If you were a kid in the nineties, you probably remember the moral panic surrounding video games. Most people point to Mortal Kombat or Doom as the culprits that sent parents into a frenzy. But there’s a weirder, darker corner of gaming history that most people forget. It’s a 1994 cult classic called Brutal: Paws of Fury. While that name sounds aggressive, the marketing behind it took things to a level of absurdity that defined an era. Specifically, the tagline "forget about soccer it's time to kill each other" became a rallying cry for a specific kind of counter-culture marketing that felt edgy, dangerous, and totally ridiculous all at once.
Gaming wasn't polite back then. It was a brawl for attention.
The phrase forget about soccer it's time to kill each other wasn't just a random sentence; it was a direct shot at the "polite" sports games that dominated the Genesis and Super Nintendo. At the time, FIFA International Soccer had just launched and was a massive hit. Electronic Arts was cleaning up. Meanwhile, GameTek and Eurocom were trying to sell a fighting game featuring a Kung Fu bunny and a Prince-inspired panther. They knew they couldn't compete on graphics or realism. So, they went for the jugular. They marketed violence as the antidote to "boring" sports.
Why 1994 Changed Everything for Game Marketing
The early 90s were a transition period. The industry was moving away from the "games are for toys" vibe of the NES and into the "games are for cool teenagers" vibe of the 16-bit wars. Sega had already proven that "Genesis does what Nintendon't," but by 1994, everyone was trying to be the "bad boy" of the industry.
When you see a phrase like forget about soccer it's time to kill each other, you’re looking at a time capsule. It represents the "Xtreme" marketing era where everything had to be loud. If you weren't killing something, were you even playing? It’s honestly kind of funny looking back. The game it was promoting, Brutal, wasn't even that violent compared to Mortal Kombat. It had a "learning" mechanic where your character gained new moves over time, which was actually pretty innovative for the time. But "Innovative Learning AI" doesn't sell copies to thirteen-year-olds. "Killing each other" does.
The Soccer Rivalry You Didn't Know Existed
Why target soccer? It seems specific, right? You have to understand the geography of the developers. Eurocom was a British developer. In the UK, soccer (football) isn't just a sport; it's the default setting for existence. By telling kids to forget about soccer it's time to kill each other, they were effectively telling them to rebel against their parents' favorite pastime. It was a call to trade the pitch for the dojo.
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It didn't really work. FIFA became a juggernaut. Brutal: Paws of Fury became a footnote.
But the sentiment remained. This idea that gaming was the "alternative" to traditional life stuck. We started seeing games like Mutant League Football and Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball. These weren't sports games; they were combat games wearing sports jerseys. They were the literal embodiment of the "forget about soccer" mentality. They took the rules of the field and replaced them with landmines and chainsaws.
Breaking Down the "Brutal" Philosophy
Most fighting games of that era were clones of Street Fighter II. You had a health bar, some special moves, and a best-of-three format. Brutal tried to be different. It used a philosophy of "Dali Llama" wisdom mixed with anthropomorphic violence. It was weird. Honestly, it was way too weird for the mainstream.
The marketing was its strongest asset. The advertisements in magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro used gritty, high-contrast imagery. They wanted you to feel like you were doing something wrong by playing. That’s the secret sauce of 90s SEO before SEO existed. You didn't rank on Google; you ranked on the playground. If your game's tagline was forget about soccer it's time to kill each other, you were guaranteed a conversation at recess.
The Legacy of Violent Subversion
We see this same energy today, just packaged differently. When a new Grand Theft Auto trailer drops, or when a game like Doom Eternal leans into its "Rip and Tear" slogan, they are using the same DNA. They are positioning the game as an escape from the mundane. The "soccer" in the phrase represents the status quo. The "killing each other" represents the chaotic freedom of the digital space.
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It’s not actually about violence. It never was. It was about the rejection of the "correct" way to play.
