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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.'"
b-but C&VG was a cross-format (including arcade) mag which was there before the individual platforms were strong enough to support their own magazines - the article is 'looks at the dawn of' rather than 'more influential'. all the mags you mention are more breakfasttime than dawn 8)
Games magazines sure have come a long way. I still have some old ones from the early 90s and they are written in such varying voices. Some magazines read like trade publications, others were for retail store owners, some were from pen-and-paper and play-by-mail fans... but as a 10 year-old I was only interested in the games and the technology. My potential IQ probably dropped 30 points when I started subscribing to Nintendo Power since the writing style was so juvenile in comparison, but that magazine treated me well too - I, like 30% of subscribers (so boasts one ad in the magazine), still have every single issue in my garage.
When CDROM was on the horizon and everyone was drooling over juicy screenies of The 7th Guest and Myst, one magazine (PC Games and Computer Entertainment maybe?) actually split into two - one dedicated to CDROM titles - and were sold together in a plastic bag. Others started packing floppies, and later on, (gasp!) CDs. I requested some free sample CDs from advertisers which had demos of hundreds upon hundreds of games per disc which really whet my appetite for multimedia.
I'm glad the internet didn't become popular until well after the video game - and video game magazine - boom. The web is slowly killing the print medium, and I'm quite sure I won't have years worth of web archives in 10 years. I cherish and reread my old games magazines all the time and I wouldn't trade them for all the buckazoids on Xenon.
The early nintendo power magazines were good during the NES era, gamepro and EGM took over during the SNES/Genesis/Arcade/Playstation, but I stopped buying mags just before the playstation was released, they all lost most of their value as the internet became the hub for video game info.