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In The Beginning, There Were Video Game Magazines
simoniker writes "The early history of video game mags doesn't get explored much, but over at GameSetWatch, there's a new column that looks at the dawn of game magazines, from Computer & Video Games' 1981 UK launch to Electronic Games' same-year U.S. launch. The column's writer, Kevin Gifford, who also runs the Magweasel website dedicated to documenting old video games, also claims of the early days: 'Terms like easter egg, scrolling, and screenshot were originally coined by [Electronic Games editor and co-founder Bill] Kunkel.'"
Actually, in the beginning there was the Nintendo Fun Club.
Well, before Nintendo Power at least. Maybe not *THE* begining.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
The two top mags were Crash and Your Sinclair, both of which are pretty much completely available online.
It's not much of an article! OK, so it covers the very beginning, and is only a short column, but there's an awful lot it misses out. Sure, it mentions C&VG, and indeed, the whole industry read it at the time, here in the UK. But Sinclair User came along shortly afterwards and garnered a sizeable following. There's also no mention of the Newsfield publications. Crash and Zzap!64 really were the defining magazines of the 1980s computer gaming scene.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Was that the magazine where 3 revieweres would score each game? I loved that scheme! I remember they reviewed a flight sim that specialized in realtime commercial jet flight. 2 of the reviewers found it boring as hell and gave it around 50%, but one reviewer "got it" and gave it about 97%. All 3 viewpoints were perfectly valid and rounded out the review that much more.