Retro Arcade Game Ads | Hacker News Reader

Retro Arcade Game Ads

buzzbloq.com

126 pointshackerbeat37 comments

There is a whole database of this stuff: https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/

I used to work on what was basically a giant on the wall digital picture frame and this was a major source of test images.

Edit: it's unfortunate the recent update to the UI of arcade flyer db made it incredibly annoying to use.

Is there any way to download the database locally?

If you talk to the MAME folks there is a way to download packs of flyer images. Some people like having them on their multicade machines.

One example: https://www.progettosnaps.net/flyers/

you want the extras pack

Most these ads are for operators, not gamers, that's why they all talk about earnings. (I still don't know where you would have seen them though..) I think I did see an ad for an arcade game targeted to gamers encouraging them to annoy their arcade to get one but I forgot what it was..

also some of these look like mega drive box art?

Oh this is one of those like clickbait spam sites

Typically these images were printed on flyers and handed out at trade shows. They would also be used as full-page ads in the bigger industry publications like Replay and PlayMeter.

Many distributors of certain manufacturers would also get packs of flyers and they would be stamped with the distributor's information and then mailed to regular clients.

I have an arcade now with a marquee of ~8.5"x11". I'll pick up trade flyers for the games I have and switch it out based on what game I currently have installed in the cab.

Maybe other operators did the same, or they just postered a wall with them to let arcade goers know about the new games.

> Most these ads are for operators, not gamers, that's why they all talk about earnings. (I still don't know where you would have seen them though..)

I used to hang out at my local arcade after elementary school. Your basic 1980s latchkey kid, who grew up in shopping malls. If you've seen "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", you have the general idea.

I've seen a ton of these ads, because I used to annoy the people working at my arcade, so they'd let me read their monthly copy of "Replay" magazine. A trade journal aimed specifically at arcade operators.

> (I still don't know where you would have seen them though..)

They were mailed to operators and handed out at trade shows.

> also some of these look like mega drive box art?

Yeah, there's some Famicom ads in there too. Still cool to see, regardless.

Almost directly across from the bus station under Elden Square in Newcastle upon Tyne was an arcade. Horseshoe shaped. Stamp shops, Numismatists, crafty stuff. And one shop that was 3 sections.

You walked in and it was rows of boxes full of LPs. Roger Dean style art was everywhere. The right section was posters and merch IIRC. But the left section was where I'd be after bunking off school every chance I could. More than a dozen arcade games crammed into a very small room.

The aroma of patchouli oil...

Defender. Night Driver. Gorf. Stargate. I remember those the most as that was where my 10p's went.

Years later, the Amstrad CPC6128 was mine. Z80 coding with MAXAM and Protext ROMS. Heaps of games.

But I do not recall a single advert. None. Amstrad Action probably had them, but it was the cover tapes and what was on them, along with reviews, that got me spending.

Handyside arcade where I used to buy Viz and sorry, that was me smelling of patchouli

That's the place! And I love patchouli :)

I was a kid then and I don't remember ads were so "legs-oriented".

Those were other times I guess.

Many of these particular ads are targeted at operators. See the mention of profit in the text.

Consumer ads may have been different. I don’t recall. I would have been very young when these were published.

I don’t recall many consumer ads of this variety. It was probably unnecessary to be honest. What I do remember is back in the late ‘70s early ‘80s all you had to do was just open an arcade and us kids, like lemmings, would show up with our quarters.

This post selectively picked out the flyers with girls in them. The majority of flyers from this era didn't involve models.

I mean, that’s just not true. When the ads targeted kids, they didn’t involve as much sex appeal:

Laser Blast TV Commercial https://archive.org/embed/laser_blast_commercial

But when they targeted adults, sex appeal was huge.

We're talking about trade marketing ads for coin-operated games in the 1970s-1990s. That's what the blog post is showing.

Don't believe me, go to https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/ that was posted above and walk through each and every one. I used to collect these things, but I'll let you find the answer yourself.

Off topic, but Laser Blast was a great 2600 game. The ground stayed "hot" after you shot it, so a near miss could be a kill if the enemy rolled into the hot zone. The controls were modal - you could move your ship around with the stick, or hold the fire button down and aim your laser, which fired when you let go of the button. Creative work by the Activision devs.

Laser Blast was also a great arcade in San Bernardino CA :)

Be sure to read this LaserBlast web page if you’re a fan of the game:

http://laserblast.neocities.org/

It was probably the same times. You wouldn't necessarily remember the legginess of a girl in an ad from ~40 years ago, especially if you were more into the laser gun (or whatever) that the girl was holding at the time.

I was expecting cringey ads, and was not disappointed.

But then, the Gran Trak 10 ad...

Some say he has 50,000 photographs of his own camera, and that 60 years ago this week, he too became a Queen.

All we know is he's called the Stig!!

I wasn't shocked to learn that Stig prefers motorcycle boots to fire retardant racing shoes.

in the 80s I had a color brochure/catalog for console games with insanely beautiful ..airbrushed? color cover illustrations. The contents were pages with a grid of coverart+blurb. I do not recall WHICH console it was for. It might have been some atari, but I suspect not. I have no doubt the actual games would have looked like atari2600,but that didnt matter, for me drooling and fantasizing for hours on end, on those illustrations. I don't know if this excellent cover art style was intrinsic to the platform (think apple), or just for this particular brochure. The art style was very color vibrant,a la neon and wizard-of-oz technicolor.

it might not have been clear - I very much want to find/identify it again

Nintendo specifically designed its box art style for the early NES to be mostly large pixelated images, because part of the 80s video game crash was that the box art for the Atari 2600 and contemporaries tended to be lovely illustrations that had only a tenuous connection to the game art, and that disconnect lead to disappointment. The NES box art wasn't really accurate either, but it was a lot closer, and gave you a better feel for what the game would look like.

Other things that were designed in as a response to the video game crash include the 10NES/CIC lockout chip and accompanying restrictions on 3rd party publishers, and the insert and push down cartridge loading mechanism which is mechanically terrible but was more associated with video cassettes (which had good associations) than video games cartridges (which had bad associations).

....why do all these ads look like porn ads?

Targeting an adult male audience and sex sells.

Why does Victoria's Secret revert course [0] from transgender and plus sized models back to models that society generally regards as sexy? Same reason (and Victoria's Secret mainly targets the female adult consumer).

---

[0]: https://nypost.com/2023/10/18/victorias-secret-ditches-woken...

Because 80s was more patriarchy era

you just discovered the 80s?

Have you ever seen the ads for Barbarian?

https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/21626/Barbarian-II-T...

In later years they started to think they were a bit too much and painted over the girl in a rudimentary manner.

https://obscurevideogames.tumblr.com/post/186537096553/uk-19...

For a second I thought this was going to be how the RetroArch project was introducing ads to the platform.

S.P.Y. Special Project Y ad is my absolute favorite. Maximum 80s vibes : - D

> Nutting Associates was an arcade game manufacturer based in Mountain View, California

omg

Reply on news.ycombinator.com