It's a commonly held belief that sex sells, but that's not really true. Sure, sexually charged imagery has a good chance of grabbing people's attention, but just because someone does a double-take on your product, doesn't mean they're going to snatch it up and sprint over to the nearest cash register. Advertisements full of TA might be marginally appropriate when the game in question is all about naked bodies - Leisure Suit Larry, Muscle March, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, what have you. But typically, in-your-face objectification in game ads is reserved for titles that are desperate to distract you from their blatant flaws and failures.
You've no doubt seen those Game of War commercials starring Kate Upton, which devote roughly 0.05% of the ad's runtime to the game itself. But this is just the latest in a not-so-proud tradition of games trying to ensnare those who make purchasing decisions with what's in their pants. Strap in for a ride on this libido roller coaster, as we journey back through time to see the most ridiculously sexual game ads that in no way represent what's actually being sold.
I'm fairly certain that, at no point in the entire course of human history, has an actual person earnestly commented that "You deserve an orgy today!" But maybe Wartune is on to something. Instead of complimenting your co-worker in the hall with "Hey Alex, great job on the quarterly earnings presentation today!", why not try shouting "Hey Alex, you deserve an orgy for the way you presented that PowerPoint!" across the office? You'll destroy your reputation and career in one fell swoop, but you'll have that much common with this stolen art asset of a smiling maiden lifted from a Chinese MMO.
If Wartune really did invite people over for a rollicking evening of group sex, it would only allow its participants to remove one item of clothing (socks included, and counted individually) every seventeen hours. Its actual gameplay is about as arousing as looking at a map while someone begs you for money.
Ah, Evony - a modern classic of laughably bad and ineffective advertising. What started as a concerted effort to grab the attention of horny web surfers devolved into something bordering on self-parody, with banner ads that assume breasts, in any form, have the same effect as a hypnotist's swaying watch. If you're the kind of person who excitedly clicks on each and every Evony ad you encounter online, then prepare for a lifetime of disappointment. Things are only going to get worse from here.
Think Farmville is for Facebook casuals, but find yourself itching to click a bunch of static images while you wait for something to happen? Hankering for a SimVillage where it takes a real-world week to erect a new building? Evony is the game for you, person who doesn't exist!
If you find this imagery to be sexy, then you're well on your way to becoming a festishistic serial killer who can only make love to modified mannequins. If you find this imagery funny, you're just an idiot.
Congratulations: you're now the owner of a system with next to zero first-party support! I hope you like playing imported visual novels, JRPGs, cool indies, or remote play, because that's all you'll ever use this handheld for!
This anatomically incorrect comic book woman took a break from her role in a Rob Liefeld comic to stand next to these controllers, so I guess they must be tangentially related! Note the pasted-on Nyko logo on her shirt, carefully manipulated to accentuate the curvature of her breasts and half-raised nipples. Just to clarify, what does all this have to do with third-party controllers, again?
I guess the intent was that, when you see this drawing of a woman, your palms will become so sweaty that you'll be begging for some kind of fan-powered plastic controller to dry them off. Or maybe her dead-eyed stare will somehow remind you that your hands become rainforests whenever you're playing a game (kinda like mine)? Either way, Air Flo controllers are what you game with if you don't want anyone to ever take you seriously.
It's not often that an advertisement will use beastiality as an incentive to purchase a product. Actually, I'm not sure if it's still called beastiality when the animal you're sexually assaulting can breath underwater. And I'll be damned before I look that up on the Internet.
The visual imagery of inseminating a sea bass is only slightly more revolting than the gameplay in this Dreamcast oddity. You'll question if the sex crime you committed against all of creation was worth it when your offspring looks like Ariel's inbred half-cousin, thrice removed.
Hello, ladies! I don't speak Japanese, but your kind eyes and winning smiles are a universal form of communication. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that you're neither featured nor interested in Gallop Racer 2, and judging by your attire, jockeying is not your formal profession. So I'm a little confused as to why you're taking up more space on the page than the gameplay screenshots. Oh well!
If you often purchase horse racing games from Japan at retail, then I'm sorry to have offended you with such mockery. But then again, you're not actually reading this right now, are you? You're probably off somewhere betting fake money on fake horses because that's what your life has become. Unless the game in question is , in which case I take it all back.
"There's only one thing more torturous than playing Deathtrap Dungeon. Not playing it." So... were people writhing in agony before Eidos pressed this game to disc? Waterboarding, bamboo shoots under the fingernails, drills drawing ever closer to your eardrum - all of it pales in comparison to this third-person Dark Ages brawler. Which I guess is a good reason to buy it? Maybe?
Ian Livingstone is the author of the Fighting Fantasy series of choose-your-own-adventure books. You know how those tend to devolve into a series of dead-ends, confusing riddles, and fatal pitfalls that you can't see coming? Now picture that with some chunky polygons, and you've got Ian Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon in a nutshell. Yep - Livingstone was slapping his name on games before American McGee made it cool for a whole five minutes. But to be fair, at least there's actually a playable dominatrix in this game.
Pop quiz: what's the best way to promote the latest game from a third-rate mascot? If you answered "Show a parody of Janet Jackson's infamous Rolling Stone cover instead of gameplay," then you're a late '90s publicist who got flung into our time to discover that everyone thinks you're dumb as hell. Welcome! This is what's become of that little fad called "the internet". We currently have no way of sending you back to your former reality. Sorry about that.
