SweetieGames

I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but I hate recent minimalism. Minimalistic logos, ads, designs, clothes, anything just makes me sad. I’m very much a maximalist, who enjoys thought and creativity in media.

I don’t know if it’s my fine tuned algorithm, but I’ve been seeing plenty of people online who feel the same way that I do. A yearning to go back to another time, a time where everything wasn’t so plain and bland. A time where a minimalistic ad could still be Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII was selling you the very mobile phone he used in the Advent Children movie.

There’s just something undeniably cool about stuff like this. Back then, we truly felt as though we were living in the future and every ad was truly memorable. These kinds of advertisements are time capsules now; you can very clearly tell what era they’re from. They’re surreal, playful and often strangely sexual; it truly felt like the companies aren’t afraid to use their IPs in unique ways. It wasn’t seen as tarnishing their image, it was free-flowing creativity to appeal to their demographic in a time where gaming was nowhere near as mainstream and normal as it is today.

I’m really bored of generic voiceover or graphics to advertise the latest games. It feels like companies are scared to use their properties in unique or strange ways, but I think it makes an ad more memorable. I’d respect a company a lot more if they’re willing to fight back against minimalism, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing that anytime soon from some bigger companies; Nintendo’s Switch 2 Welcome Tour even uses minimalistic character models which look like they jumped straight out of Microsoft Teams. Disappointing. I thought games were meant to be fun; at least let your marketing department have fun too!