Why Were Video Game Ads So Weird?

[@notyours807]

The insanity has transferred to exclusively mobile game ads

[@thatguynobodywants3716]

But without the charm and let alone their ambition or budget.

[@muunprince1992]

And less ominous, most mobile game ads felt like brainrot content from tiktok

[@DoubleJRT]

𝓦𝓮 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓕𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓤𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓐𝓽𝓽𝓪𝓬𝓴!

[@KalibMonday]

Fr these video game ads for phone games are crazy

[@Mrlogan1223]

It's fascinating to me that the ps2 "third place" ad campaign is prophetic, even if it wasn't intended that way. Fortnite and Discord and other online games are basically the modern equivalent of malls and pubs, which is the original meaning of "third place" - a place that isn't work or home where you gather with strangers and friends, feel safe, build community, and don't have to spend too much money. The kids have taken to online videogames because modern America basically has no third places. If you want to go anywhere you have to spend a lot of money and they want you to leave as quickly as possible and don't care about the citizens building community.

[@pipoule4720]

10:56 I'm french and this ad really traumatized me, it was a freaking jump scare for me and I couldn't dream for many days after seeing this, even watching tv was kind of scary after because the idea that this ad might appear again was frightening.

[@insectsect]

Aside from the whole surreal vibe of it all, my favourite thing about the alien girl ad is that she's Scottish. The "scottish people when they see scotland mentioned" thing is so real

[@joec1801]

One of the reasons for the style of the “Mental Wealth” ad is its director Chris Cunningham, who is known for his bizarre and often nightmarish imagery. The best example I can give is his work on two music videos both of which were made for two of Aphex Twin’s songs “Windowlicker” and “Come to Daddy”, and you’ll see what I mean.

[@insectsect]

Add-on because i'm a nerd: he also created the video for All Is Full Of Love by Bjork, which a lot of weird music video fans will also likely be familiar with! :)

[@joec1801]

@insectsect That one as well. He’s done a lot of stuff.

[@stregadreamcast3928]

​@@insectsect additional add-on: Rubber Johnny video short

[@darthx2445]

@@stregadreamcast3928 he did some artwork for Judge Dredd and Alien too, under the name Chris Halls. Dude is mad skilled and highly creative fr.

[@okinawarastabeef]

He also came very close to doing a Neuromancer movie. I would've loved to see his vision.

[@laurentboucher5697]

Sony try to make normal ads challenge impossible

[@zonesproductions]

I remember most of these ads. They were really clued into the clubbing scene in england in a lot of ways. Wipeout was a memorable one.

[@arzeron_megido]

One of my favorite video game ads was the "It Stinks!" campaign for Earthbound. For some reason, it didn't end up selling well at the time.

[@thuslymars]

The tv in the back had my whole attention span

[@ryannovy3658]

I wanted to see it hit the corner.

[@_Kuma_]

8:15 RIP, hope you’re doing okay.

[@fusionspace175]

As someone who lived and bought games since the Atari, I can tell you that no ad ever sold a game, we never cared about campaigns, what sold games were the screens and clips of gameplay included along with whatever they thought was worth attention, and the consensus of opinion on what games were good held by other kids. Maybe it brought in the normies, I dunno.

[@Mojoonlyzz]

I've recently become a member because of your content and now I'm addicted! Looking forward to more future uploads!

[@TitoSilvey]

RIP GameInformer

[@peacrowvivi]

Im honestly surprised that there wasn't a section for any Sega Console, hell ESPECIALLY the American Saturn ad's, those were...odd to say the least.

[@jazzminrice]

One ad i still can’t get off of my mind is the Yoshi’s Island one, i never watched it airing as i wasn’t born yet but i came across it online growing up and it’s just so gross to watch in the worst way 😭

[@Womper1992]

Sorry to hear that you're recently bereaved Randy, I hope things get better for you.

[@ssbmoro]

i know the focus of the video was on late 90s-early00s, but the mid-90s had some really out there advertisements. Two that particularly comes to my mind are the TV commercials where a man eats food until he physically explodes (Yoshi's Island) and another where a bus driver drives a bus full of Pokemon into a car compactor and gleefully turns it on as the Pokemon are crushed.

