A history of video game magazines

Before the Internet came about, people had to rely on other media for their news and information. For video game fans in the ’80s and ’90s, that meant specialist magazines. Back in the day, these publications were the only real link between video game fans and the industry. As such, the arrival of a new issue was a highly anticipated event. It was a months worth of news, previews, reviews and tips in one package; like getting all your web trawling in one condensed hit.

Starting at the Start

The first computer and video game magazines started appearing on newsstands in the early ’80s. One of the most successful, and longest running, was the UK’s CVG (Computer & Video Games). It was launched in November 1981 and covered the then fledgling 8bit computers. The ones you could assemble yourself if you had an advanced degree in beards, i.e. the early Spectrum ZX80 and some other glorified calculators.

As the British computer industry began to develop, a number of seminal magazines popped up. Zzap!64 and Crash covered the Commodore 64 and Spectrum (respectively). Both titles were published by the same company and featured the distinctive, airbrushed artwork of Oli Frey on their covers. They were also staffed by people whose only real qualifications were their high scores down the local arcade.

The UK may have released the first regular games magazines, but the US computer market was considerably more advanced. Rather than Spectrums and Dragons and Acorns, the US was all about the Apple II, Tandy computers and the newly arrived XT and AT PC compatibles. These systems were profiled in publications like Compute! magazine. Compute! began life in 1978 and ran until 1994. It started off covering systems like the Commodore Pet and Atari 8bit computers — offering type in programs that people could enter in BASIC. As the years rolled on the focus changed to PC clones, Commodore 64s and Amiga 500s. For a while Compute! was one of the best selling and most reputable magazines in the industry — the mid to late 80s being a particularly profitable period.

While these early publications set the industry in motion, by the mid 80s an increasing number of international magazines had emerged. None would prove as influential and prophetic as Japan’s Famitsu. Launched in 1986 to cover Nintendo’s Famicom [NES to us], the magazine enjoyed huge domestic success — thanks largely to the popularity of Nintendo’s Famicom and the lack of any real competition. At the same time, Famitsu became an unofficial preview of where the Japanese video game industry was heading; something that would become increasingly relevant as the 80s came to a close.

Nintendo vs. Sega

The rise of Nintendo’s 8bit system (and the new home consoles that followed), fundamentally changed both the games industry and the publications that covered it. The video game crash of the early ’80s had seen home consoles sidelined in favour of home computers. This was the case throughout the mid ’80s and the magazines on newsstands reflected this computer bias. The success of the NES (initially in a Japan and later the rest of the world) turned the market on its head. All of a sudden, PC compatibles and C64 games didn’t look so hot. Not when you compared them to the likes of Super Mario Bros or Mega Man. By the late ’80s the NES had single handedly resurrected the video game market and reintroduced the home console. Naturally, publishers wanted a piece of the action.

Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) was launched in the US in 1989 to take advantage of this video game boom and soon became the country’s flagship games publication. It was founded by high school dropout Steve Harris — a member of the US National Video Game Team. He initially started a publication called Electronic Game Player in 1986 but it hit the wall after four issues. A small Chicago magazine distributor though the magazine had promise and offered Harris $70,000 to start another publication in exchange for the distribution rights. Within the space of a year the magazine was being sold in over 50,000 US locations.

Although EGM was the first multi-format publication in the US with proper distribution, Nintendo’s in-house publication had debuted a year earlier. Nintendo Power began life as a newsletter for members of the ‘Nintendo Fun Club’. This was revamped into a full magazine in 1988 and 3.6 million copies of the launch issue were sent out free to members. Approximately 1/3 of these took up the subscription offer. Still around today, Nintendo Power is best known for its Dragon Quest [Dragon Warrior] promo in the late 80s — all subscribers were given a free copy of Enix’s Dragon Warrior game. Despite being a blockbuster in Japan, the game hadn’t sold as well as expected in the US and Nintendo figured the promo was a good way to dump their excess inventory and introduce JRPGs to the US.

While the arrival of the NES in the US saw a number of new magazines launched to support it, the UK (initially anyway) adopted a different strategy — incorporating coverage into its existing multi-format games magazines. CVG was the largest circulating publication at the time and former Zzap!64 writer Julian Rignall had resurfaced there as a writer and eventual editor. With Rignall’s backing a new sub-section was introduced in CVG dedicated to the latest Japanese imports. Known as Mean Machines, it first ran in 1987, showcasing import titles for the NES, Master System and PC Engine.

Within three years the UK’s console market had grown so rapidly that the decision was made to launch Mean Machines as a stand alone publication. The first couple of issues covered the NES, Master System, Megadrive and Amstrad GX4000. This was quickly changed to a Sega and Nintendo focus as it became apparent that the Amstrad was ‘fail’ wrapped in grey plastic. Although it only lasted in its original incarnation for two years, Mean Machines made a huge impact on the publishing industry. The magazine’s irreverent tone, editorial honesty and the way it included readers in the opening editorial pages helped it build a loyal fan base. By 1992 the magazine was so popular the publishers decided to split it into two separate entities (Mean Machines Sega and Nintendo Magazine System) in a bid to increase sales and revenue. It worked. But neither magazine was as good as the original.

