The Richard Monteiro - Paragon Publishing - interview
When we talk about old video game magazines on this site it’s usually from the perspective of the writers, editors, and fans. Which is great. But there is another side to all this - the publishers, i.e. the companies behind the scenes that hold the money bags and make things happen.
So it was a real privilege to speak with Richard Monteiro. If you don’t know, he started his career as a staff writer with Amstrad Action, eventually went freelance, and ultimately co-founded Paragon Publishing - which was responsible for magazines like Sega Pro, Play, Games (™) and a bunch of others.
You can read more about Sega Pro here.
Or more about its precursor - Raze magazine - here.
But for a more detailed look at what it took to get a publishing company off the ground in the 90s there’s the interview below…
What did you want to do differently when you launched Paragon Publishing to stand out from other magazines and publishers?
When you’re young, dumb and full of conviction, you’re invincible. In your own head, at least. There wasn’t much thought about needing to do things differently, better, faster, and all that. Or indeed if it was sensible to enter the world of magazine publishing given the established players in the market. However, there was an understanding that the next generation of gaming consoles was looming and the excitement in the potential of the 16-bit platform was palpable. Add to that a handful of teens-to-twenty-somthings with nous and an overabundance of passion, and it turns out you have all the ingredients for a publishing company. Paragon Publishing was duly formed and Sega Pro launched.
Magazines at the time focused on the 8-bit machines – the Master System and NES. Sega’s Mega Drive launched in 1988 in Japan, was rebranded Genesis for the 1989 North American release, and finally made it to Europe in 1990 as the Mega Drive. Sega Pro rode the pre-European launch wave. So yes, it was different to other magazines in its focus.
Much of the innovation was in the design and behind the scenes. Production was completely digital and went direct to film. The then technology was pushed to breaking point. Pages took hours to output, and would invariably time out and need tweaking, due to the size and complexity of background images and screen grabs. This was all leading-edge stuff. But we didn’t appreciate it at the time. The team grew up with computers and consoles. It was all we knew. Most publications at the time were pondering the transition from paste-up. Gleefully we splashed around in the digital deep end.
Did your approach to magazines change when you moved from an editorial position to publisher? Did the business and the editorial side of things ever clash?
Inevitably there has to be a change of thinking when moving from an editor to a publisher. The bottom line becomes all important. Especially for a start-up without a backer, go-fund me page, or the security of a bulging bank account. In an editorial or design capacity, you always want more and better – more pages, more staff, more freelance budget, better paper, better equipment… The flatplan is almighty whereas the spreadsheet is evil incarnate. From a publishing perspective, the spreadsheet takes precedence.
Did it lead to bust-ups, walkouts and ill-feeling. It would be great to detail such drama, but perhaps mild disappointment was about as dramatic as it ever got. Ultimately we all wanted the same thing and that was to produce magazines about gaming and, later, other subjects.
You launched several magazines across various formats. Can you tell us a little about that process and what goes on behind the scenes. What does it take to (successfully) launch a magazine? I assume numerous aspects need to align for it to work, i.e., the gaming platform, the market positioning, the staff, design and layout, etc.
In the early days of Paragon Publishing, deciding to launch a magazine was more gut feel and enthusiasm rather than market research. Of course as the business grew, there was more deliberation, analysis, and spreadsheeting.
Regardless, certain new launches were easier to justify than others. For instance, introducing Play for the PlayStation market was as close to a no-brainer as such things get. Being in the gaming ecosystem, we were all aware the console was going to be launched to great fanfare. Sony did a great job of prepping the gaming press. It really was a case of when to push the button.
Our first magazine, Sega Pro, was a step into the unknown. Everything afterwards benefitted from a tried and tested methodology. In other words, there was no mystery to the required ingredients. Even before a spreadsheet-backed publishing decision was made, a logo and rough designs plus editorial content would have been produced by members of an existing team. In the early days this would have landed on the shoulders of Damian Butt and Mark Kendrick. Having these early design/editorial concepts focused everyone on what was needed – a team, production capacity, printer, distributor. Of course getting everything together wasn’t as easy as the planning. Enticing anyone to work in the often dense atmosphere of Trowbridge was a delicate process…
The early to mid 90s saw various platforms competing for market share, but as the decade wore on it got whittled down to Sega, Nintendo, Sony and PCs. How did that consolidation impact the publishing industry?
Because we only published single-format titles, the consolidation helped us. Multi-format magazines had an uneasy time as polarisation occurred. Once a gamer settled on a system, that was all that mattered – 100 percent saturation. Everything else was inconsequential. Single format magazines fulfilled that need.
Speaking of Sony, did the arrival of the Playstation alter the demographics for gaming magazines, and did that impact Paragon? Was there suddenly new opportunities when it came to audiences and advertising dollars?
For sure the average age of the gamer increased with the arrival of the PlayStation. But that didn’t translate into extra advertising revenue streams for us. Lifestyle marketing agencies weren’t nimble enough to recognise the opportunities early on. And neither were we. By the time both sides became switched on to the idea, the larger publishers with presence in various vertical markets locked in the agencies.