[@bjorkgumundsdottir4255]

I haven’t even gotten a minute into the video but I’m so excited, the neighbours are asking me to calm down but I’m just so ecstatic to hear about the video game adverts regardless of what they tell me like “your phone isn’t even turned on”

[@Aughtel]

WWF Attitude Era Nuff said

[@Angeldog1123]

Im kinda glad I didnt see those ads growing up, I would have been traumatized 😭Even though I saw them in adulthood, the videogame ads that came to mind were the Animal Crossing Gamecube live action ads. Seeing them now, they're definitely aimed at young adults/adults and are so witty and funny

[@cabcalloway674]

I don't know if you'd call it "unhinged" or not, but one of the most iconic game ads of my childhood was the Halo 3 "Believe" trailer. The one where it's a model of a Halo battle scene that somehow manages to really portray the horror, desperation, and sickening nature of war. The emotion on the little plastic faces is palpable and almost brings a tear to your eye. And also kinda makes you want to play Halo. It's certainly very visceral, if not unhinged. I'm only just finding out that it was part of a larger marketing campaign where elderly veterans of the war recall their experiences and give interviews. Even for a fictional war, it hits all the beats of real war and really pulls at the heartstrings.

[@Ijustwastedyourtime0]

Zach and Cody playing pokemon Heartgold/Soulsilver on a beach is burned into my brain.

[@Sebalysam]

I'm surprised the infamous Australian "We are Nintendo" NES ad didn't get a mention

[@randymoon]

i was mainly focusing on the late 90s-2000s so i didn’t come across that one but i just looked it up and omg 😭 what were they doing

[@TakitoRi_]

that one gun girl z ad where an anime girl's bare ass was shown, AND it had jiggle physics too, thats stuck in my head permanently fr

[@MoshTheHomosapien]

I’m never going to forget that ps3 baby ad. Made the ps3 feel so premium back then.

[@Tuikkal]

Bring the weird videogame ads back

[@TheLateSpring]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss absurdist techno-grunge, but we should never bring it back. Love the new backdrop 👍

[@redscreenhorror]

Chris Cunningham is an amazing director/artist. His contribution to that era was incredible

[@jolynegoat]

they need to bring them back lowkey

[@birdbowah]

Didn't know the DS was so freaky 👅

[@Kureiji-Desu]

I miss weird ads. Instead of paying money (KZbin premium) not to see them, I used to go out of my way to look up, watch, and share those ads.

[@christopherlundgren1700]

As some others have mentioned, this really goes back a bit further to the early-mid 90s, and it all stems from the demographics of who was playing video games at that time. The late 70s had the arcade heads and people who came up with Atari at home, but the cohort of solidly Gen X gamers would soon be dwarfed by people my age who were 6-8 years old when the NES got big. At that time, basically everyone who had an interest in video games was a kid (and probably male), so everything was marketed to kids (mostly boys, specifically). But by the time the Genesis came out, those kids were a little bit older and some would start seeking out what they perceived as more “adult” experiences, i.e. stuff that 13 year olds boys think is awesome. Nintendo, not wanting to have their lunch get eaten by Sega, begrudgingly tried to move into that same space. As this same cohort continued to age, the marketing likewise tried to keep up with them, getting grosser and… hornier. A generation of mostly guys had basically been catered to for their whole lives in this one space, so as demographics started to change, as younger people had now also been growing up with games, and more and more different kinds of people were entering the hobby, the industry was presented with an identity crisis. And that’s how Gamergate happened, which was a precursor to “anti-SJW”, later “anti-woke” discourse, and could be seen as a microcosm of the tenor of Internet culture and the current state of the world. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[@MxRadiohead]

Spike Jonze's HomePod ad is the best I've ever seen and it's from 2018

[@LunaCorbden]

