Gaming Ads: Dreamcast

This is a special edition of the typical Saturday magazine ad scans post. If you've not visited the blog before, normally I post ads from 1999 and earlier that are sorted by publisher (albums were originally on Flickr but are now on Facebook). Since the Dreamcast released near the end of 1999 I set any I had come across during my years of scanning aside. Being a Sega fan I knew I'd be doing something for the Dreamcast eventually and the 20th anniversary of the U.S. release is the perfect time for that. I only had a few ads ready up until the end of July when I began going through the Official Dreamcast Magazine and any other video game magazines I have from 2000-2002. This turned into a much larger undertaking than I had expected and took almost all of my free time from the past six weeks to complete.

Part of the problem was the Dreamcast magazine is too large for my scanner so I used a photo copier at work. Scanning only took maybe 10 minutes per issue but I realized later I should have been pushing down on the spine much harder though I really couldn't go back and re-scan them. Many of the ads are two pages and the copier caused some bright vertical lines on each side of the spine which led to a lot of time spent editing.

As always, below is only a sampling of the ads with the rest reachable through the link at the bottom. By the way, this is big one as there are more than 240 ads! Surprisingly, there are no hardware ads showing the console. The only non-game ads from Sega are the "9-9-99" ads before the Dreamcast launched. I guess it didn't advertise the actual console or accessories in print, just the games. Also, the ads on Facebook are arranged by publisher first and then game title, and the few third-party hardware and miscellaneous ads are at the end of the album.

Dreamcast albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Gaming Ads: Ocean of America

Initially founded as Spectrum Software in 1983 by David Ward and Jon Woods, Ocean Software was one of the largest computer game publishers in the U.K. through the early '90s. Although it published numerous original games, it might be best known for its many licensed games and arcade ports of Konami, Taito, and Data East games, such as Batman, The Transformers, RoboCop, Miami Vice, and Rambo III. Ocean of America was founded in 1990 as a subsidiary that published computer and console games in North America. In 1996 Ocean was acquired by Infogrames and in 1998 it was renamed Infogrames UK.

Most of the ads are from Ocean of America though there are a couple that say Ocean Software with Electronic Arts as the distributor.

Ocean of America albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Gaming Ads: Infogrames and Information Global Services (IGS)

Bruno Bonnell and Christope Sapet founded Infogrames Entertainment S.A. in France in 1983. From what I can tell, it published around a dozen games in Europe during the '80s while some of its games started appearing in the U.S. in the early '90s. Infogrames has gone by a few names in North America as it acquired and renamed various companies that published its games. You might remember its aardvark logo that has five colored stripes on it. Along with the Infogrames name, sometimes a game box might say I-Motion on it which is also Infogrames. In the late '90s/early '00s is when Infogrames started expanding quickly in North America.

I have mentioned Infogrames previously in the Atari, GT Interactive, and Hasbro Interactive posts due to the acquisitions. GT Interactive was renamed to Infogrames, Inc. in 1999 and Hasbro Interactive became Infogrames Interactive, Inc. in 2001. It acquired the Atari name from Hasbro and used that as a publishing brand before eventually renaming all of the Infogrames branches to Atari. Even the original Infogrames Entertainment S.A. was changed to Atari S.A. in 2009. Although it went through financial difficulties, including filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company is still in business and that is the Atari we have today. For a while it focused on mobile releases and the old Atari properties which it still does but of late it's been pushing new RollerCoaster Tycoon games for PC.

Despite being around since 1983, at this time I only have four ads for Infogrames which is why I'm including a second publisher in this post. Infogrames has published a lot of games but many of its own ads didn't appear until the 2000s when it released quite a few games for the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2, and of course, I primarily stick to the '90s and earlier for ads. We'll see more Infogrames much later when I put together some Dreamcast features.

Information Global Services, or IGS, was the North American publishing division of Japan-based Information Global Service (note that the word "service" is singular for the parent company). It released games from 1990-93 for a few platforms, though at least half of its games are for the TurboGrafx-16.

Infogrames albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Information Global Services albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Gaming Ads: GT Interactive Software

GT Interactive Software was founded in 1993 as a division of GoodTimes Home Video. If you played computer games in the '90s you've likely encountered GT Interactive as it was involved in the publishing or distribution of many high profile series. The original Doom from id Software was GT's first game product as it was the distributor of the shareware title. It also published and/or distributed a number of games from 3D Realms (Duke Nukem), Epic Games (Unreal), Midway (Mortal Kombat) and Oddworld Inhabitants (Oddworld series) among others. In 1996 GT Interactive acquired both WizardWorks, a publisher that specialized in value priced software (Deer Hunter), and Humongous Entertainment, a publisher and developer of educational games for children (Pajama Sam, Spy Fox). It also began expanding into Europe in 1996 and continued to make acquisitions for a few years.

In 1999 GT Interactive posted its first quarterly losses due to restructuring and lower game sales, and debt began to mount. That year Infogrames S.A. purchased 70% of the company and renamed it Infogrames, Inc. Infogrames had also acquired the Atari name and in 2003 changed Infogrames, Inc. to Atari, Inc., and in 2008 took full control of the company formerly known as GT Interactive. Some of this overlaps with the previous Atari ads post and will likely come up again when I get to Hasbro Interactive and Infogrames.

GT Interactive Software albums: Facebook - Google Photos