Earlier today, I was glancing through some old comics in a box at a junk store when I happened to see a very interesting ad in the back of a Batman comic. I didn’t read much of the comic but it was about batman fighting the trash man or something like that.
But that was not the interesting part. What I found interesting was the ad inside the back cover. Take a look:
This ad for the Atari 7800 features the tag line “Viewer Aggression Is Advised.”The rest of the ad reads as follows:
Are you a man or are you a wuss? You will never find out until you go up against the Mighty Atari 7800 and hard hitting games like Commando, Xenophobe or Double Dragon.
It comes complete with arcade quality graphics, 2 deluxe joystick controllers, And the radical Pole Position II cartridge. So pick one up. And plug in one of the awesome 7800 games today (or any one of the exciting 2600 cartridges).
And remember, no one over 17 is allowed to watch unless you give them permission.
What I find most odd about this is that this ad came 30 years before the US Supreme Court basically told the world that aggression studies on video games were bunk. One of their quotes was:
The State’s evidence is not compelling. California relies primarily on the research of Dr. Craig Anderson and a few other research psychologists whose studies purport to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children. These studies have been rejected by every court to consider them,6 and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively (which would at least be a beginning). Instead, “[n]early all of the research is based on correlation, not evidence of causation, and most of the studies suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology.”
The last paragraph of the ad was particularly funny as many law makers such as Leland Yee want to stop kids 17 and under from buying these games, which the supreme court ruled was unconstitutional.
This ad just happened to fall into my sites mostly because of this ruling. Had the US Supreme Court not bothered to hear the case I might not have taken any real note. But this does show just how long the games industry has been using controversy to sell games and systems for many years. They will probably continue to do so for many more years.
Just remember that as Parents, you have the right and responsibility to monitor and control the media intake of your children.
