ally McBeal.
| dom111 wrote:
| "Ooga chacka, ooga, ooga, ooga chacka..."
| dom111 wrote:
| I have a vivid memory of an ad for, I want to say a joystick,
| from when "force feedback" concept was quite new, it's stuck with
| me since the mid-nineties perhaps?
|
| It was a picture of someone putting a fork into a toaster with
| the caption "there's an easier way to get force feedback...". I
| want to say it was for something in the Microsoft Sidewinder
| range, but I can't find it! It's stayed with me though as I
| thought it was both clever and terrifying!
|
| Might even be in that collection somewhere...
| Ekaros wrote:
| Logitech Wingman Force Around 1998 by copyright on images in
| google image search "logitech wingman advertisement".
| aasasd wrote:
| Apparently every single one of them had to have an edgy snappy
| tagline, preferably in quotes.
|
| Gotta say though, seeing quasi-cubist art, for 'Hyperblade', is a
| bit of a pleasant surprise. Even if it's quite in vein of
| business magazine illustrations from the 90s to this day.
| bitwize wrote:
| Oh man, 90s so edgy. Many of these wouldn't even fly today.
| hammock wrote:
| These are so cringe, I love it.
| LaserDiscMan wrote:
| Having a Sega Genesis helps you take on bullies, and get the
| attention of girls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vjv5LKrOq8
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| They had some seriously cool ads back then. This one is for
| SNES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb0ul2M6C9o
| LaserDiscMan wrote:
| They sure did.
|
| Don LaFontaine of movie trailer fame narrates this Perfect
| Dark commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrM3EETABK0
| adamrezich wrote:
| man, if only...
| axpy906 wrote:
| Wow, look at all this print! These either came in comics or
| magazines. Funny that gamers read so much back then. I know I
| did.
| gxqoz wrote:
| I actually get more enjoyment these days reading about games
| than playing them. Or at least I spend more time reading about
| them than playing them. For instance, reading an issue of Retro
| Gamer magazine is highly pleasurable. Picking up a retro game
| that I didn't actually play as a kid is usually less so.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| It was one of the only ways to find new stuff! Getting a new
| game magazine with a demo CD was was a very cool treat. I
| remember there was a TV show I'd watch that would promote new
| games too. Otherwise the only way to know what games existed
| was to go to the store and look at the pictures on the giant
| cardboard boxes they packaged floppy disks in (and later CDs).
| Apocryphon wrote:
| We need to go back.
| Ziggy_Zaggy wrote:
| 100%
| allenu wrote:
| There's certainly an amateurish charm to old video game ads.
| Today, everything is pretty slick and there's a general base
| understanding of how to write copy and how to make ads look
| polished (probably thanks to the internet), but back then it was
| really a free for all.
| handrous wrote:
| Everything used to be less slick. Even huge store chains and
| brands look amateurish by modern standards, from as recently as
| the 90s. Some of it's explainable by changing fashion making
| those things look worse, but most of it's just that less was
| _designed_ , and expectations for how (say) a Wal-Mart's
| exterior (and interior, for that matter) would look didn't
| include the whole building being "on brand", to pick one
| example.
|
| I think graphic design becoming _much_ faster and cheaper, and
| elaborate custom-designed and custom-printed /manufactured
| signage, wraps, et c., becoming far cheaper to make, is part of
| the cause.
|
| I also suspect much of this is a very visible case of Graeber's
| "Bullshit Jobs", specifically of the "zero-sum competition"
| variety--which makes sense, given the relation of this to
| marketing and ad-spending. I don't think Target having the
| entire _facade_ of its buildings designed & built to be "on
| brand" does very much good of any kind, _per se_ , nor do
| brand-driven price tag or end-cap sign designs and such, and
| the (apparently) increasing tendency to tear down rather than
| repurpose--I assume because making the old building fit your
| design system would cost about as much as building new, anyway,
| and if you build new you also get... a new building--sure seems
| socially _harmful_. However, they feel they have to, so they
| don 't look shabby next to all their competitors.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I miss hand-lettered signs with misspellings and punctuation
| errors in carry out places. Now even the smallest mom and pop
| has professionally lettered signs and menus.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The UK is having gas shortages and I saw a article where
| one of the gas stations was pictured and they had a glossy,
| perfectly on brand sign explaining the situation. I was
| thinking that a couple of decades ago it would've been
| crazy to get those printed and distributed to stores in
| less than a week.
| matrixcubed wrote:
| Thankfully, I've seen greengrocer's apostrophes survive
| that evolution of signage polish.
| gxqoz wrote:
| On the subject of changing tastes, I suspect that in 10 years
| anything in a corporate Memphis style [1] is going to look
| horribly amateurist and outdated. This shows up a lot more in
| landing pages and tutorials than ads, but I'm sure there are
| similar artifacts in ads these days.
|
| [1] https://en.communia.blog/corporate-memphis/
| nostromo wrote:
| It already looks amateurish and outdated.
|
| Note how design-focused companies like Apple almost never
| use it. It's mostly used by Facebook and Google, who aren't
| know for sophisticated design.
| bhntr3 wrote:
| That link is a wild ride. I expected a design blog. Instead
| I got a communist indictment of startup culture through the
| lens of the commodification of illustration.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Maybe I've just become jaded by it all, but those older ads
| also felt steeped in a different kind of consumerism, angled at
| a different kind of consumer. Still interesting to read, but I
| don't find them any less passe just because they're a few
| decades removed from your Sears catalogue.
| allenu wrote:
| Yeah, you've got a point. They're still ads at the end of the
| day. A lot of the design language is also very much a product
| of the time. Very type-heavy (I'm reminded of the magazine
| Ray Gun) and a lot of "attitude".
| Arrath wrote:
| I love it. The charm is in the enthusiasm.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Gotta love the graphics card one.
|
| Graphics Meltdown. That's right, now we have some textures.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That's one thing I miss about that era. Every year your mind
| would be blown as the seemingly impossible was rendered in real
| time on your computer. Each year was a massive leap in
| capabilities.
|
| These days there's still a lot of boundaries being broken but
| it feels less pronounced than it did in the 80s and 90s. The
| difference between HD and 4k is pretty small from a reasonable
| viewing distance vs the difference from SD to HD. Never mind
| the jump from 8 bit colour pallets to 16 bit colours, CGA to
| VGA, or even the first time I hooked up a colour monitor to my
| Amstrad after using a literal green screen for years.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| As a kid I went from NES to N64, not knowing there was a
| generation in between. That was pretty cool. I think there
| have still been a handful of "wow" moments in graphics for me
| still in recent years. It's not so much things looking more
| detailed, but things looking more alive and fluid. Hair is
| looking really cool in games these days. Wet things look
| really wet. Real time global illumination strategies look
| damn cool, and imo, more impressive in non realistic
| environments. But I think in general the biggest improvements
| in graphical immersion yet to come will be less in terms of
| graphical improvements and more in environmental physics and
| small details that "happen" when previously they would not
| have happened.
|
| A lot of high end tech is becoming more accessible, and I
| think because of this, will also become more modular. I'm
| excited for it.
| solidist wrote:
| Did the publisher Manning get book cover inspiration from
| "INTERACTIVE MAGIC?"
|
| https://retrocgads.tumblr.com/image/663605323106582528
| rayrag wrote:
| There is no scrollbar on sidebar thus tags are cut off so for
| easier/faster browsing go to archive page:
| https://retrocgads.tumblr.com/archive
|
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