this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
        
      
      652 points (97.8% liked)
      RetroGaming
    25458 readers
  
      
      20 users here now
      Vintage gaming community.
Rules:
- Be kind.
- No spam, AI slop, or soliciting for money.
- No racism or other bigotry allowed.
- Obviously nothing illegal.
If you see these please report them.
        founded 2 years ago
      
      MODERATORS
      
    you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
    view the rest of the comments
 
          
          
Hahaha, yeah, that one was great.
Also the one where they paid parents to name their baby 'Turok.'
I sometimes wonder what those little Turoks are up to today (at least a half dozen parents took them up on it IIRC).
The shock advertising campaigns around games really were something. They worked - got a ton of free media coverage. But this was also at the time that video games were the Boogeyman like rock n' roll had been to a generation before. The media loved nothing more than a "look how terrible video games are" story and PR firms were playing into that environment.
So campaigns like this were basically the equivalent of Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat.
As games became more normalized, the campaigns shifted accordingly and - like Ozzy - tamed quite a bit out.