Pimple-removal, romance novels and liquor get advertised inside New York City subway cars. This morning, I walked into a car of the F train and, for the first time, saw a video game getting big-time promotion.
Despite video games being played constantly on the train — there's always someone playing on an iPhone, DS or PSP — game ads on the train are oddly rare.
Not today.
To clarify what you're seeing: This is an entire interior side of a New York City subway coated with ads for the DS game Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. The ads appear across the top of the wall, next to the windows and at the far ends of the car. The ads only feature women.
In the 19 years I've been a rider of the New York City subway, I've only seen one other ad for a game. That ad, for Monster Hunter Freedom PSP, was posted once per car, nothing like this wallpapering that the Layton game got. I ride the subway at least twice a day and saw those Monster Hunter ads maybe five times.
Sorry for the shakiness of the video. I'm leery of taking photos and shooting movies in the subway. Only tourists do that. And I don't want people getting freaked out that they're in my photos. So I shot the video in haste and snapped the stills in angles that I hoped wouldn't get me assaulted by my fellow New Yorkers.