Now admittedly, Playboy model Marliece Andrada is in Gex 3, relegated to FMV cutscenes that serve as the springboard for Gex's horndog comments. But all of those... ugh... "Miss Adventures" boil down to running and jumping through very loosely themed 3D stages, all while you daydream about playing Super Mario 64 instead. Ah, and before I forget: obligatory Geico joke.
You'd be amazed (or maybe not) at how rarely men take the sexualization spotlight in video game advertising, so Blood is a refreshing outlier. "You're soaking in it," reads the text carefully placed near this fellow's abs/crotch. I was under the impression that I was looking at a fold-out ad in a magazine, rather than soaking in blood, but I guess I stand corrected. I'm also of the belief that this man's nipples could cut through glass.
The Blood ad also has the decency to show actual gameplay to the audience - imagine that! But since this shooter uses a first-person perspective, there's no way to tell that the protagonist, Caleb, is a gritty Wild West gunslinger raised from the dead, not the hunky genderswap of Elizabeth Bathory. False advertising strikes yet again! In any case, you should go play Blood. It's pretty great.
I have no idea what this advertisement is actually for, because all I see when I look at it is a woman's butt. That description text? Those in-game screenshots? They may as well not exist, because they are vying for your attention against impossible odds (much like the paragraph you're currently reading). But besides reducing a real woman with thoughts and feelings to an anonymous rear end, there are some definite problems with this ad. I get that "Take advantage" is a tennis joke, but given the context, it sounds like the inner monologue of a sexual predator. And why is this tennis player holding a boxed game at this exact moment in time? What, is she about to spike it across the net for a highly illegal serve?
It's a tennis game. Tengen made it. I'm not sure what else you want me to say. I guess they do have individually pixelated butts.
Here's a 'pro tip': Don't stick your penis into a Game Gear. This man mistook his Sega-brand handheld for a sex toy, and his flattened, cartridge-shaped wang now serves as a permanent reminder that he was dead wrong. Maybe if this oaf was actually looking down, he would've realized that he was vigorously humping a piece of plastic.
You know, the Game Gear did full-color handheld visuals when the Game Boy didn't. You know what else the Game Boy didn't have? A voracious appetite for six AA batteries every two hours, housed in a system so bulky it could barely be called portable.
I pray to God that this woman safely escaped from the disheveled murder-house belonging to this homicidal, Tetris-obsessed maniac. Looking at this image makes me instinctually want to call the police, not rush to a store and snag a slimmer Game Boy. Advertisements like this one are why we can't have nice things, humanity.
Here's a fun experiment! Tell a joke about that time a riveting game of Tetris took priority over SM roleplaying with your significant other. Now, look around you. Is anyone laughing? No - because you're alone, and with that sense of humor, you always will be.
I think The Lonely Island wrote a song about this exact scenario. Are those mustached twins our heroes? The villains? I honestly have no idea. The woman in the green bikini looks like she's longingly gazing at the place she'd rather be - somewhere, anywhere but here.
Complete with levels that liberally rip off Space Harrier and Contra! Konami made Turtles in Time and Sunset Riders, so it's eternally forgiven for any arcade stinkers. But you won't score any points with the bikini babes by completing this coin-muncher, I'm afraid to say. Looks like you bought that neon-pink-and-yellow wetsuit and white fedora for nothing.
The photographer probably told this model to look like she was having fun. Yet the picture makes it look like she's running away screaming from this lecherous-looking man. And "Gotcha!" is typically what psychos say before a devilish grin flashes across their face, a loud violin chord rings out, and the screen cuts to black. Also, this arcade cabinet is purposely designed to make the controls look like giant pink nipples. Way to go, Atari. Also also, why is the woman transparent? Are they ghosts? This adds a whole new dimension to the terror!
No, this isn't a '70s training simulation for aspiring cryptographers - it's all the hot, steamy in-game action awaiting you in GOTCHA. You play as a ball chasing a plus sign through a shifting maze of random shapes. Because that presentation could be interpreted as literally anything, Atari's advertisers thought it would be best to offer sexual harassment as the prompt for your mind's eye. For this, they shall burn in Hell.
Why do you have to put me on the spot like that, Interlude ad? Yes, I often like to strip down to my unmentionables and lug an 80-pound home computer into my bed. Is that so wrong? I'm no different from any other sane human being: I just want to be loved. Can your product finally offer an escape from my lonely nights and tear-stained pillowcases?
As hilarious demonstrates, Interlude is just a questionnaire of your sexual fantasies, with the end goal being specified instructions for having sex. There's just one problem: by the time you've finished asking your computer about how to best please your lover, they will have already started a meaningful relationship with someone who talks to them instead of filling out 'sexy' surveys.
So there you have it - sex has been used in the attempt to sell games since the '70s, and it doesn't look like things are going to change anytime soon. Big ups to the tumblr, which has loads of retro gaming ads both classic and horrifying. Tell me in the comments which ad you think is the most egregious - and please, refrain from sharing which one got you the most aroused.
And if you're hungry for more light-hearted mockery, check out .
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