What should I do with my old video game magazines now that every single video game magazine has been scanned, uploaded, and archived.
I also have a number of instruction manuals.
You used to need a Bachelor's degree in Journalism just to write for one of these things.
Toilet paper.
Dunno man.
I hardly enjoy replaying games from my childhood but from time to time I do enjoy reading old video game magazines (not some scanned copy from archive.org), really kicks me back to the past.
Sell them on eBay.
Keep them.
Old magazines are really cool now since they are a relic of the past. New magazines are basically vinyl records, people buy them for the novelty. These existed to get up to date info back in the day which is why they are fun to reread.
I had subs to:
Expert Gamer
EGM
Tips n Tricks
Official Xbox Magazine
Thinking back I spent a lot of time reading these. Something golden and magical about needing to open Tips n Tricks or search for the right issue to find cheat codes for my vidya.
>New magazines are basically vinyl records, people buy them for the novelty.
There's something admittedly soul crushing about being a writer whose articles become obsolete less than a day after they've been printed. News has always been like that; yesterday's paper too has lost value in so little time. But VG mags were meant to last. For some, it was all the news someone would receive for an entire month, leading some to read them from cover to cover. It's a part of being a gamer today that's absent.
I buy records to listen to, buddy.
Tips 'n Tricks is not completely scanned, not by a long shot.
>.cbz
wat
cbz = zip file
cbr = rar file
Not all comic readers can handle rar for whatever reasons so cbz is still common.
I like the tiny cover icons, it's a nice touch
What's the best website for retro gaming mags if I don't want to download every single issue of a magazine? Sega Retro is great but it's only Sega stuff
retromags
Go to Downloads, Magazines, (select region), (select magazine title)
Then you can download individual issues. They have almost everything scanned with quality and archival purposes in mind.
Unless I'm just blind or moronic, I wish there was a way to search for issues that were published between certain dates and with certain keywords
For example let's say I want to search for any issue of any magazine published between 1995 and 2000 that has anything about Resident Evil. The date options in the search only seem to be for when it was uploaded or updated, not when the magazine was actually published
Yeah, I don't think keywords are implemented. Would probably require some monumental effort to look through every page of every magazine to tag what's in them. Could be worth suggesting on their forums but I don't think they have enough people to do it without a shit ton of volunteers.
They do have key words, they just don't allow searching for publishing dates as far as I know
Sounds like a good use for ML/AI
Since magazines are effectively over and done with as a medium, every magazine that exists (for video games anyway at least) will likely be all that will ever exist, so grab what you can because it's never coming back. Ever.
I was thinking the past couple of weeks about starting a DVD collection of some of my favorite movies, then immediately thinking about how I should just get the Blu Ray discs instead since there will never be a better optical media format ever again since now optical medium is officially a dying/dead medium for distribution and digital will soon be the only means of watching any of this.
Too many autistics means hard copies of films will continue to exist, I just believe blu ray will remain the final format.
They are still pressing vinyl for God’s sake.
When 8k becomes a thing, even good internet connections will struggle with it, so I’m sure 8k blu rays will come out and exist for the enthusiast market.
>8k
lmao, I still use a 1680x1050 / 1024x768 as my main dual monitor setup, I don't understand the obsession with hi res beyond 1080p
I understand 4k for desktop work environments. Photo and video editing on a large 4k monitor has many benefits.
For retro, it also means CRT shaders will look pretty damn close to the real thing.
Other than that I’m with you. 1080p for film and games is more than enough for me, especially games. At 4k you’re just wasting fricktons of resources on a slightly crisper picture you can’t even notice unless your eyes are right up to the screen.
If you watch a 1080p and 4k film from 6-8 feet away you will literally not be able to tell a difference.
Its so disappointing. We could have newer disc formats equivalent to M-disc as an alternative to digital/streaming, but companies are too cheap or controlling to want to offer multiple options for different demographics.
I don't really care about video resolution but I do care about music sound quality and I wish "Super Audio CD" and all that other shit was commercially viable
At the very least, we can take solace that we can still read well researched coffee table books written by journos
I actually love looking at my real magazine in my hands and looking up the screen and seeing the high quality scan someone made. I have no idea how to describe it but it's a nice feeling, a combination of "I actually have what's on screen", and "look you are preserved forever".
I'm keeping all my most precious magazines, I wish I had more, even considered buying some issues I'm missing, but actual physical space on an apartment is at a premium.
I don't know how others can stand it but some movies have some intense camera movement / rapid pattern changes that, depending on the streaming service and compression used, becomes a complete garbled mess. I was thinking I should buy some of the stuff I like the most on blurays because the versions I've seen on streaming are nearly unwatchable at parts.
