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What lifestyle gaming pics looked like in the 70s

Time warp to the retro ages and peruse some old-school imagery

Words: Matt Cundy, GamesRadar UK

Transferrable nipple tweaking skills. Oh, and nice oil lamp.

Blackjack with the kids. Way to nurture those gambling disorders at an early age. Go dad.

The classic 'straight to camera and don't show the game because it might put people off' style that is still favoured in Wii advertising today. Shame nobody noticed that he's wearing women's jewellery.

Admittedly not hugely 'lifestyle', but we've included it anyway as an interesting early attempt at 'covering all the bases' advertising. The 'brother on a bad trip' and 'hot asian chick' headshots are commendable inclusions, although the baby and the dog are just stupid. Maybe the Hare Krishna bloke and Muslim woman in a veil didn't show up for the shoot.

The console is quite obviously not plugged in. What they've done is just drawn some graphics on the wall and taken out the TV screen so it's like a picture frame. Simple yet effective.

That little kid looks pretty cute, huh?

How about now?

There's a couple of reasons that this lifetsyle photo would have benefitted from being shot in the classic and previously mentioned 'straight to camera and don't show the game because it might put people off' style. One: The game is literally two blocks and a vertical white line. And, two: The mum looks hot.


 
24 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
oryandymackie  - 8 months 10 days ago 
Yeah, I remember wondering why the "Wii" family looked so happy. I just thought they must be zillions of miles above Earth in a golden dreamland castle with the only remaining Wii left on the planet while the rest of us mortals had a horrible motion sensing remote that required you to twist various major organs
Awesomeitude1523  - 8 months 10 days ago 
and once again, thanks to oryandymackie, my quest to get a first while on the other side of the globe from gamesradar fails, this time by a measly 80 seconds.

Anyway, great article guys, and I lol'ed at the quadrapong picture
schmeidenkamp  - 8 months 10 days ago 
great article.
The pic of the 2 people playing while having a drink and a smoke is pure awesome. foreplay and gaming indeed. i would love it if my girl would share a drink and a cig while playing some games, holy crap.
Unoriginal  - 8 months 10 days ago 
The guy on the second Fairchild channel F picture is creepy as hell.
zymn  - 8 months 10 days ago 
the last NES pic looks like the kittle boy is grabbin his mom tits.

i suppose they didn't wean their kids very early in the 70s.
Montag  - 8 months 10 days ago 
I remember looking like that!!

Anyway I remember having my first woody (Hehe) atari. Weirdly my whole family did sit round it grinning like loons. Either the magic of games or we were inbred freaks with too small a genetic pool!

reCaptcha: Coats $3 Million
revrock  - 8 months 10 days ago 
Great Article! You guys constantly deliver the goods.
iKOemos  - 8 months 10 days ago 
That channel F guy is staring straight in to my soul.
Pocotron  - 8 months 10 days ago 
haha reCaptcha was school ladies lol

just wanted to throw that out theres
Hobojedi  - 8 months 10 days ago 
Wow! There's a lot of funny captions in this article.
gatornation1254  - 8 months 10 days ago 
the channel f scared me
VnT  - 8 months 10 days ago 
Wisdom I gleaned from this article: No matter what decade, asian girls are hot.
bloodfangz3  - 8 months 10 days ago 
lmao channel f that guy looks like he's been playing football..
Spybreak8  - 8 months 10 days ago 
Gotta love marketing and games. Nice find guys. I wonder what this and using Cooliris would look like, lol 70s game ads board.
somerandomchap  - 8 months 10 days ago 
gaming ads should refelct real life, like when you are playing live with a mic and you have your loved one or someone close to you yelling at you to do stuff, and you responding with obsenities, while your good old team mates hear everyword
italianboye23  - 8 months 10 days ago 
hey a really good web site for games and stuff is pixelsandgrids.com it is awsome!
deathrebellion  - 8 months 9 days ago 
@ zymn yup he is
jimsondanet  - 8 months 9 days ago 
Videomaster: when a couple of body snatchers adopted some children of the corn.
gaming ads should reflect the joyfull glee of experimenting with ragdoll physics while on a sunday drive through central park.
"hey mum watch this!"
gamerdude77  - 8 months 9 days ago 
WTF he IS grabbing his moms tits in the last NES one!
reyalejandro13  - 8 months 9 days ago 
If they had one for 360, it would be (from the don't actually show the game, just people playing it persepctive) 2-4 people, most likely guys, yelling obscenities at the screen while horrified parents are in the background.

If it were PS3, it would be the same pick, but the people would look bored, and they would be saying "when does FF13 come out?" Or they would be saying "why are we playing PS3 when all our friends have 360's?"
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