Think about the rise of Rocket League. In a weird, full-circle moment, someone finally combined the two. They took soccer and added high-speed car crashes. They essentially said, "Why forget about soccer when we can turn soccer into a demolition derby?" It’s the ultimate evolution of the forget about soccer it's time to kill each other ethos. It’s the reconciliation of the sport and the carnage.
Practical Ways to Understand This Era of Gaming
If you’re a collector or a historian of the medium, you can’t just look at the code of the games. You have to look at the paper. The magazines. The back-of-the-box blurbs. That’s where the real history lives.
- Check the Archives: Look at scans of GamePro from late 1994. You’ll see the aggressive shift in tone that occurred right as the 32-bit era (PlayStation and Saturn) was looming.
- Play the "Learning" Fighters: If you actually play Brutal, pay attention to the belt system. You start as a white belt with almost no moves. You have to "earn" your way up. It’s a slow burn that contradicts the fast-paced "killing" promised by the ads.
- Compare Regional Marketing: The Japanese marketing for these games was often much more focused on the "cute" aspect of the animal characters. The "forget about soccer" edge was a very Western phenomenon, driven by a need to distance gaming from its "kiddie" reputation in the US and Europe.
The Truth About the Panic
The irony is that while the ads were screaming about killing, the games were being censored more than ever. This was the year the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) was formed. The industry was trying to have it both ways. They wanted to market the "danger" to kids while showing a "responsible" face to Congress.
Forget about soccer it's time to kill each other was a last hurrah of the unregulated wild west of game ads. Shortly after, things got a bit more corporate. A bit more polished. A bit less... unhinged.
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What This Means for Us Now
We live in a world where gaming is the dominant form of entertainment. It’s bigger than movies. It’s bigger than music. We don't have to "rebel" against soccer anymore because the FIFA (now FC) games are some of the biggest sellers on the planet. The tension is gone.
But there’s a lesson in that old, aggressive tagline. It reminds us that games are at their best when they are pushing boundaries—even if those boundaries are just silly slogans in a magazine. It’s about that feeling of picking up a controller and knowing that for the next hour, the rules of the real world don't apply. No referees. No yellow cards. Just the game.
Actionable Steps for Retrogaming Enthusiasts
If you want to dive deeper into this specific niche of gaming history, here is how you should actually spend your time.
- Hunt for the "Big Box" PC versions: The artwork on the PC releases of Brutal and its contemporaries often featured the most "hardcore" versions of the marketing taglines. They are great pieces of social history.
- Study the Eurocom Portfolio: This developer was fascinating. They went from these edgy original IPs to becoming the go-to studio for high-quality ports and licensed games like GoldenEye 007 (the Wii remake) and Disney titles. Seeing their evolution helps you understand how the industry "grew up."
- Don't ignore the soundtrack: The music in Brutal was surprisingly high-quality for the hardware. It captures that mid-90s experimental synth vibe that perfectly matches the weirdness of the "forget about soccer" era.
Ultimately, the phrase forget about soccer it's time to kill each other serves as a loud, colorful reminder of a time when the gaming industry was still figuring out its identity. It was awkward, it was loud, and it was trying way too hard to be cool. And honestly? That’s exactly why we loved it. It wasn't just about the pixels on the screen; it was about the attitude in the air.
If you're looking to experience this for yourself, track down a copy of Brutal: Above the Rim or the original Paws of Fury. Don't expect a masterpiece. Expect a weird, flawed, aggressive piece of history that refuses to play by the rules. It’s a glimpse into a world where soccer was the enemy and the only thing that mattered was the fight.
To get the most out of your exploration of 90s "edgelord" gaming, start by looking into the Sega Genesis "Welcome to the Next Level" campaign. It provides the necessary context for why slogans like these were even allowed to exist. From there, compare the marketing of Brutal to the more "refined" violence of the early Tekken era to see exactly when the industry decided to trade its mohawk for a suit.