It may seem obvious that more detailed graphics mean a virtual world is "better", but why is visual quality seen as so important, over other features? (Audio, text, user experience, narrative, etc.) As it turns out, this assumption was actually first shaped by a savvy advertising campaign from the early 1980s, developed by an ad executive who now calls it "a small but incremental step toward virtual worlds".
In this exclusive excerpt from Intellivision, the new book co-written by Tom Boellstorff (longtime SLer and author of the acclaimed Coming of Age in Second Life), we go inside the marketing of the Intellivision video game console, and find out why sophisticated literary celebrity George Plimpton was chosen to be its surprising spokesman.
Read it all below -- and find a special discount for the book at the very end!
"Closer to the Real Thing" -- Excerpt, Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie, by Tom Boellstorff and Braxton Soderman
The Plimpton campaign changed videogame history. It transformed Intellivision into a reality in the marketplace but also transformed the marketing of videogame reality. The campaign foregrounded realistic gameplay and graphics as the means to articulate differences between Intellivision and Atari. Market research registered the campaign’s ongoing effectiveness, indicating that “Intellivision is perceived as being better than Atari in terms of realism of game play” and “Intellivision owners most like the realism of the games.”
As media scholar Mark Wolf explained, the “‘realism’ of the games was the simplest and quickest way that consumers could compare systems, and the complexity of graphic detail and gameplay became the main areas in which home games would compete for players.” Although seemingly simple, the impacts of Intellivision’s marketing campaign were more complex and long-lasting.
While a detailed history of realism within videogame culture has yet to be written, an overlooked part of this history emerges from the toy industry. Mattel had long used realism to sell toys—from Chatty Cathy’s “real” voice to Sonar Sub Hunt, the 1961 electromechanical game that included players looking through small plastic periscopes to locate enemy ships. Mattel marketed its realistic Burp Guns on television, including “Thunder Burp” guns in the 1960s with smoke coming out of their barrels. One commercial declared the gun “looks like real, sounds like real, it even vibrates like real. . . really for real!”
This hyperbolic realism was augmented through commercials suturing documentary footage with children’s play—hunting stampeding elephants with Burp Guns or hitting the “fire” button on Sonar Sub Hunt cutting to footage of real naval ships launching depth charges. Such blurring of fantasy with reality also appeared in Intellivision commercials, including the use of war footage for B-17 Bomber.
While realism was used to spur desire and give weight to imaginary play, realism could indicate economic value.
“What you’d call ‘realistic,’ I’d call ‘quality,’” said [Gene Kilroy, a Director in Mattel’s Preliminary Design division], explaining that Mattel used realism to emphasize play value. Kilroy, added, “If you look at the cap guns of the era, they were junk. When Mattel made a cap gun, it was a Rolls Royce.”
When compared to Atari—retailing for $100 less and with less sophisticated graphics—Intellivision was also a Rolls Royce. Intellivision’s realism articulated quality, value, and sophistication to justify an expensive purchase. Intellivision advertising made realism a way of seeing, comparing, and knowing videogames.
In one commercial, Plimpton sits in a suit and tie with fans at a baseball game. A shot of Atari’s Home Run is followed by stupefied fans asking, “Where’s the diamond?” and “There’s only four players?” Then, a clip of Intellivision’s Major League Baseball elicits “ooohs” and “ahhhs” from the fans.
At the end, Plimpton remarks “Intellivision baseball: I think it’s the closest thing to the real thing.” The commercial asserted not only that Intellivision videogames were more sophisticated but that realism should be the criterion for this judgment. Compared to the rowdy fans, Plimpton’s sober intellectualism lent credence to the claim.
In another commercial Plimpton quizzes viewers, “Here’s an easy question for you. Which of these games is the closest thing to the real? A: Intellivision baseball? B: Atari baseball?” Plimpton adds “here they are again, close-up,” with the commercial showing detailed shots of the running players.
The close-ups are practical, but they also symbolize inspection, analysis, and getting closer to the real. The “test” format of the commercial invokes a pedagogical situation, linking realism to intelligence and learning.
This approach taught consumers how to look at videogames—a new, unfamiliar product—and make judgements about quality.
Mattel Electronics marketers knew that when customers went to the store, Atari and Intellivision would be side by side, and Atari would be cheaper. Educating viewers to look for realism taught an “intelligent vision” in relation to videogames. Ultimately consumers would need to compare two things—like apples in the grocery store—and decide to pay a bit more for quality.
[Gene Del Vecchio, a Research Project Director at the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather], explained that Plimpton “helped convey the idea that Intellivision was the smart choice, and by extension, consumers who bought it were smarter too.” Thus, the “Intellivision” name was linked to the savvy consumer and intelligent television audiences who were not passive, mindless consumers.
Leveraging discerning and sophisticated participants in consumer capitalism, the Plimpton commercials forged relationships between realism, intelligence, videogames, and technology. They created moments of comparative platform or “transplatform” studies. Plimpton’s oft-used slogan, “Once you compare, you’ll know” solidified the idea that comparison would lead to knowledge, and realism should be the foundation for this knowledge.
This advertising campaign reached a viewership far beyond Intellivision owners. The television commercials were seen by millions and covered in the New York Times. The famed satirical cartoon Bloom County ran a parody in which Plimpton asserted that “Atari’s effects are dull, flat, lifeless . . . Atari is video junk.”
Huber noted that from a marketing perspective the Plimpton campaign was “classic stimulation of primary demand. It’s not secondary demand where everybody knows what it is. This is something that people didn’t even know they wanted. And the only way to educate people was through advertising.”
For years, Mattel marketers had used television commercials to teach consumers about complicated toys—fueling the emergence of more sophisticated products—and the “Mattel College of Knowledge” followed suit with Intellivision. The “ad” campaign was an “ed” campaign, oriented around realism.
The Plimpton campaign played a crucial role in training viewers how to speak the language of realism, linking Intellivision to intelligence and creating the perception that technology (in this case, videogame technology) was becoming progressively smarter, more sophisticated, real, and lifelike.
This perception would be crucial for society to embrace computerization and eventually the rise of smart technologies and even artificial intelligence. Realism included gameplay, but Mattel’s marketing researchers understood the centrality of graphics, explaining that “screens with detailed, realistic graphics” were important because “the industry is raising consumer expectations of graphic quality to yet another level.”
The Plimpton campaign helped establish these rising expectations, inaugurating the “appreciation of realism that continues to be used today,” as Del Vecchio explained.
Del Vecchio went even further, emphasizing that Plimpton brought “the consumer closer to realism than had been done with Atari. Intellivision was a small but incremental step toward virtual worlds. This was a guy who needed to participate in the realism of the world in which he was investigating.”
Plimpton imbued videogames with reality, helping pave the way for a future of virtual worlds and society’s embrace of intelligent machines.
Book discount info from Tom:
Through the links on Intellivision’s MIT Press website, you can pre-order the book now.
If you purchase Intellivision on November 5 you can get a 30% discount by using the code PUBDAY30.
Anytime after that, you can get a 20% discount by using the code READMIT20 -- go here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/763346/intellivision-by-tom-boellstorff-and-braxton-soderman/
There are a few conditions: only one discount code per person, has to be a US mailing address, and has to be through Penguin Random House.
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