Additional factors: There are factors from the late 90s zeitgeist you would have missed being a kid. There was a deconstructionist vibe to most media created by and for GenX young adults that often translated into an edginess as we pushed the boundaries after the Hayes Code had been toppled in *our* childhood, and various social taboos were being tested. You can see this in every single other kind of media, but particularly that targeted to 20-somethings. So music videos and MTV bumpers/ads/stylings, as well as Cartoon Network shows which we as much targeted at us as they were at kids. (Dexter's Lab, Power Puff Grrls, Ren & Stimpy, et al were just as popular with us, not to mention Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Daria, Beavis & Butthead, Sifl & Ollie targeted directly at us, and these all had this edgy undercurrent testing the limits of our newfound freedom of speech.) These also served to "question everything," a popular slogan, and there was a pursuit for authenticity, keeping it real, media about "real" things that was often defined as anything the olds were trying to keep from us. It's hard to understand the time before all this and how repressive it was, and the 90s was about breaking free. This was definitely an influence on gaming ads at the time, since gamers tended to be the edgiest of all, generally nerds who wanted to be cool, and I think we succeeded at that. ;) These ads were very incredibly MTV in their vibe. Lastly, cheap CGI was new, so creatively, anything was possible, and those limits were associated with gaming graphics (at the time, the #1 selling point of any platform or game), so testing those limits was a way to show your console was as good as or better than the latest GForce card for PC.

[@MacheteProductions13]

I'm glad KZbin finally recommended me a good channel 👍🏻

[@IrisBobiris3]

I am amused by the "hear me out" cake. I love that Joshua Graham is on there.

[@jojo_entertainment]

I remember seeing these ads onTV. I remember seeing the xbox one on some website I don't remember

[@gluemoid]

randy video yes yes yay I’m jumping for joy

[@PatrickTCAPIreland]

Sony had some absolute bangers, two you didn’t mention and are my favourites are “Double Life” from the 90s which won advertising awards at the time and was done by a French ad agency. Also love the PlayStation UK one for the 20th anniversary of PlayStation from 2014

[@shawnfromportland]

this channel is fire

[@eskimo1000]

That dvd logo never hit the corner!

[@Fatman4our2wenty]

The CoD Advanced Warfare "copy that" EB games advert still makes me laugh my ass off.

[@an0malyops59]

i would love if you included the “you cannot beat us” ad from the nes days

[@ryannovy3658]

Have you done anything on those Quiznos ads? Those were nuts, and had no business being on TV. 2000s were wild, and the zoomer gen will never understand how deeply traumatizing even the stuff we liked was.

[@boral_1]

watching the ds ones were so weird considering i was obsessed with them when i was 4 😭

[@trashpanda263]

Lmaooo I feel like my attention span is edging with the screensaver in the background. Love in the video so far sincerely

[@mooo_cow]

thanks for the video

[@hauran0]

i was hoping you'd mention some of the weird rayman ads . a few good examples being the "no arms. no legs. huge features." rayman 3 ad, the "hello ladies, fancy a foursome?" rayman 2 ad, and the rayman 3 ad where rayman pees his name into the snow

[@ethan30878]

im a simple person. i see new randy moon upload, i click.

[@anjay1076]

a new randy moon video? you cooked and i‘ll eat it up

[@R.Aliaksei]

thank you randy moon thank

[@GarryGtag-ec5tc]

Im literally your number one fan!!😼

[@NimhLabs]

No mention of the "Now you're playing with Power", "Play it loud", "Genesis Does" and " WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL" ad campaigns? As honestly, the later stuff from Sony and Microsoft seem to just be a geared up set of stuff from those ad campaigns from Nintendo and Sega Also, the Atari Jaguar advertisements were not fully hinged I mean... these are just turning the temperature up a bit on stuff already present

[@RobinCould]

I'll never forget the crying, laughing baby PS3 ad.

