When will we see a monthly retro-gaming magazine?

[icbrkr]

Actually it's one year. Retro Gamer is now published every 4 weeks (52 / 4 = 13 issues). It has never been bimonthly apart from right at the very start when Live created the magazine. It went monthly shortly after, and Imagine made it 4 weekly when they took over.

Actually, that's not entirely true I don't think. I double-checked and you're correct, it's monthly. When the magazine was resurrected around issue 20ish, was it not brought back minus the CD and went to bi-monthly orignally? I could have read it wrong but I'm too lazy to go look for that issue to double check

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

A monthly print 'zine all about retrogaming simply isn't going to happen. It's been tried. Even with the enthusiasm and love that only fans can work up, it has yet to prove to be financially feasible. It's much more expensive than you might think.

The reason retrogaming lives on the web is simple: you're talking about a demographic that lives to buy stuff at deeply discounted prices, if not trading or bartering for it with absolutely no money involved. It's simply not a demographic that people are lining up to advertise to; the stores and vendors targeting that demographic are already out there on the web or at the various shows, which is about as much outreach as they can afford. Print magazines live and die by ad revenue, not by subscription base.

VGC (which, I believe, is quarterly) and the DP 'zine are about it, so support them - it's the best deal you're probably going to get, and I can personally recommend both of them to you.

[Mayhem]

Actually, that's not entirely true I don't think. I double-checked and you're correct, it's monthly. When the magazine was resurrected around issue 20ish, was it not brought back minus the CD and went to bi-monthly orignally? I could have read it wrong but I'm too lazy to go look for that issue to double check

RG started with Live Publishing in January 2004. It was originally going to be quarterly, but the response to the first issue meant that they changed it to bimonthly when issue #2 launched. Continued success and sales meant they switched to monthly at issue #4. There it continued monthly (with a CD covermount) until they went down the pan shortly after issue #18 hit the shelves.

There followed the Retro Survival project headed by Andy F and constructed by me to release the "lost" issue #19 articles. Just as we were about to launch in November 2005, Imagine Publishing announced they'd bought the rights to RG and would be restarting the magazine. The first new issue from Imagine, issue #19 (containing almost completely new material from what would have been in the Live issue #19) launched just before Xmas and has been every 4 weeks ever since, resulting in 13 issues per year.

Nothing like putting the pressure down a little harder on us writers

[robotriot]

There's also the German mag Retro, it's quarterly though I believe. It's a merger of the Go64 and Retro Magazin magazines, and it has some interesting articles in it, a nice modern layout plus a poster. It also regularily features news on current homebrew game projects.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

As much as we love retro-gaming, seriously what could you fill a magazine with that isn't already out there? angry nintendonerdesque reviews? price lists...what? theres just not alot of "new" content that would warrent people paying for it. Any interesting content you'd come up with would already be online, and most if not all people who are retrogamers are already on the internet, it just woudln't work.

First and foremost, I think you could have some very interesting articles. Articles about specific experiences or games or genres or systems or periods in the history of video games. Maybe the raw facts included in those articles would indeed be readily available online, but the value of an article doesn't come from the facts it contains, but the way those facts expressed and in some cases when the writing is good enough even the facts don't matter.

Then reviews, yes you can find reviews for most games online, but you have to seek them out. If you were subscribing to a magazine, the reviews would be delivered to you, so you might find out about a game that you hadn't ever given any thought to are maybe had never even heard of and never would have heard of otherwise. And again, like the articles, the reviews would be about more than just describing what is good and bad about any given game. They would be articles in themselves.

Take a look at some classic issues of VG&CE sometime. VG&CE never relied on breaking news or the hot new thing for their content, it was made up of editorials, in-depth articles, Q&A and all sorts of other great unique stuff. And it was probably the best video game magazine of its time.

Or hell, take a look at Digital Press. I get the feeling that not many people here have ever subscribed to DP. I don't subscribe currently, but I did for a few years when I was in college ("a few years" = 5 issues) and their content was always great.

There'd be no shortage of content. Look how active these forums are.


...word is bondage...

[cyberfluxor]

Never realised it but Hardcore Gamer magazine is free online. I'm so late seeing these things. Never bought one of their magazines before but see them at GameStop and have been tempted to read, espcially last months cover about retro gaming.