Historically, video game companies have marketed games, especially ads, to, let’s just say, the more simple-minded and, for the lack of a better word, gullible, young male audiences. It’s partly the reason why several trade shows use scantly clad female brand representatives to try and attract people to their booths. Thankfully, this has changed over the past decade, thanks in part to the GamerGate scandal that brought to the public eye some of gaming’s glaring issues when it comes to its portrayal of women. But, just in case you needed a reminder, we’ve got something that will take you all the way back to the late 90s.
As uncovered by MaxKatarn on Reddit, Eidos Interactive used a particularly revealing old XXX ad for Tomb Raider 3 to market the 1998 title.
Upon further inspection, it appears that the ad isn’t exclusive to the user’s old French magazine. Other users confirmed that a similar ad appeared in the PlayStation magazines in the United Kingdom and even used as the January 1999 cover of Expert Gamer, which was a popular video game magazine in the United States that ran from August 1998 to October 2001.
[NSFW] Tomb Raider III ad in an old French magazine: “It’s even better the third time”
byu/MaxKatarn ingaming
With gaming and the internet both still at their relative infancy, video game companies and publishers couldn’t exactly advertise games from everywhere they wanted, unlike today when Diablo 4 and Final Fantasy 16 can tap billboards over at the New York Times Square or display a real-life replica of the protagonist’s sword at the Tower of London. Instead, a lot of them had to get creative. Without 15-second ads on YouTube, most relied on a combination of barely-clothed female models and the inexplicably exposed breasts to try and sell their products.
Unlike today, when the controversy surrounding female protagonists is how they look like actual people, back then, the go-to option was to showcase a firm pair of knockers with jiggly fannies. They’d be so prominently featured in magazines that you’d think they were the products – not whatever was trying to be peddled.
The aforementioned official XXX ad for Tomb Raider 3 is a relatively tame example of what’s normal back then.
We can only assume that ads like these are the reason why so many gamers who grew up throughout the 90s spent an inordinate amount of time exchanging information on the playground about how there’s a so-called code that lets you see Lara Croft in the Nude in Tomb Raider. This non-existent nude code is right up there with talks of a young kid who spread word that their uncle from Nintendo told them that Mew was hiding underneath the out-of-place truck at Vermillion City in Pokemon Red and Blue.
Of course, neither of these were true, but without the internet and Google to help you debunk all these myths, you have no choice but to take everyone else’s word for it.
Needless to say, if anyone ever bothered trying to pull off these types of ads today, they’d best expect their publishers and/or investors to pull the financial rug right beneath them. As a matter of fact, some developers are retroactively updating their games to remove potentially exploitative and offensive content, which is what led to the backlash against Skullgirls on Steam.
This isn’t to say that gaming, which still isn’t a bastion for female empowerment, doesn’t have a long way to go – we do. But, at least, we can agree that, at one point, things were a lot worse.
Speaking of Lara Croft, everyone’s favorite archeologist recently crossed over to the Call of Duty universe. A remaster of the first three Tomb Raider games, including the aforementioned Tomb Raider 3, was recently released as well. Finally, Netflix has dropped its first official trailer for its upcoming Lara Croft animated series.