But BluRay stuff in general never had that massive drop in price like CDs and DVDs back in the day, BluRay players, burners and all that is kinda pricey still.
As a printed media gay, idk about collecting mags as a hobby, but the shift from dvd to blu ray to just friggin streaming is alarming.
>i buy old mags and comics just for poo poo reads
Keep them, tard. Unless you are an unfortunate soul living in a tiny one room apartment.
I just keep them. When I invite zoomer girls from dating apps over to my house they love to browse through these old mags. Zoomers aren't even used to magazines in the first place so it's a novelty for them.
>You used to need a Bachelor's degree in Journalism just to write for one of these things
No you didn't, people were mostly hired because they knew someone, same as today. Journalism was always corrupt, people just weren't aware of that before.
t. worked in a non-English language gaming magazine in 00s, got hired because I knew someone
And before you say that our magazine was just a shitty one, I've been to international events, I've seen how other people work, if anything we were better than average. Most "journalists" did zero preparation for interviews, usually I was the only guy in the room with actual questions, everyone else was just trying to joke around with the PR people. Needless to say most of them ended up in marketing themselves, they've spent their careers getting to know the right people instead of actually doing any kind of journalism and it paid off for them. Also a lot of gaming events had drinks and journalists were actually getting shitfaced, no kidding. And they would later write game previews based on their drunken memories of a game. And of course goodie bags were the norm, and the publisher of the game you're seeing would pay for your international trip, a hotel and even treat you to meals at restaurants. That's in 2000s, before that it was even worse apparently.
>t. worked in a non-English language gaming magazine in 00s
So by your own admission you worked for companies that didn't have standards during a time period when gaming magazines didn't have standards in a language outside of a collegiate system. During the 00s, the time when self publishing became a thing and anyone could start up their own zine.
Okay.
But that wouldn't have flown for say, Video Games and Computer Entertainment magazine or Nintendo Power back in 1992, a time when even Maggie Chun, the Advertising Production Director had an Associates degree at the very minimum.
For Gamepro magazine when someone came in and said that their name was "Scary Larry" they didn't just accept it at face value. People had meetings. "Is this Larry scary enough to write for Gamepro magazine?" the editors would ask themselves.
>So by your own admission
Yeah now keep reading my post. I won't quote it, just go back and read. I don't know what was happening in the 90s but in 00s I can guarantee there no standards. And major publishers buying up coverage wasn't a local phenomenon, they were doing it worldwide, everyone at an EA event gets flown there by EA, housed by EA, fed by EA and leaves with a goodie bag from EA and when they come back home, EA will read their article and if it doesn't like it you won't get their ads in your magazine and magazines depended on ads, not sales. How unbiased do you think we were? Stop being naive
>self publishing became a thing and anyone could start up their own zine
You think zines got flown to preview events by EA? What are we talking about here. You can publish whatever you want but the big boys won't sit at your table
Maybe for some lower level magazine like Gamefan or Tips n' Tricks but i don't think you could get hired at EGM without a real interview and credentials.
>now that every single video game magazine has been scanned, uploaded, and archived.
not every UK and Spaniard ones, or at least they aren't public.
Dunno why you're mentioning the latter but its probably better that they'd hire trained journos.
You could probably donate them to a physical library, who knows maybe having physical back ups in case the digital resources go somehow might be good. Should double check that your mags are all uploaded first
I've been taking out random pages and hanging them in my game room as posters.
It's free and looks pretty damn good.
>You used to need a Bachelor's degree in Journalism just to write for one of these things.
I can believe it. One needs to be a real scholar to bang out high brow periodicals for the gaming world.
>every single video game magazine has been scanned, uploaded, and archived.
if only man, far from the case for jp mags. thinking about importing 'cause its the only way to read so many of them. not even famitsu is really archived past 1994.
The autists at retromags don't accept random pdf magazines and OCDly rescan everything themselves with better quality, so might still be worth checking if you have any that are missing. It's insane how easily things are lost to time.
I collect them all and sell the duplicates. They display nicely and are super nostalgic. Some are notorious like a particular issue of gamefan magazine which had racial slurs that got published.
Anyways, buy my magazines.
I feel like such an idiot for giving away so many of these during college. There's something about Official Dreamcast magazines that had a premium feel to them. I think it's because the outer cover was coated with a special kind of paper. A lot of game magazines used cheap paper but these had some weight to them and wouldn't tear, fold, or bend so easily. Just really high quality paper like what you'd expect from a hotel lobby or an airport.
I noticed this aswell actually. Most of my personal magazines from childhood got devastated through time and usage. The only ones that held their own were ones of higher quality like GMR magazine for example. I used and read the crap out of it and the covers are almost pristine to this day.