FCI Phone Counseling Hotline (1989)

Ad published in the May 1989 issue of EGM (no. 1)

Historical Background & Graphical Analysis 

FCI was actually "the american arm of Fujisankei Communications Group (FCG), an important Japanese media conglomerate of about 100 television and radio channels, magazine, newspaper, record and video game companies", according to the web.

During the 80's and early 90's they garnered some good reputation by bringing to the West some interesting games like Zanac, Lunar Pool, Seicross, MagMax, Ultima III: Exodus, and Dr. Chaos, some of which were actually arcade ports, and publishing some game from Western developer's games on the NES, like the aforementioned Ultima. 

Like most counselling hotlines, the artwork here is very boring indeed. But these ads were not made for impact. The main reason here is to get the message across as clearly as possible, which is achieved. In the 80s, everyone followed Nintendo's lead. Their hotline became quite reputed and their prices were not cheap (about a dollar a minute).  So FCI and everyone else tried to do the same thing, with some lesser degree of success. 

Original Copy:

FCI Phone Counseling Hotline
(312) 968-0425
8 am - 7 pm Central Standard Time 

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