The Worst of the Super Bowl's Gaming Commercials Comments (0)
The Super Bowl is about to begin, which once upon a time would not have shown as so much of a blip on gamers' radars. But as webcomic Penny Arcade once observed, the jocks who used to stuff geeks into lockers now have their own testosterone-ridden electronic entertainment, from which they'll be diverting to attend this evening's 11 minutes of actual gameplay.
I don't know if this evening's lineup has any gaming-related content to attract true geeks, but there is historical precedent. Computerworld is running a gallery of favorite IT commercials from Super Bowls past. Ten of them are particularly good, but the gallery also includes two terrible ones. One from 1982 is courtesy Atari:
As far back as thirty years ago, games were seen as an immature pastime, so I can understand Atari's desire to broaden their customer base to adults — but was lowering the maturity of adults really a better choice than raising the appeal of the games?
Of course, Atari wasn't the only company with infamously cringe-worthy commercials. Though it didn't air during the Super Bowl, the advertisement for the debut of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda franchise doubtless has historians scratching their heads:
What are some of your most memorable video game commercials, whether or not they be from Super Bowls past or present?
Tags: advertisements, advertising, Atari, commercials, Computerworld, football, NFL, Super Bowl, Zelda