this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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Sex sells, especially to teenage boys. The main demographic for video game ads is teenage boys. Hence the prevalence of ads like these.
Which was a completely arbitrary unforced error from a marketing perspective, setting back acceptance of video gaming as a ubiquitous thing everyone does by decades, pigeonholing them into a thing that only maladjusted angry young men do. You have the asinine marketing choices of the 90s to partially thank for the toxic exclusionary culture that still exists in many games today. They could have had every kid, girl or boy, cool or nerd, playing video games in 1995 but patriarchy said no.
Ironically, it was counter-counter-counter culture, reacting to the vestiges of Reaganite pearl-clutching that still wafted through life and politics of the time. Same influence that inspired "badly behaved" cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park. Video game advertising just leaned into that last counter too hard and landed in misogyny.
Nah, this ad clearly says that girls can play Nintendo DS too! See look at the picture, it says good girls AND bad girls and both of them are holding a Nintendo DS!
That hasn’t been true in a while. In fact I would go as far as say as the main demographic for video game ads today is middle-aged moms who played Candy Crush.
Pretty much since the Wii casual gamers have been the bigger market.
Which is probably why gaming ads don't look like gaming ads used to anymore.
Indeed. Though the person I am replying to used present tense not past tense. Hence my comment.
Exactly.
I mean the iPhone came out a year later…
The App Store didn’t come out until the summer of 2008. Before that the iPhone could play a primitive version of Bejeweled and that was about it. Also, if I recall correctly, they were well into the iPhone 4 before they even started to come close to Wii sales numbers. The 4 being the first that worked on carriers that weren’t AT&T or that used the same bands in other countries.
That’s fair. Forgot about the delay on the App Store. Still I’d say the pipeline of Wii gamer to iPhone gamer is pretty small. Maybe more on the developer side than customer.
Phones put gaming consoles in everyone’s hand and made non gamers into casual gamers.
Candy Crush, casual games, and their ads don't exist in gaming magazines sold wrapped in plastic bags. The main demographic for game sales is casual players. The main demographic for the ads is teenage boys (or basement dwelling manchildren). They're different markets.
Candy Crush ads are on the home screens of smart phones. Pay the carrier to include it in their bloatware, job done.
Clearly you haven’t watched any late night TV recently.
I don't think I've turned a TV onto anything live in about 3 years.
Fair enough. The channels I occasionally see have quite a few advertisements for free to play apps.