this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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[–] kromem@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Hahaha, yeah, that one was great.

Also the one where they paid parents to name their baby 'Turok.'

I sometimes wonder what those little Turoks are up to today (at least a half dozen parents took them up on it IIRC).

The shock advertising campaigns around games really were something. They worked - got a ton of free media coverage. But this was also at the time that video games were the Boogeyman like rock n' roll had been to a generation before. The media loved nothing more than a "look how terrible video games are" story and PR firms were playing into that environment.

So campaigns like this were basically the equivalent of Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat.

As games became more normalized, the campaigns shifted accordingly and - like Ozzy - tamed quite a bit out.