Hardcore JRPG Girl Gamer monthly

Mean Machines showed that there was a market for UK video game magazines and numerous competing titles soon entered the fray. These new publications were usually aligned with either Sega or Nintendo and ranged from the good (Megatech), to the shambolic (Sega Pro). One of the most notable UK magazines to emerge around this time was the Super Nintendo dedicated Super Play. Launched in 1992, Super Play distinguished itself from the competition by focusing heavily on import RPGs, Japanese games and anime. Super Play was basically hardcore Otaku before people knew what that term meant. This obsession with all things Japanese and import extended to the anime themed covers and the layout as much as it did the articles and features.

While the video game industry and associated magazines were chugging along very nicely in the early ’90s, the focus was still very much on teenage boys in the bedrooms. This was reflected by the writing and smutty jokes found in many of the publications. With a new generation of consoles on the horizon (3DO, Atari Jaguar, Sega’s Project Mars and Nintendo’s CD add-on), it became apparent that there was a gap in the market for an altogether different magazine. A serious, industry based publication aimed at an older demographic. Something like Edge.

Announced in 1993 with advertisements claiming it ‘wasn’t for everyone’, the first issue of Edge came bound in black plastic — forcing people to buy it if they wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Anyway, the magazine came along at just the right time and quickly built up a modest, but hardcore following. It became synonymous for its in-depth looks at the industry, uncompromising review stance and anonymous, third person writing style. Perhaps more than any other magazine, Edge adopted a feature heavy look at the industry from the word go. Incidentally, an Australian version of Edge was briefly launched in 2004. It was sub-edited by a blind person and lasted all of six issues.

Shiny discs, Hyper and Solid Snake

Around the same time Edge was being launched in the UK, the magazine you’re currently holding in your hands debuted on newsagent shelves. Stuart Clark was the first editor of Hyper and we figured we’d let him explain how the whole thing came about in his own words

“In the days Before Hyper, I edited a games magazine called Megazone, which was supposedly multi-format and independent but as Sega Ozisoft (at the time, by far Australia’s largest games distributor) published it, it really wasn’t. It was almost entirely previews and reviews of Sega games and Ozisoft PC titles, but as the Mega Drive was the current hot console and Ozisoft had most of the good PC games, it did well anyway. It fact, it did so well that Ozisoft sold it off to a professional magazine publisher.”

Shortly after Megazone was sold off and he jumped ship, Clark received a call from Next Media (Hyper’s old publisher). Next wanted to launch a new multi-format video game magazine and wanted Clark to head the publication. Taking inspiration from UK titles like C&VG and Mean Machines, the debut issue of Hyper went on sale two months later, October 1993. Meanwhile, Megazone went bust within the year. It was a sign of things to come.

As the 16bit era came to a close in the mid ’90s and a new generation of consoles arrived, the publishing industry saw widespread magazine closures and consolidations. While multi-format titles (EGM, C&VG, Edge, Hyper) survived and prospered, the format specific publications were either re-launched or gradually killed off. That left a lot of people out of a job. Luckily, Sony’s Playstation was there to pick up the slack. As the console began to redefine the video game market, a host of new publications sprung up in support.

Official Playstation Magazine (OPM) was launched in the UK in 1995 and quickly became the biggest Playstation magazine around. By 1997 it was selling over 150,000 copies a month, a figure helped considerably by the cover mounted demo discs that accompanied each issue. While said discs cost very little to manufacture, the demos and previews they contained became a major selling point. In fact, the February 1999 issue of OPM sold a staggering 453,000 copies in the UK. You can attribute that to the Metal Gear Solid cover and the attached demo disc. As for all those 10/10 ratings the magazine liked to throw around to cover exclusives — well, we won’t comment on that ;)

It’s the Internet!

While cover mounted demo discs were revolutionising magazine marketing, behind the scenes something far more interesting was taking place. By 1996, the Internet was a proper ‘thing’ and people were beginning to understand the opportunities it presented. For magazine publishers, that meant a reappraisal of their whole business model, i.e. they weren’t just pushing hardcopy previews and reviews in a magazine — they were selling information. And they way they did that was about to change forever.

Although video game websites can be traced back to the early 90s, they were little more than text based newsletters. The first contemporary sites started to go up around 1996 and were spurred on by the arrival of 56k modems and affordable download plans. IGN was one of the first commercial websites to spring up and it went live in 1998. It origins, however, can be traced back to 1996 when the publishers of the US based Next Generation magazine decided they wanted to get a foot in the online world. They set up former magazine editor Doug Perry in a small office with some computers and internet connections and told him to get busy. Over the next two years Perry helped group a loose collection of websites (N64.com, PSX Power and Saturn World) under the IGN banner. Let’s hope he was well paid because News Corp bought the entire IGN network for $650 million eight years later.

While IGN and Gamespot were two of the first video game websites to emerge in the late 90s, they’re since been joined by countless web forums, blogs, and competing sites. Not to mention a million rabid fanboys with their finger hovering over the Caps Lock key. All this online action has of course had a significant impact on print media.

Regardless, hardcopy magazines have survived. And they’ll continue to survive. While they can’t offer the same 24 hour news cycle (and outraged fan diatribes), they can provide more in-depth analysis. Once the dust has settled, it’s usually the monthly periodicals that are putting the information in context and providing an overview of the wider industry.

Besides, there’s nothing quite like opening a new magazine, fresh from the printers, and turning to your favourite section. That was the case in 1981 when C&VG launched and it still holds true today; 17 years later, in the 15th anniversary issue of Hyper.

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(This article was originally published in Hyper magazine a long time ago…)

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