If there is one area where companies like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have really gotten everything wrong it has to be advertising. Videogame advertising is one the highest paid areas of game publication- and it is often handed off to people who do not seem to know, like or even care about games. This can be shown by just how often advertising for games attempts to hide that the ad is, in fact, for a videogame or videogame console.

The biggest offender in this area has been Microsoft. While Sony and Microsoft both have a penchant for throwing "hip, young folks" on our TV screens hanging out, throwing water balloons at each other and generally doing anything other than something obviously related to games; Microsoft's ad department seems to be the most embarrassed to be slumming-it by creating ads for videogames.

Anyone remember this little diddy that Microsoft somehow managed to win awards for, even though the only way it actually identifies the product it is advertising is by splicing in the 360 intro screen at the end?

How about this catchy, but utterly unaware of the fact that it was meant to push a game console, commercial?

Microsoft's ad department then decided to move on from those doozies to the next level of hell possible- People blankly (but with a smile!) staring at their TV screens while the camera rotates behind them to show... that their heads have been hollowed out and that there is a stage with a little tiny person on it.

Wow! That must have taken like a whole fifteen minutes of coked-up clarity to think up! The worst part is that someone at Microsoft thought that this idea was so good that it should be used in multiple commercials- All of which could possibly scare an old lady to death. Somehow the dude Bill Murray played in Scrooged must have come down to bestow the spirit of commercial suckage upon Microsoft's ad department on the day those commercials were created.

Sadly, those are not the worst or scariest videogame commercials ever created. No. That honor goes to Sony, who decided to ring in the birth of the PS3 with probably the most horrific and utterly useless videogame commercial ever.

The only good thing about that commercial is that the baby-doll manages to portray exactly the emotions you feel by being put through that shit stain of advertising excess.

Sony then moved away from this stillborn style of commercial, and into their current era which I like to call 'image pukeage.' Image pukage takes a good idea, and then throws in too many no-good ideas like far too-flashy transitions and even more images that barely manage to be associated with videogames- all to the beat of music so bad that it could possibly make you lose control of your bowels.

These commercials apparently really impressed someone at Sony Corporate, because there was a huge focus on montages of games at E3 2009. Many of these montages clipped through the games they were meant to highlight so quickly that the intended audience had no chance of making out each game. Worse, many of the montages for the PSP were montages inside of other images. This made the actual game clips so hard to see that they would have to be considered subliminal advertising.

I would have to give Nintendo higher marks for their Wii advertising, because they are at least inclusive.

See how the Japanese guys look at each other at the end and then smile knowingly... that must have been the exact reaction the guys at Nintendo had when they realized that there were more people on the Earth other than 18 to 35 year old males. The ad might not really highlight that the Wii is a videogame playing device as much as I would like, but at least it features a TV with moving images and people holding a controller apparently in control of said images... I guess that's a start.

How can this climate of self-loathing videogame commercials end? Maybe if videogame publishers started to hire people who actually care about and play videogames. A large part of this could also be helped by having more advertising companies that specialize in videogame advertising. While I am sure there are advertising companies that are great at making ads for Metamucil, Nike or McDonalds- that does not mean that they are the right company to make ads for a videogame or videogame console.

Advertising is how companies communicate with the people they want to buy their product. The best way to communicate with someone is to talk with them, and not at them. Videogame based commercials need to stop screaming or barfing information at their audience. If they clearly state what the purpose of the product is, and inform viewers of the number of uses the product are they would sell a ton more consoles than a random video of people throwing balloons at each other ever could. Sure, that might not make for the sexiest commercial ever- but at least it would let people know just what in the hell the commercial is actually selling. Isn't that the goal of a commercial in the first place?

From Overdos3.com