World's First Dedicated Gaming Magazine Is Facing Closure 82
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes "BBC Reports: 'Computer and Video Games, which in 1981 was the world's first magazine dedicated to gaming, is facing closure. The title, which has been online-only since 2004, may stop publishing at the end of a 45-day consultation period that began on 14 May, sources said. However, its publishers, Future, are also believed to be looking into selling off the brand. The magazine is behind the gaming industry's Golden Joystick Awards, a yearly event held since 1983. Early issues of the magazine were seen as being instrumental in helping small-time games developers to get their titles out there, said Mr Henderson — a trend that he thought was beginning to re-emerge as apps and mobile gaming have taken off.'"
A Life Well Wasted (Score:4, Informative)
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Ted Nelson wanted to do that (bill content reader and pay content creator) w/ Xanadu --- well worth reading up on.
Re:Who is Mr Henderson (Score:4, Funny)
Duh, he's Mrs. Henderson's husband.
Forgotten, but not gone (Score:2)
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IMHO, Byte died long before it stopped printing. In 1987, tax laws were changing, and magazine subscriptions would no longer be a professional expense. So they offered a 6 years for $99 subscription rate, and I took it because I didn't want to have to mess with resubscribing every year. By 1993, the articles were basically all PC and MS-DOS centric (with the occasional token Mac or Amiga or Atari ST article), and a significant percentage were software reviews. The only thing left that I cared about was Jerr
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I didn't realize it was still going. I still have some old issues from the Sinclair Spectrum era lying around somewhere.
Depends what you mean by "still going" as the original magazine ceased publishing almost ten years ago (*) when Future publishing bought the title (apparently it overlapped with their own GamesMaster magazine, which is still going today in its printed form (**)).
:-) [wikipedia.org]
I don't know how much continuity there was before and after that takeover, though to be fair, the title had already been sold previously, from its original publishers EMAP, to Dennis Publishing.
Isn't Wikipedia wonderful?
(*) Apparently the
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I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for
How young are you?
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You're 47 and don't remember the era when these magazines came with type-it-yourself game code, the only games reviews you could find anywhere, and (later) great demo and shareware discs?
Where were you from 1981-1995?
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Re:Impressive that they lasted this long (Score:4, Interesting)
At 57, I don't recall that particular magazine. I certainly had several different books and magazines for entering in codes on my Sinclair, Color Computer, and IBM. But I really didn't subscribe to any outside of physical gaming ones (The Dragon, White Dwarf, Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer, Autoduel Quarterly). While I did play games on my systems, generally it was the shareware stuff up to Commander Keen, Castle Wolfenstein, and Doom, which I picked up, news wise, from usenet and ftp download sites before purchasing the actual games. Then Quake, Duke Nukem, and Hexen :) In the mid-90's it was recommendations from my Lan party friends. Command and Conquer, Red Alert, Starcraft, and Brood War were the ones I most remember. We did play some Carmageddon and Splat Pack from time to time :) There were plenty of other games I picked up after that like Diablo and Diablo II or Dungeon Keeper or, what was that name, Black and White? I think I still have the CDs. Now I play Rocksmith on my PC, run RPG's (Deadlands now), and play board games. Too many quick twitch kids out there for me to have fun on line.
[John]
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49 here, and I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for, either, today. Ten years ago, before the internets and the googles were everywhere, they were still a good idea. In fact, many of the computer and gaming magazines from the '80s and '90s have been scanned, and you can find PDFs of them, because the information is still interesting and useful to retro-gamers.
And the reason you've never heard of them is probably because it's a UK magazine, which a quick check of the first link in TFS would rev
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High user ID. Google+ user. Completely clueless about history (we didn't always have the interwebs).
You sir, are probably too fucking young to know what you're talking about.
Move along, the adults are reminiscing about the good old days there, sport.
