Category: Family

Ah, the games of yesteryear. In those days graphics were less than realistic, so advertisers used artwork to sell their product. Such as these fine examples:

I would bet money that the two Epyx games are just Temple Of Apshai with new graphics and monster names 🙂

But computer ads in Dragon weren’t all about the games. This was, after all, a magazine for AD&D players and Dungeon Masters so why not try and sell a few utilities?

The map software looks craptacular (and would have massively impressed 12-year-old me), but software to simulate AD&D weather?! Whoever used weather rules, much less enough to pay good money for software to do it??

But weather seemed to be a big draw for these coders, and I could have scanned a half dozen or so ads for different weather system programs:

I find it intriguing. The above ad, by the way, is oh-so quaint. Sinclair 16k software for encumbrance? At $12.95 (now about $25). The world was so much less complex back then 🙂

Here’s the big daddy of DM assistance software, judging by the advert:

That art is soooo 1980s.

What about this ad, for an early MMO?

It’s from 1992, and is almost certainly a text MUD. The best thing about the ad is the cost: $3 PER HOUR! That’s 144 times more expensive than Warcraft is today!

I save the best two game-related ad’s for last.

This one is for a game that simply defies credulity:

Yes, a game about spinning plates! I had to go and do some research on this and you can bet it’s as awful as you imagine. Here’s an (emulated) screenshot of Plattermania, proving just anything was made into a game in those early days:

And last but not least, an ad for Wizisystem. There is so much win here it’s hard to describe what’s so good about it, but I salute the guy who made a business out of (essentially) selling what we would one day called an FAQ:

Gotta love it:

The best Wizardry players worldwide use the Wizisystem!

You know what… I didn’t 🙂

What are PBMs you ask? Well I have mentioned them before; they are ‘play by mail’ games. All but dead now, they were much bigger in the 1980s and frequently advertised in Dragon. Today’s post showcases a few of these ads.

Here is a standard ad, chosen because the game was ran from an office (home?) in Cohoes, NY (which is where we used to live):

Expensive isn’t it? $15 to startup. They don’t even mention the cost per turn in that ad, which would be $3, or $6 monthly. Crasimoff’s World ended up having a longer life than most PBMs. In fact it is still played today!

This next advert is for a computer moderated game with excessive (in my opinion) costs for what was probably a very dry and basic game. Note that the better you play, the more you pay!

As with all things in this genre, licensed PBMs seemed to be quite popular as well. I have no idea how successful they were, but I would have to imagine very if they hoped to turn a profit. By far the most advertised was this one:

I can’t even imagine the job of moderating what a game in which the players just submit fanfiction as their turn!

Here is another licensed game, no doubt born from the popularity of the films that came out in that era:

Free setup and rules? Turn costs must have been excessive.

The last advert for today is truly mind boggling. Think of one of the most unlikely licensed properties for a PBM, and then tell me if this is even lower down your list:

The mind boggles doesn’t it?