Post by terebi on Jul 3, 2023 12:32:05 GMT
Dear LMW community,
Im a student and retrogamer from Germany currently working on a project about early German videogame history, mainly the former publisher and developer Ariolasoft. Ariolasoft (or Ariola Eurodisc, Ariola Soft) was pretty well known in the early German gaming space, especially due to being the exclusive distributor for games by companies such as Activision or Electronic Arts. They are also very interesting when it comes to the topics of piracy and banned games, but thats beside the point here. Ariolasoft was also active in other European countries and it was a subsidiary of Bertelsmann, a very old and big media conglomerate over here.
During my research I found references to a TV commercial made by Ariolasoft and the UFA Werbefilm GmbH Düsseldorf. The UFA is also a very old media company, I think it was even part of Bertelsmann for a while. It is mainly known for its motion pictures of the early 20th century. The Werbefilm GmbH produced commercials. For Ariolasoft, they made one about the Activision game Pitfall, which, according to my sources, was shown on German television in January 1983.
Those of you who are into games are probably reminded of the famous Pitfall commercial with a young Jack Black. I think there is another one without him and one from Australia. This German one is supposed to be its own thing and I really wanna see it! German videogame commercials of the 1980s and early 1990s that are not about Atari, Sega or Nintendo products are pretty rare to find. I am already in contact with the Bertelsmann company archives. Sadly, they dont have access to this commercial. Years ago, the archive contacted the person who is now in possession of the Werbefilm tapes, but they refused to look into it. I assume I wont have any luck with them either since I am just a random student.
I already consulted the Handbook (which is awesome, thank you!) for some directions to start my search and combed through YouTube, the Internet Archive and different (videogame) commercial databases or compilations. No luck so far. It feels like I am running out of options. I am trying to contact UFA as well, but it seems they do not have a similar company archive like Bertelsmann and preservation efforts about their media is mostly focused on movies, of course. Best case, they will just point me to the person who inherited the Werbefilm stuff and already refused to help. :/
Im a total newbie at this, so any further advice on finding old commercials on the web would be much appreciated. Maybe there is a place or method that I overlooked? Feel free to share.
Thank you in advance!
Im a student and retrogamer from Germany currently working on a project about early German videogame history, mainly the former publisher and developer Ariolasoft. Ariolasoft (or Ariola Eurodisc, Ariola Soft) was pretty well known in the early German gaming space, especially due to being the exclusive distributor for games by companies such as Activision or Electronic Arts. They are also very interesting when it comes to the topics of piracy and banned games, but thats beside the point here. Ariolasoft was also active in other European countries and it was a subsidiary of Bertelsmann, a very old and big media conglomerate over here.
During my research I found references to a TV commercial made by Ariolasoft and the UFA Werbefilm GmbH Düsseldorf. The UFA is also a very old media company, I think it was even part of Bertelsmann for a while. It is mainly known for its motion pictures of the early 20th century. The Werbefilm GmbH produced commercials. For Ariolasoft, they made one about the Activision game Pitfall, which, according to my sources, was shown on German television in January 1983.
Those of you who are into games are probably reminded of the famous Pitfall commercial with a young Jack Black. I think there is another one without him and one from Australia. This German one is supposed to be its own thing and I really wanna see it! German videogame commercials of the 1980s and early 1990s that are not about Atari, Sega or Nintendo products are pretty rare to find. I am already in contact with the Bertelsmann company archives. Sadly, they dont have access to this commercial. Years ago, the archive contacted the person who is now in possession of the Werbefilm tapes, but they refused to look into it. I assume I wont have any luck with them either since I am just a random student.
I already consulted the Handbook (which is awesome, thank you!) for some directions to start my search and combed through YouTube, the Internet Archive and different (videogame) commercial databases or compilations. No luck so far. It feels like I am running out of options. I am trying to contact UFA as well, but it seems they do not have a similar company archive like Bertelsmann and preservation efforts about their media is mostly focused on movies, of course. Best case, they will just point me to the person who inherited the Werbefilm stuff and already refused to help. :/
Im a total newbie at this, so any further advice on finding old commercials on the web would be much appreciated. Maybe there is a place or method that I overlooked? Feel free to share.
Thank you in advance!
