Figure A. With home systems, nuclear families bond around the new electronic hearth. Magnavox promotional materials, 1972 (top) and 1975 (bottom) (Burnham, 2001).
Games were presented in advertising as the new electronic hearth, which directly addressed the fears of technology breaking down the family. The advertising of home games sought to reassure parents that the games were not electronic babysitters so much as magical forces that would unite households. This stood in stark contrast to the advertising for coin-operated games. Before being infantilized during the moral panics of 1981 and 1982, the first coin-op games were marketed for adults in adult-zoned spaces such as bars and nightclubs. Advertisements for games in this early era featured sexualized adult tableaux (see Figure B) before adult use of coin-operated games was made shameful and games became a children-only phenomenon by 1983.
