FEATURES
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Mean Machines Sega
“I knew the Sega Saturn was going to struggle,”
Former Mean Machines Sega editor Steve Merrett had a first hand perspective of Sega’s rise and fall in the 90s. Here’s the inside story.
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Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM)
EGM didn’t just shake up the U.S. publishing landscape, it provided an alternative to the U.K. gaming media we knew in PAL territories.es here
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Computer and Video Games (CVG)
Computer and Video Games magazine ran for four decades. But I’m interested in the magazine’s early 90s heyday.
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Super Play magazine
“On the whole Super Play was left alone by the suits at Future publishing, so we did pretty much what we wanted.”
I spoke to Wil Overton about anime, grey imports, and the 47 Super Play magazine covers he illustrated.
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NGamer magazine
“By and large, the internet felt like a huge beast of a competitor, beating us to news, previews and reviews of just about everything.” Former NGamer editor Mark Green talks Nintendo fandom, cover-mounted DVDs, and the arrival of social media.
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Sega Pro
Richard Monteiro made his name as a staff-writer for various 8bit magazines before launching his own publishing company. Sega Pro was the first magazine he released and the start of the Paragon Publishing empire.
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Megazone
Megazone’s influence on Australian gaming can’t be underestimated. It made Sega a household name, sold a generation of kids on the Master System, and took the Mega Drive to even greater heights. But behind the scenes the line between editorial and marketing was precariously thin.
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GamePro
Launched in 1989 to cover the rapidly growing U.S. home console market, GamePro would become one of the leading video game publications of the era, eventually branching out into TV, trade shows, and this wild new thing called ‘the Internet’
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Sega Power
Former Sega Power editor Dean Mortlock takes us behind the scenes as the 90s console scene develops.
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MegaTech
Founding editor Paul Glancey talks about the evolution of CVG magazine, the state of the Mean Machines office, and how that led to MegaTech.
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Hyper magazine. Part 1
As print media was sidelined by social and a new generation of websites, it became clear that Hyper was not long for this world.
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Hyper magazine. Part 2
Hyper was well and truly dead by 2018, with low circulation, dwindling advertising and a barely there web presence.
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Mean Machines
Before there was Twitter, Twitch, Tik Tok or YouTube. Before the Internet. There was Mean Machines.
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Compute! Part 1
While Gibson was writing about Cyberspace, the everyday reality looked more like Compute! magazine.
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Compute! Part 2
3000 miles from Silicon Valley, and without the financial clout of other publishers, Compute! was always going to struggle.
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Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine (VG&CE)
“The 90s was a period of rapid technological acceleration. It was also a time of massive cultural shifts.
Video Games and Computer Entertainment (VG&CE) magazine is a physical manifestation of that chaos. For better or worse, its shifting fortunes and editorial tone reflect the decade’s evolution.”
MAGAZINE SNAPSHOTS
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The rise and fall of Mega Drive shmups
The first generation of Mega Drive games was defined by small Japanese developers who could bang out a shmup on a tight budget with a small team. But as Sega’s fortunes changed, and Sonic took the Mega Drive mainstream, the system’s library began to change.
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UK Resistance
“I spent the best part of three months doing nothing but previews and reviews of Radiant Silvergun,” is how Gary Cutlack describes his time at the ill-fated Sega Saturn magazine. But we’re here to discuss his legendary website - UK: Resistance.
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DieHard GameFan had drama
More money, more games, and more competition. The early 90s saw a boom in magazine publishing.
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The worst reviewed game in Mean Machines
“A shambling mockery of a sick parody of a game cartridge…” They don’t write game reviews like they used to.
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Out of Print Archive
“These magazines are such great time capsules. They’re an anchor to times that would otherwise be forgotten completely. I just want to see these great magazines preserved in a way that would make the original creators proud.”
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Mega Play magazine
Was Mega Play just recycled EGM content pitched at desperate Sega fans? Probably. But there's more to it than that…
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BEEP! Mega Drive magazine
For a brief period in the early 90s, Beep! Mega Drive was home to some of the best magazine cover art you’re likely to come across. A technicolour fever dream of jazz-era influences and abstraction.
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Sega Visions magazine
“Sega Visions was important in the early days of the Genesis. We had a big mailing list that we got from Tonka who had distributed the Master System. We used it to help get Master System owners to switch to Genesis.”
I spoke to the man who launched Sega Visions magazine.
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VG&CE magazine
Moustaches, receding hairlines and thick rim glasses were all par for the course. VG&CE had heavy ‘dad vibes’.
Interviews
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Al Nilsen interview - Sega US
Al Nilsen joined Sega of America in 1989 and was responsible for some of the 16bit era's most memorable campaigns including Sonic 2sday and the iconic Genesis does… what Nintendon’t.
