Yeah, I'm not sure who kicked it off but the Nintendo, Sega wars in the 80s kind of started with the quirky 'edgy' crap and that carried over into the PS/Xbox era. The Nintendo power mags had some seriously nonsense ads and the tv commercials kind of ran the gambit. A lot of 'we're gamers, parents just wouldn't understand' type ads.
Here's one that even teen me was like 'wtf?'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-qBkWerZDg