Rather than chase this revenue we focused on publishing opportunities. Is there more we can do in this market? PowerStation was a relative move into the unknown in terms of viability. Most of the feedback from the other titles came in the form of requests of help progressing in games. How do you defeat the level boss? Where do you find the key? How do you get to such and such? The requests kept coming as the games got ever more complex. PowerStation proved to be an instant hit with its comprehensive gaming tips and complete walkthroughs. It was a huge editorial and design effort as games had to completed, screen-grabbed and written up. The effort was clearly recognised by readers… Although we had a few run-ins with software companies for revealing too much too soon.
When did the internet start to impact print magazines and did you have a strategy to respond?
The internet hadn’t started to have an impact on print magazines during my time at Paragon. Quite the opposite. It was the next wave. And everyone wanted to know what it was, how to get connected, and what was there to be discovered. It led to several publishing opportunities, including the monthly Internet Made Easy.
Even with the approaching new millennium, there wasn’t an appreciation or concern the internet was going to impact print in the way it has. All that came a little later.
Looking back at magazine layout/design from the early 90s it was still quite structured and clean, but as the decade progressed it seems layouts got busier and more information was being packaged into smaller spaces. Do you think the Internet and the early online aesthetic influenced magazine design, or were other factors at play?
Magazine design in the early 90s was a reflection of the techniques and technology of the time – ie, paste-up and limited computer functionality. The design had to be simple and boxy. Paragon was fully digital from the start and unbridled by such constrains. Sega Pro hit the shelves with psychedelic backgrounds and barely legible text. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. But we did and enjoyed pushing the boundaries. The readers didn’t mind either – even if they did end up with eye strain.
Inevitably, as the decade wore on, other publishers became fully digital and pages became busier and busier. The combination of digital layout and readily-sourced information from the internet resulted in an explosion of creativity.
On that note, I wanted to ask you about Raze, which I believe you managed the content for under Words Works Limited. I really liked Raze, but the content and sections felt quite loose and a bit disconnected - can you talk us through the design and editorial process there and your involvement.
Having been at Future Publishing in the early days, when the headcount was half a dozen, I cavalierly decided after several years on Amstrad Action and then ST Format that progression through the swelling ranks was going to be long and uncertain. Naively figuring I’d seen enough and knew enough, I went freelance and embarked on various editorial adventures. This included time at Newsfield – fortress to Crash, Zzap!64 and The Games Machine – presided over by the legendary Oliver Frey et al. The Games Machine was stuttering and needing a facelift given a maturing audience and competition from Future’s ACE.
A combination of events led to me picking up the contract to relaunch The Games Machine as Raze from Trowbridge. Looking back it’s extraordinary the Freys agreed to anything so outlandish, but it’s a measure of the desperation they were in at the time – something I didn’t appreciate until the collapse of Newsfield. All I knew was I enjoyed the freedom of freelancing and didn’t want to have to put in stints 150 miles away from home.
Lack of direction from the owners, probably due to financial distraction, meant the small editorial team assembled in Somerset was left to spin the words after which designers in Shropshire tried to make sense of it all. Little wonder there was disconnect. Ultimately it was held together by enthusiasm and passion. But even that wasn’t enough 12 months down the line. Remember, this was at a time before Skype, Zoom and all manner of collaborative tools were available. We caught the remote working wave far too early.
Sega Pro was another childhood favorite of mine - and looking back at the contributors list there are several high profile names that went on to have long careers in the industry - how did you find your writers and what made them stand out?
In the midst of Razing Hell, the idea of launching a magazine, Sega Pro, focusing on the impending release of the Mega Drive was born. The plan was to entice editorial and design talent from Bath-based Future Publishing to the dreamy destination of Trowbridge. Initial recruiting failure to one side, the scouts – ie, me – went on the hunt for local talent. And had to continue doing so for the first few launches. As it turned out, commitment and passion more than made up for a modicum of experience. Interviews were not elaborate or expansive or at all insightful – more along the lines of ‘what’s your high score on Sonic the Hedgehog’, ‘what do you think of Streets of Rage’, ‘what games machine do you have’. Yes, different times.
Without doubt we got lucky recruiting. We managed to assemble an extraordinarily dedicated group who simply didn’t accept ‘work day over’. Work and play were the same thing. There was a tangible buzz and desire to be published. That passion more than made up for any shortfall in experience. Subconsciously it became the sought-after trait during interviews.
Anything else you’d like to share or like us to ask about?
Paragon Publishing started on a first floor room adjacent to a drum studio and above a photographer trading as Flix Studio. The latter provided endless amusement as its trading name, emblazoned in upper case on a letter board, was subtly adjusted on a daily basis so the ‘L’ and ‘I’ combined to better reflect what we thought was really going on. Meanwhile the drumming always started at the most inopportune moment, deep into conversation with some software company about their impending release and how we could get our hands on a pre-release ROM. Happy days.