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Why are you so derisive of youth? It isn't their fault that they grew up in a more technologically advanced world than you did. How is it reasonable to expect that they would have an intuitive grasp of a history that they did not live and that is largely irrelevant to their day-to-day lives?
I don't understand why people on slashdot have to be so acrimonious.
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I don't know if you're trolling or not, but 1983 was the year of the Video Game Crash, when video games as an industry nearly died because of insanely high game prices ($80+ in 1980s dollars, a price that stayed until the middle of the N64/PSX era) and the proliferation of shovelware by companies looking to make a quick buck. Game reviewers were almost nonexistent - most of the time, they were side-panels in general computer magazines.
The fact that a magazine dedicated to reviews came out was huge, because
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E.T. phone it in
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Impressive that they lasted this long [..] I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for
If you'd paid attention, you'd have noticed that the "magazine" has been online only (i.e. a website) for the past ten years.
To be fair, if you *had* made that mistake, it would at least make your question a less stupid one, i.e. "I'm not sure what a gamer would need a [printed] magazine for [in this day and age]".
Which is of course perfectly understandable. OTOH, if you really *did* mean this to refer to its entire lifetime from the early-1980s onwards, then yes, it was an utterly stupid question that
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Of course I didn't mean that Any stupidity was in your interpretation of my post.
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Of course I didn't mean that. Any stupidity was in your interpretation of my post.
On the contrary, I was the only person to guess you *might* not have meant that (*). That's what everyone else thought... quite reasonably, as it *would be* the most sensible interpretation assuming you'd actually bothered to read the summary!! That makes clear that the magazine hasn't been sold in printed form for almost a decade. In that context, saying "I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for" serves no purpose unless it referred to the years it *was* being published (i.e. 1981 to 2004).
Th
Unprofitable business about to close down (Score:3)
News at 5:15, 5:45, 6:10, 6:40, 7:15, 7:45, 8:30, 9:10, 9:45, 10:20, 11:30 (I watch too much CNN)
Re:Unprofitable business about to close down (Score:4, Funny)
Next up on CNN, what does the video game magazine downsizing mean for the search for Flight 370?
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(I watch too much CNN)
AKA "unprofitable business not about to close down"
Schmenderson already (Score:3)
It is re-emerging. it's just doing it via a medium that isn't measured in dead trees per lunar orbit.
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Best. UOM. Evar.
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According to the summary they stopped using dead trees in 2004. A web site isn't a good medium for discussing the ever shifting nature of game platforms?
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Depends on the web site, it's quality of writing and organization.
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> it's quality of writing
Your write their.
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No one likes a Grammar Nazi, even when they may be right. Websites are like corporations, usage of singular and group plural differs between English speaking nations.
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Certainly. But what puts the CVG website above, say, Reddit in that regard? There's no obvious way to go from a magazine that's a collection of game reviews to a discussion forum, since the former is made by its staff and the latter by its members. If anything, having a pre-existing brand might make it harder to the perceived need to upkeep said brand by policing and thus limiting the discussion.
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It is re-emerging. it's just doing it via a medium that isn't measured in dead trees per lunar orbit.
Good grief! Even the bleeding summary makes clear that CVG has been "online only" (i.e. a *website*) since 2004 and it's that "re-emerged" web-based version of the magazine that is now in danger.
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http://cdn.memegenerator.net/i... [memegenerator.net]
I'd pretty much guessed that was probably the case, but I just felt like taking the piss. In fact ultranova has pretty much hit the nail on the head.
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To shutter a business implies the facilities are abandoned and the windows are shuttered or boarded up.
A business can close every night and reopen in the morning. You may not like the term, but when a business is shuttered, it implies that it is permanently closed.
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my business is currently shuttered but we are still open.
fucking sunshine
Computer Gaming Gaming (Score:5, Informative)
...the world's first magazine dedicated to gaming...
Okay, I'm being pedantic here, but this is one of my pet peeves. "Computer Gaming" is not Gaming. It is a lesser thing--a subset of the greater whole.