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Dan' Shoe' Hsu interview - EGM
“When I started writing for EGM, I remember I was one of the lower reviews for Turok on Nintendo 64, and I didn’t know this until years later, that Acclaim pulled advertising because of my review…”
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Wil Overton interview - Super Play magazine
“On the whole Super Play and N64 Magazine were left alone by the suits at Future so we did, pretty much, what we wanted.” Wil Overton talks about his time at Super Play magazine and Future Publishing.
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Chris Bieniek interview - VG&CE magazine
“I can tell you a funny story, though. This was when I really knew our days were numbered..."
A huge thank you to Chris Bieniek - former editor art VG&CE, VideoGames, and Tips & Tricks - for his time and generosity with this interview.
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Steve Merrett interview - Mean Machines magazine
Steve Merrett would go on to edit Mean Machines Sega for several years until its eventual closure in 1997. Which means he has a unique, inside view of Sega’s struggles, EMAP’s operations, and how it all came to a head in the pages of Mean Machines Sega.
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Devil Blush interview
“At some point just for fun I made a mock-up magazine cover and got a lot of nice feedback on Twitter, so I started looking into how viable it might be to actually produce.”
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Mark Green interview - NGamer maagzine
DescriptioNGamer magazine editor Mark Green talks Nintendo, social media, the early days of broadband, and how everything changed in the mid 2000s.n goes here.
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Richard Monteiro interview - Sega Pro
Richard Monteiro started his career as a staff writer with Amstrad Action, eventually went freelance, and ultimately co-founded Paragon Publishing - which was responsible for magazines like Sega Pro, Play, Games (™) and a bunch of others.
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Paul Glancey interview - Megatech magazine
“It was a nightmare. With no more than about two weeks before the print deadline, I managed to get an old computer and started writing features and reviews of every Mega Drive game we knew of. Then, with about a week to go, I was joined by an art director from a London creative agency.”
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Julian 'Jaz' Rignall interview - Mean Machines
“People are far more sensitive these days, and I imagine the sort of rhetoric we got away with back then would be very poorly received today. In the 80s and 90s, people were far more tolerant to that sort of humor…”
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Richard 'Rich' Leadbetter interview - Mean Machines
“The working conditions were pretty disgusting, the office was a mess, there was no air conditioning, probably about a quarter of the people smoked in the office — and the games room was stiflingly hot in the summer. I was pretty surprised at how bad it was when I went to interview for the job…”
FEATURE ARTICLES
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Video Game magazine history
“The history of video game magazines is also the history of the late 20th century and the global convergence of media and technology.”
A closer look at how UK and US video game magazines developed in parallel throughout the 80s and 90s.
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How the internet killed video game magazines
“When I first started in games magazines, the internet was a kind of goofy thing and advertisers were reluctant to pump dollars into it. As soon as the internet gained any momentum in gaming circles, you could watch circulation and advertising revenue falling in real time.”
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How to create a zine in 2023
“If I sell every single copy I’ll just about break even… which is a terrible business model, but here we are.” Ever wanted to create a zine? Here’s a deep dive into the process, costs and issues encountered while creating Forgotten World’s issue #0.
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Video game fanzine history
If old gaming magazines provide a glimpse into a world that no longer exists, fanzines add context and help colour in the details…
A look back at video game fandom before the internet.
READ MORE
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The history of video game magazines
Specialist video game magazines first appeared in the early 80s. Four decades later they’re still here, albeit, more bespoke.
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Mega Drive box art
While both the US and Japan have a rich history of graphic design, the US video game market largely failed to tap into that history or skill set. Because as far as the market was concerned video games were for kids. And 12 year olds aren’t known for their discerning eye for graphic design.
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Videogame fanzines. Part 1
Video game zines were at their peak in the early 90s, and that has a lot to do with a guy called Arnie Katz and a magazine called Video Games & Computer Entertainment.
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Sendai Publishing and EGM magazine
Between 1990 and 1995 EGM’s parent company launched six new magazines.
Founder and publisher Steve Harris was the driving force behind all this. By 27 he had a magazine empire that was pulling in over $30 million annually. He also had a fleet of luxury cars and a slightly terrifying office persona.
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Sega magazines - UK vs the US market
Why did the UK have so many Sega specific magazines in the early 90s? Why did the US have so few?
I reached out to a bunch of magazine editors from the 16bit era to ask them directly.
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From EGM to 1up.com
Magazines change over time. New editors, new creative direction, different console generations.
So the Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) I grew up reading in the early 90s is very different to the EGM that was on-sale at the turn of the millennium.