I dont see what value there is in discussing this without the context of the time period.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Early 2000s gaming magazine coverage is a dumpsterfire (Read Mod note in OP)
- Thread starter WrenchNinja
- Start date
I dont see what value there is in discussing this without the context of the time period.
The advertising from games companies in those old magazines was just as bad with the edgy humour and nudity and the "advice" given in the letters section was awful and even harmful at times. I have a box of old games magazines that probably has some of these "gems" but I might leave them there for my sanity.
Not really
Specially if you consider that the toxic adults of today were the kids/teenagers from back then.
Yup. My wife was a founder of one of (if not the) first all girl Xbox Clans. A UK magazine done an article with some pictures. Some of the text accompanying those pictures wouldn't be acceptable by today's standards. I might still have the mag somewhere...
It's hard to believe what they got away with back in the day.
I remember Sega and Nintendo magazines that would publish fan art, whichwwas usually Mario and Sonic brutally killing each other, or hilariously sexualised Mortal Kombat characters (sometimes nude).
They were always trying to be super edgy too, even front covers of the magazines featuring original super violent art.
This also reminds me of a review of the original Dead or Alive in the Saturn, where the reviewer would constantly talk about breasts and finished the review saying he needed to go to the bathroom.
We're in better times now.
I remember Sega and Nintendo magazines that would publish fan art, whichwwas usually Mario and Sonic brutally killing each other, or hilariously sexualised Mortal Kombat characters (sometimes nude).
They were always trying to be super edgy too, even front covers of the magazines featuring original super violent art.
This also reminds me of a review of the original Dead or Alive in the Saturn, where the reviewer would constantly talk about breasts and finished the review saying he needed to go to the bathroom.
We're in better times now.
Ughhh that was so dumb. Didn't ign have a babe of the week or something? I mean, I liked it as a teenager, but in hindsight, it was tasteless.
almost 13 Years ago is not a long time for people to change? oh come on.
Your first post:
Thats not context. Thats deflection from the issue at hand.
I've been seeing this a lot but it IS true, 15 years ago is a long time, even 10 years ago, with the age of the Internet culture moves much faster, our current views and focus didn't seep in till 2012 onwards and we're boosted into acceptance by 2014 with the whole fight back against Gamer gate, etc, just look at video games direction between those points.
Trying to handwave it off that anything post 2000 means they should've known better and shouldn't be forgiven is ridiculous unless you're actually old enough to remember living through that era. It was a long time ago, the same time frame from the 2000's would be the 1980's and I think we all accept there's a huge difference between those.
Trying to handwave it off that anything post 2000 means they should've known better and shouldn't be forgiven is ridiculous unless you're actually old enough to remember living through that era. It was a long time ago, the same time frame from the 2000's would be the 1980's and I think we all accept there's a huge difference between those.
So what is the issue that you have with 15 year old gaming magazines?
I think it's more a case of "that was just the audience" rather than "that was just the time" to be honest.
I think they were basically marketing these magazines to a very narrow, very specific audience and the content reflects that.
Even today in 2018 a certain kind of audience buys porno mags and porno mags are aimed directly at that audience.
For video game magazines the audience has changed and so the content has changed with them.
As a young lad for sure I would have appreciated a video game magazine that had hot women in it and "edgy" content. Nowadays I'd be well embarrassed picking something like that off the shelf and making a purchase and reading it around the house or whatever.
I think a lot of times we don't give much credit to how the community has changed and evolved in good ways.
It's funny to look back at how it was then with magazines basically chasing that teen boy dollar. Surely there were similar types of magazines marketed to teen girls?
I think they were basically marketing these magazines to a very narrow, very specific audience and the content reflects that.
Even today in 2018 a certain kind of audience buys porno mags and porno mags are aimed directly at that audience.
For video game magazines the audience has changed and so the content has changed with them.
As a young lad for sure I would have appreciated a video game magazine that had hot women in it and "edgy" content. Nowadays I'd be well embarrassed picking something like that off the shelf and making a purchase and reading it around the house or whatever.
I think a lot of times we don't give much credit to how the community has changed and evolved in good ways.
It's funny to look back at how it was then with magazines basically chasing that teen boy dollar. Surely there were similar types of magazines marketed to teen girls?
It's no mystery why gamer culture evolved into the toxic shit show it is today, and why male gamers throw their toys out of the pram every time a woman dares to have opinions. They were raised on the idea that gaming is 'their' thing and women are welcome if men still get to dictate how they enjoy stuff.
Don't know about other countries but we had Capricho in brazil which was a blackhole for teenage girls money
But is a good study on why the industry is the way it is, no one is dismissing it as they should have been woke. People are refusing to even acknowledge the value of even studying it. Things don't happen in a vacuum there using clear history giving context on why things are what they are.
Yeah that particular part of gaming mags didn't even sit well with horny 16 year old me back then. There was a regular dvd montage in one german gaming magazine about hot booth babes... Even back then it was pure cringe
Do you really believe this?
I would say the fact that things are different now than they were then is proof that the community is developing for the better.
The connection to GamerGate just gets an eyeroll from me.
The sad part was back then there was this whole push from the same corner of the industry to prove that video games weren't just for children.
there was one issue that had women dressed up as DoA characters "fighting" each other for like 30 minutes. i assume it was at E3. very weird.
The fact that they show the same misogyny we see alive and well in the gaming community today. Gaming as a medium has a problem: its largely toxic audience.
Its important to see how we got here, because that can show us what we need to do to change it.
Thankfully parts of gaming journalism already changed, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. But to really reach the audience we will also need more game creators to take a stance and call out certain "opinions" gamers hold as unjustifiable.
It was sexist and offensive back then too. There is a reason so many female gamers felt bullied and ostracized.
