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The Lost Art of the Game Company Newsletter

Posted by Zonk on from the lucasarts-newsletter-where-sam-and-max-had-their-day dept.

simoniker writes "Over at GameSetWatch, Kevin Gifford has been talking about the history of the video game company newsletter, explaining it as '...a concept that's likely completely alien to people who began their game careers anytime after the SNES. During the classic era, and especially during the NES years, free newsletters were a common way for third-party software makers to build a mailing list and advertise directly to consumers.' He then shows off some scans of some of his own collection, including newsletters from Acclaim, FCI, and even Natsume."

3 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Offline... by Misch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the board/card/table gaming world, Looney Labs does a pretty good job with their mailing lists. Yes, they keep up on the games that are being released, but since it's practically a small family operation, they have blog entries and such that go out as well.

    --

    --You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
  2. Re:I miss good newsletters by connect4 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember reading an old Sierra On-line newsletter in the mid 80's that came in the box with Space Quest II, there was a story in there about how Steve Wozniak had suffered amnesia after a plane crash. He had written to Sierra to congratulate them on "Mystery House" for the Apple II, which he had enjoyed playing during his recovery, even though he was apparently unaware at the time of his own role in devoloping the computer used to play the game. I got the impression that the guys at Sierra were pretty pleased with themselves.

    I wish I still had those newsletters . . . they're a piece of gaming history now.

  3. I miss game humor by kjs3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Forget the company newsletters...I miss the gaming humor sites like Old Man Murray & BitchX Gaming Insider.