Game Commercials of Olde Versus Today

At a message board located somewhere over the rainbow and to the right of Candyland, I’m engaged in an interesting discussion about game ad campaigns in the past, and how they relate to the present.

The ’90s were probably the most memorable time for game ads. Technology was advancing quickly, but people were, for the moment, comfortable with their 8-bit Nintendo. Then Sega launched an aggressive ad campaign that changed video games.

The Sega Genesis pre-dated the Super Nintendo considerably. There was no question that the Super Nintendo was a finely-crafted system and the most powerful 16-bit console of the two, but how many of us knew it back then? Sega’s ads made sure it was as few as possible.

Sure, if you compared Genesis and Super Nintendo games head-to-head, you would notice that the Genesis games looked duller, sounded far tinnier, and (to my little girl hands) did not have a controller that was as decent as the SNES’. As it stands though, very few of us were able to do that. The late ’80s and early ’90s were a little rough in terms of recession; we were lucky to get one system out of the two (you young punks!), and there was no GameTrailers.com to compare game footage.

All there was was Sega talking about “BLAST PROCESSING!!!!1″, a fantasy term that supposedly gave the Genesis mystical processing powers over the SNES and made games faster. Here’s the commercial that tricked a very gullible generation:

Looking at the commercials now is pretty funny. Sega used Sonic the Hedgehog 2 footage to pwn footage of Super Mario Kart.

One of those franchises is a joke today, while the other remains widely beloved and in fact just sold millions of copies with a sequel. I’ll leave you to guess which game is which.

Sega’s ads were outright attacks against its competitor (one YouTube comment makes an accurate and funny observation: Sega’s commercials were an early rendition of today’s Internet trolls). They were juvenile, but they were also brilliant. Kids who grew up with Nintendo were ready for something cooler; Sega’s campaign agreed very clearly that it was time to grow up. To make things worse for Nintendo, they stayed meek and refrained from retaliation…for a time. Does anyone remember “Play It Loud?”

What’s interesting is that Sony tried to attack Nintendo directly with its Crash Bandicoot commercials, wherein Crash taunted Mario and put down on his latest at the time, Super Mario 64. The style resembled Sega’s attack campaign, but it wasn’t nearly as effective. Were people wise to it? Probably. By then the Internet was widespread and game media was accessible instantaneously. Game reviews evolved in a similar manner to let players know what was hype and what was worth owning.

Game media has irrevocably changed to become more mature—maybe to a fault. What does a baby doll in a room with a Playstation 3 tell me, exactly? I’m not sure if I miss those old Sega commercials that made me furious in my defence for Nintendo (I had a Super Nintendo), but managed to make me laugh at the same time.

Either way, commercials are all about pushing buttons and being rewarded with the response you want. Sega’s “attitude” did that well in its day, but when you come right down to it, it didn’t save the 32X.

On the other hand, nothing could’ve accomplished that.

(Ecco the Dolphin copyright Sega)