Here is a hint: It was fucking offensive in 2003 just like it is in 2018.
I really wanna say it's gotten better now but in actuality it's probably about the same if not worse thanks to internet reactionaries.
I read Gamers Republic, Gamefan, and Play. Besides occasional adverts and the anime section, this was not really a thing. Wizard had this because comics was in it's "bad girl" era. Others may have dabbled in the Maxim/FHM/Import Tuner style content, but this seems to cherry picking.
Wouldn't articles like this have been part of that push?
Thinking back on that stuff, booth babes etc it feels like they were trying to make video games appear "sexy". I would think that in the late 80s and early 90s at least games were considered as basically just electronic toys.
Hell, it might even be that this kind of thing actually led to games being seen as potentially "grown up" and that in turn led to more mature and more considerate gaming experiences we have now.
Late '90s and pretty much all of the '00s was a time when games magazines tried to ape the lads mags in a bid to be cool and mature.
It was fucking awful, exclusionary and full of barely concealed misogyny. The only English language games magazine worth buying for a good decade was EDGE.
It was fucking awful, exclusionary and full of barely concealed misogyny. The only English language games magazine worth buying for a good decade was EDGE.
The difference now is that a few women call this shit out then promptly get chased out of the industry by all the men who were raised on this toxic crap
A remnant of the early boy pandering that lead us to many of the problems we face now. Hell, the industry still panders to boys.
I wonder how Seanbaby and others feel about these now? I'm sure some of them cringe re-reading it.
I wonder how Seanbaby and others feel about these now? I'm sure some of them cringe re-reading it.
That was my favorite part. Reminded me of the Simpsons when that guy said "it's the worst storm I've ever seen, and I've seen THREE storms!"
It's always been an issue which makes the "different time" arguments a crapshoot.
I remember some PS2 magazine ads that were just foul. They weren't American ads cause they went full nudity and shit. One had a topless girls breast implants shooting out of her chest on springs, and another was a woman having sex with the PlayStation symbols, but they were made out of flesh and had pubic hair.
It's just... what, why? How was this a fucking thing?
It's just... what, why? How was this a fucking thing?
2006 was hardly a long time ago. It's pretty interesting to compare this stuff to game culture content from the 90s and watch the progression.
The 90s may have been chock full of silly appeals to teenagers with x-treme sports language, and the writing was often quite amateurish. However the pandering to the "bro" crowd hadn't really gotten proper started. The 2000s really were the wannabe-Maxim era.
Perhaps it is telling of how gaming culture has developed that pre-2000s content was by and large celebrating games themselves. As time moved forward pandering to the "lifestyle" of gaming became a bigger part of everything. Now it wasn't enough to fan over games, but have an identity as a gamer. Thus articles about how The Gamer should relate to other species of people like, uh... women... .
The 20-year-old lads of 2006 are the 30-somethings running game studios today. Some people grew up, but it's also pretty clear that a lot are quite angry that they can't enjoy the culture they had marketed at them just a decade ago. Thanks to pushback from, basically, everyone who isn't awful. Imagine being someone who read these old articles and felt that is the way the world was supposed to be. Then got into the industry with the aim of having their own studio to surround themselves with this culture.
The 90s may have been chock full of silly appeals to teenagers with x-treme sports language, and the writing was often quite amateurish. However the pandering to the "bro" crowd hadn't really gotten proper started. The 2000s really were the wannabe-Maxim era.
Perhaps it is telling of how gaming culture has developed that pre-2000s content was by and large celebrating games themselves. As time moved forward pandering to the "lifestyle" of gaming became a bigger part of everything. Now it wasn't enough to fan over games, but have an identity as a gamer. Thus articles about how The Gamer should relate to other species of people like, uh... women... .
The 20-year-old lads of 2006 are the 30-somethings running game studios today. Some people grew up, but it's also pretty clear that a lot are quite angry that they can't enjoy the culture they had marketed at them just a decade ago. Thanks to pushback from, basically, everyone who isn't awful. Imagine being someone who read these old articles and felt that is the way the world was supposed to be. Then got into the industry with the aim of having their own studio to surround themselves with this culture.
Setting aside the "product of its time" narrative, which while true, should not detract from it being both obnoxiously exclusive to straight white men and pernicious to all except aforementioned. After all, things like slavery, racial segregation, lack of voting rights for women etc were also products of their time and that does not change the fact that they were driven by and was designed to maintain inequity.
What I think is utterly tragic and speaks volumes about the toxic gaming culture, aside from the absolutely novice way of writing with numerous "lots of", is how this clearly illustrates a symbiotic relationship between the community and corporation that both feeds off of, peddles and perpetuates this status quo.
These magazines covers and content should never be forgotten because it provides much needed perspective. There has been significant shifts in attitudes in gaming in a very short period of time and I am not entirely sure whether it was one incident (GG) or confluence of multiple progressive movements that has brought and is still dragging this medium into a more inclusive and equitable place. Undoubtedly, it has a long way to go.
What I think is utterly tragic and speaks volumes about the toxic gaming culture, aside from the absolutely novice way of writing with numerous "lots of", is how this clearly illustrates a symbiotic relationship between the community and corporation that both feeds off of, peddles and perpetuates this status quo.
These magazines covers and content should never be forgotten because it provides much needed perspective. There has been significant shifts in attitudes in gaming in a very short period of time and I am not entirely sure whether it was one incident (GG) or confluence of multiple progressive movements that has brought and is still dragging this medium into a more inclusive and equitable place. Undoubtedly, it has a long way to go.
Wtf.
This is literally what the gamer culture and GG believes in. This is what developed those assholes.
What got me was how Chauvinistic these features were.
Even by standards back then it was embarrassing