This is a great topic, stolen from the title of this video I probably will never watch.
Instead of posting tons of video thumbnails, I’ll link to the commercials of the games that worked on me via text:
Bomberman Hero, the tone of this commercial hooked me, I was ten or something. Nailed my demographic.
Animal Crossing, this one’s a classic for fans. I got a promo DVD from electronics boutique with these ads on it, and I would rewatch them for fun, dude. That’s how chill these commercials were. Also, as an adopted kid raised by emotionally abusive and heavily controlling and restrictive parents, the way they sold this game worked immensely. Yeah, I wanna do whatever I want for a change! Definitely why I liked this game so much, as well as Pokémon. I want this kind of freedom!
Later on into the 00’s I was more influenced by G4’s reviews, that’s how I found Katamari Damacy and SotC at least.
Lunar: Silver Star Story. The magazine advertisement first made me think it was a cool anime. I must have asked for it for Christmas, because I got it that year. It was the perfect time and way for that ad to hit; I’d just discovered Record of Lodoss War and so was really interested in fantasy-themed anime, I’d just gotten into RPGs on the PS1 - it was a good time.
i absolutely purchased golden sun because i watched an objectively boring episode of video and arcade top 10 in which some ten year olds played the opening of the game for fifteen minutes. the show generally featured games that ten year olds could play against each other competitively, so golden sun was a bewildering choice. i hope the advertising spend went straight to the ten year olds.
I don’t know if it counts as an advertisement as such, but the coverage of the original Harvest Moon in the Nintendo Power of the time enthralled me
I didn’t have a Super Nintendo then, so all I could do was look at the game longingly—that is, until the announcement of a GameBoy version, for which I was one of two people who placed a pre-order at my local Electronics Boutique
The sales clerk definitely thought I was a weirdo for that one. My mom probably did, too, but she seems to have gotten used to it
I can’t find the video of it but Todd Howard was talking at some awards show about Skyrim and it showed gameplay footage of a giant launching the player into orbit and that was when I decided to pick it up at midnight release.
I count as advertisement Will Wright’s GDC 2005 speech on Spore, which led me to buy the game day 1 when it came out. I downloaded this video manually.
This may seem a little silly looking back, but I was going to need to buy either an Xbox 360 or a PS3 because my older brother was taking the 360 with him to his own place. This ad just hit at the right moment.
Also was super sold on the game after seeing this on the game trailer block they ran on what I think was still just TechTV.
This image from the Megaman Legends booklet stuck with me for yrs. I still have only played BoF2 via NSO. It’s a good logo and DragonQuarter should have kept it.
This ad really caught me because it was promising so much out of the GameBoy DMG. There was something cool and cozy about this ad pretty much begging me to meet the game half way and suspend disbelief that full blown FOTN coolness is happening on my little Dot Matrix device.
The Nintendo Power spreads for Golgo 13 and especially Bayou Billy sold me as well. Kid Sosadillatron was absolutely convinced Bayou Billy was the next super hot NES game.
PS Adult Sosadillatron … actually appreciates what Bayou Billy was doing, and kinda wishes he had the resources to pursue a deep dive/verbal history into the what/why/who of its development. It seemed like such an ambitious out-of-left-field idea.
This should really go in a thread with an exact opposite premise
I had this commercial saved on my computer and watched it so many damn times, but never bought the game
I tried a demo of it, couldn’t wrap my head around how to win at all, and never had any desire to play it again
i can’t think of a tv ad for a video game that ever really compelled me but i was an enjoyer of magazines and could feel the floppy glossy marketing working on me
