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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

cough big bang theory

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.

For the kids here who haven't experienced Half-Life, you should play Black Mesa. For the retro farts who have played Half-Life, you should also play Black Mesa. It's the Half-Life you couldn't have in 1998 because of the slow hardware. I weeped from feels playing it.

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.

Bro, 2010 is retro now

If in 1998 you would have argued that 1972 is retro, then I'm sorry to tell you that 1998 is retro

You mean the late 1900's

Oh my god, this is dark.

Bro, using ads in the graveyards this is new for me...

I bet this will make a comeback...

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.

https://i0.wp.com/boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/quake_is_for_everyone_german_.jpg?resize=600%2C413&ssl=1

This German ad for Quake is awesome too!

Is that a toilet chair?

And people make fun of that one ad where John Romero was going to make us all his bitch.

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.

I was hitting puberty, this was prime material

Gen X edgy font?