[@iLoveEdHardy]

Babe wake up, randy moon dropped a masterpiece 😢

[@DoomyRei]

Cool sega music 😍

[@Ben-kv7wr]

That one PS2 print ad that had condoms in the shape of a triangle, x, square, and circle

[@Alsyoutubeaccount]

12:36 IT DID THE THING

[@sleepyhead222-n5g]

omg thanks for releasing this im broke 😭

[@40footwolf]

It was more "edgy" than unhinged but there was a print ad for a Spyro game that showed a mama duck and her duckling brood roasted in the middle of the street and I remember finding it needlessly upsetting as a tot

[@incorrectbeans]

Randy time yeeesss

[@rayquintanilla990]

10/10 video

[@devil_anse]

Like ads haven’t been insane from their conception

[@ranty_fugue]

I worked on a PC game named Obsidian that was released by Segasoft in 1997. It was a surreal adventure game about AI and nanotechnology gone wild, and had an ad totally unrelated to, but equally surreal: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jHeoZJmGjr58p9E. Definitely in the vein of some of the ads you mentioned.

[@xK3NNY52]

thank you nakeyrandy

[@mattguy1773]

Video game ads peaked when peter griffin entered fortnite

[@philliphouse104]

staring into my soul.

[@TunaMayoInumaki]

they weren't weird, randy! they were cool, way better than the bland corporate ads we get now

[@velvetvehemence]

Hello mr lynch what are you doing here

[@goldenfiberwheat238]

10:49 I feel like if you tried to bang Joshua graham, his thing would just fall off

[@i8lvm_1738]

do u by any chance read ur script of off a screen? i have a suggestion xd

[@mauaraya141]

7:16 xDDDDDDDDD 100% Tru

[@DoomyRei]

EU had the weirdest ads like ps2 condoms lol

[@goldenfiberwheat238]

16:13 the Kylie Jenner Pepsi ad

[@mika7072]

Thank you randy moon

[@Dude1923Dumby]

Yeah stuff back then was weird. When I watch back something like Rocko's Modern Life, I'm like how tf did they get this in front of kids 'cause there are tons of sexual jokes and such.

[@mattyboy2024]

I don't know why they were weird, you didn't really answer the question either ha, but that Xbox flying advert was a work of art imo, was meant to be disturbing, like you're gonna die so don't waste it by not gaming ha

[@otsu3011]

Love your wide eyes 👁👄 👁

[@noelalcaraz2542]

how dare you diss fire emblem? ive heard of at least 2 of there games.

[@yellowwwy6807]

i like your videos but it feels like you're staring into my soul

[@Sickcrazyneet]

Please use Firefox

[@KaiiWinter-nw4vi]

Gosh . For teenagers . The shame .

[@wastedwanderer420]

back in the 90's we as in males didnt believe there were girl gamers so thats why the girl whispers and sexual undertones.. nice reporting tho

[@jakethasnake3524]

Raaaaaannnndddy

[@Raveheart]

Funfact about the alien girl: Those ads were also playing here in Germany. She did not just talk german here, even the lip sync matched witch indicates that the actress actually spoke german. It wasn't just dubbed over. I heard the same thing from other countries like France.

[@DoomyRei]

Hi moon🤔

[@jiggy247bp8]

Great video! 3 things: 1. Your screensaver is wayyyy to distracting to my millennial monkey brain. 2. My favorite ad is still "F*CKING SPONGECAKE?" 3. MOM MY NAME IS IN A VIDEO!

[@randymoon]

i did come across the "F*CKING SPONGECAKE?!" one in my research lol but it didn't make the final cut

[@Th3pr0ph8t]

yibbie!

[@SammyMV12]

Real

[@zachmiller7814]

EXPLAIN TO US WHY YOU LOOK EXACTLY LIKE FUNKYFROGBAIT

[@randymoon]

i’m not saying me and funkyfrogbait are the same person, but no one’s ever seen us together in the same room…

[@zachmiller7814]

@@randymoon ur way cooler tho

[@peanut4820]

they look nothing alike? like they both have curly hair, big glasses and nose rings but other than that they look nothing alike

[@fayeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4K4f2qHdtOAppI this is still my favorite video game ad, and yes I'm biased bc I love Mother 1

[@livingconstellation6003]

A man

[@w1l1]

heck yea brother

[@904funny]

I’M PLAYIN NUT!

[@AZodiacCancer]

Thats not a girl who was digitally altered thats just the alien chick from Aerials, because that video is 100% real and not altered.

[@hydrostalgia]

4:13 BRASIL MENCIONADO NO NUMERO DO HOMESTUCK RRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥/pos