Tech Gian Issue 031 (May 1999)

The magazines in the USA back in the 90s seemed to actually be more ads than coverage. And the coverage was usually bare-bones.

Thanks for scanning.

6 hours ago, ml0045 said:

The magazines in the USA back in the 90s seemed to actually be more ads than coverage. And the coverage was usually bare-bones.

Thanks for scanning.

They literally were.  I can't remember which publication it was in (probably EGM), but I remember an issue where someone on the staff claimed that they needed ads to comprise 50% of the page count in order to stay profitable enough to remain in print.

Dunno if that's true, but as circulation dwindled, so did the amount of ads.  I've been uploading ads to the gallery lately, and I've noticed that once you hit 2013 or so, the ads all but disappear from mags, with nothing but a few in-house ads from the publisher and maybe a single game ad on the back cover if you're lucky.  So it makes sense that video game magazines started their double-time march into extinction around that time.

I appreciate your appreciation

Btw, can you imagine what a 90's era EGM would look like if they arranged their mag like this Tech Gian?  You'd have to flip through over 100 pages of ads before the magazine even started.

I have gone through MANY issues of GamePro and EGM, sorting out the ads, articles, and reviews that I wanted to keep. And I can confirm that in your average issue that is 200+ pages, I have set-aside 80-90 pages for ads (for both GamePro and EGM) that I would keep for myself, and there was easily 10+ pages of ads I didn't need. I don't know about 50%, but 40% or more is an easily achievable number from what I saw. Both of these would sometimes have three 2-page spreads of ads right next to each other.