28
Oct
…From May 1986 to September 1998, Origin Systems 'owned' the back cover of Computer Gaming World. Their first ad was for Ogre, a tank fighting game and the last was for Ultima IX.
Origin did this marketing in house and got so good at it that instead of shutting them down after the acqusition EA used their team for studios like Firaxis and Bullfrog. Looking at them is a neat way to watch the culture, desktop publishing and the audience change.
Since there are great scans of the full run of CGW, I thought pulling out all the Wing Commander ads would make for a good start to a larger collection. I've collected them all here.
You start out with handmade ads designed to capture the hobbyists of the early 90s...
... then a more prestigious Hollywood look (moving to digital layouts) for the multimedia era that brought in more gamers...