This was not the first gaming magazine-- Games magazine came out in 1977 and The Dragon was in 1976. Both of these magazines were dedicated to gaming (with Games being the more general use of that term).
Don't even get me started on calling computer games RPGs.
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A frustrating but inescapable fact about the English language is that it is a true democracy.
The meanings of words, in common use, are defined by the vote of the masses. There is no regulatory authority that says what meanings a word can and cannot have...there are only teams of lexicographers who document the meaning-decisions that the masses have already made.
If "RPG" refers to a type of computer game these days, then that's what it means now. Maybe it didn't use to, but it does now.
Incidentally, "irony
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Magazine? (Score:1)
What is this "magazine" of which you speak?
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Well supermarkets certainly still carry magazines. Gas stations and convenience stores also have a small magazine rack. Music shops don't seem to carry any though (I'm thinking instrument shops and not places where you buy CDs). Book shops seem to have the largest selection of magazines though. Most places have a pretty common set of magazines though. I pick up 2600, various music specific magazines, some science type magazines, and an English motorcycle magazine or two if they're available.
[John]
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Re:Magazine? (Score:4, Informative)
It's an explainable thing. The UK magazines market was largely driven by W H Smith. Not only because of their shops, but they were a wholesaler too, so a lot of the other newsagents were selling merchandise sourced from W H Smith.
And W H Smith started out as a chain of railway station concessions. People bought books and magazines to read on the train.
With a lesser railway system, and more people travelling by horse and then car in the USA, the train station bookstall/newsagent phenomenon didn't take off in the same way.
Or at least that's my theory.
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It's an add thing, I found the lack of magazines in the US really weird when I was over there and that was 15+ years ago.
We drive, it's a thing, so no buying a magazine to read on the tube/train/bus. Plenty of stores carry a few, but the largest selection are in bookstores.
We think the "social drinking at pubs, not at home" thing is odd.
And the "Linux User groups meet up at pubs" thing is odd too.
Don't you people socialize and/or drink at home?
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In the UK, drinking at home might be considered tantamount to alcoholism. Binge drinking in pubs is far more socially acceptable. Work that one out!
Metacritic = free review (Score:1)
For me, Metacritic replaces any "IGN, Gamespot, CVG" review.
Metacritic might be full of "fake and childish" user scores, but overall, the user scores are alot more accurate than the "paid for" reviews most websites dish out.
Welcome to the future, more honest and free.
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Where does Metacritic get those reviews from?
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Ah metacritic, where the reviews come from exactly the same websites that you say it's replaced. And the user scores are easily trolled into oblivion.
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Ah metacritic, where the reviews come from exactly the same websites that you say it's replaced.
Take note, my post clearly states user reviews.
And the user scores are easily trolled into oblivion.
Which overall are more trustworthy than a paid for review by IGN/CVG.
Thanks for my life, C&VG (Score:4, Interesting)
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Ah, our age is showing....I once played chess with my best friend via postcard when I moved out of state years ago (towards the end of the Mesozoic era...). That game took nearly two years to complete.
I consider it a high point in gaming for me. It was the finest play either of us ever accomplished, as we had a lot of time to consider moves. It ended in a dr
I remember (Score:1)
I have my stacks of C&VG stored on one of my shelves. Got close to 90% of the issues I think.
They really were something else. The writing on the longer pieces was top notch, and the news and previews had lots of exclusives. They had really connected writers. And those front pages... best ever.
The 90s were not too kind to it as it had to fight more kiddy targeting publications and all the media was fed through the same hose. At least we got Edge from then on.
Read the first issue here (Score:1)
http://www.64apocalypse.com/images/cvg/mag1.htm
Hopefully they don't get slashdotted. Wow, was it really 30 years ago that I started typiing in games by hand from this magazine.... then realised that I could modify and adapt them the more I leant about BASIC. Result : 20 year career in IT coming up this July.