Diehard Gamefan - Not allowed

[MartinIII]

So what exactly is the deal with this? This listings for Diehard Gamefan are all marked "Not allowed", but there's no explanation in the listings for what this means or why it is in place. Searching "Gamefan" in the forums only increased my puzzlement: The results show a couple threads talking about members uploading issues of Diehard Gamefan to the site, but there's absolutely nothing about why these uploads were taken down, or indeed anything at all about the "Not allowed" designation other than a single offhand remark that "Our only rule on uploading magazines is our cut off dates and Game Informer and GameFan are not allowed." No explanation of why this is a rule (or what "cut off dates" means, for that matter, though in that case I can guess).

Help?

[Areala]

Sure thing.

Retromags archives older, out of date issues of the magazine, but this is still technically a copyright violation. Many of these magazines are no longer in print, and in some cases even the publishers have gone out of business, so there's little chance we'll get challenged on the content we're keeping. There are even a few cases, like with GamePro, where the publishers of the current magazine are aware of what we're doing but are not bothered by it since we don't keep scans of their newer issues.

Game Informer and Diehard Gamefan are two publications which have explicitly contacted the site with requests that we do not archive their materials, and we comply with all such requests. With Game Informer, the request came from their editor-in-chief who stated they keep their own in-house archives and did not need our help with preserving the magazines, and politely requested we not do so. So...we don't.

With GameFan, the request came from owner/publisher Dave Halverson, who re-launched GameFan a few years ago and was in the process of converting and releasing the older issues from the magazine's original print run as digital downloads. We're not interested in denying someone the ability to make money off their own hard work, so the few issues we had archived here came down, and we will not be re-uploading them. Issues can still have covers scanned and indexes added to the database, we just won't host scans of them.

The first three issues of GameFan are available for digital purchase through Out of Print Archive, though I don't know if there are plans for them to release future issues.

http://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/gamefan1.html

I hope that answers your questions, and if you have any others, don't hesitate to ask!

Edited to add: Oh! As far as cut-off dates go, it's a little weird. Magazines that are still in print, like EGM, have a fifteen-year cut-off date, so currently we'd only host issues of that magazine up through 2001-ish.

Magazines that are no longer in print are kind of a case-by-case basis decided by Phillyman and E-Day, but a good rule of thumb is that if it's less than ten years old, we probably won't archive it here just yet. Some exceptions have been made for different things, (eventually we'll have the full run of Next Generation and NextGen, for example), but for the most part "ten years" and "cutoff date" are basically interchangeable. Clear as mud, right?

*huggles*
Areala

[MartinIII]

Thanks so much for the answers, Areala! That indeed resolves all my questions. Cool to hear that Dave Halverson is digitizing the old issues of Diehard Gamefan. Selling digitized versions of pre-internet comic books has been popular for a while now, but this is the first I've heard of a publisher of gaming magazines taking an interest in monetizing their back catalog. I'll definitely buy a few of those as they become available (the first three issues of the mag don't really interest me, since I'm mainly a fifth generation console guy).

[marktrade]

Is NextGen really an exception? The final issue is dated January 2002 so that's 14 years.

That's nice to hear that Game Informer has their own archive, although I still wonder why they haven't made it available digitally yet. Maybe they're working on it.

Edit: One other thing. It looks like those purchase links through Out of Print Archive are no longer available. They lead to a Shopify page that says that store no longer exists.

Edited February 8, 2016 by marktrade

[Areala]

Is NextGen really an exception? The final issue is dated January 2002 so that's 14 years.

Hang on, I'll be with you in a minute. I need to re-educate the 'Math' side of my brain.

That's nice to hear that Game Informer has their own archive, although I still wonder why they haven't made it available digitally yet. Maybe they're working on it.

Edit: One other thing. It looks like those purchase links through Out of Print Archive are no longer available. They lead to a Shopify page that says that store no longer exists.

No idea on the GI thing. I wish they would, I'd love to pick up some DVDs of digital GI content.

Hmmm...well, it has been something like four years since I looked into it. Maybe Halverson went another route or decided it wasn't worth the effort/expense of digitizing them after all. I only knew about the project because my brother wrote for the GameFan reboot briefly.

*huggles*

Areala

[DPsx7]

GI offers a digital subscription which I don't get because I prefer the mags to get away from the screen for a while. Not sure if the physical subscription gives access to both. Nor do I know how far back it goes. If they say they're taking care of it then it's less work for this site.

[miketheratguy]

When a magazine is out of print, discontinued and dead, why is there a cutoff date at all? Not complaining, just something that I've always been curious about.

[marktrade]

When a magazine is out of print, discontinued and dead, why is there a cutoff date at all? Not complaining, just something that I've always been curious about.

I imagine it's because of the chance it might come back, which diminishes as time goes on.

[miketheratguy]

I imagine it's because of the chance it might come back, which diminishes as time goes on.

I thought the same, it's the answer that would seem to make the most sense.

[E-Day]

Edited to add: Oh! As far as cut-off dates go, it's a little weird. Magazines that are still in print, like EGM, have a fifteen-year cut-off date, so currently we'd only host issues of that magazine up through 2001-ish.

Magazines that are no longer in print are kind of a case-by-case basis decided by Phillyman and E-Day, but a good rule of thumb is that if it's less than ten years old, we probably won't archive it here just yet. Some exceptions have been made for different things, (eventually we'll have the full run of Next Generation and NextGen, for example), but for the most part "ten years" and "cutoff date" are basically interchangeable. Clear as mud, right?

*huggles*

Areala

The cutoff date for all defunct magazines is 10-years. So we are good to scan everything to December 2006 right now. Next year it will change to December 2007.

When a magazine is out of print, discontinued and dead, why is there a cutoff date at all? Not complaining, just something that I've always been curious about.

Because we don't own the content or the rights of the magazine. Even if its defunct, someone still has ownership of those magazines. And we don't know what their plans are (if any). So providing a large gap sort of provides a safety blanket for us; it shows that we are not trying to step on any toes. If a magazine shuts down next month, and a month after that we suddenly have scans of the last several years on here, that could look bad on us. They might think we have had those scans for a while and were providing them elsewhere, giving it to people who would have otherwise bought a copy. And a defunct magazine might always come back. Both Gamefan and EGM returned after going under. So if we keep our distance, chances are better that we will not be looked upon as a threat to their business or a cause for their failure.

Plus, there is nothing retro about a magazine from three years ago

[miketheratguy]

So providing a large gap sort of provides a safety blanket for us; it shows that we are not trying to step on any toes. If a magazine shuts down next month, and a month after that we suddenly have scans of the last several years on here, that could look bad on us. They might think we have had those scans for a while and were providing them elsewhere, giving it to people who would have otherwise bought a copy. And a defunct magazine might always come back. Both Gamefan and EGM returned after going under. So if we keep our distance, chances are better that we will not be looked upon as a threat to their business or a cause for their failure.

Plus, there is nothing retro about a magazine from three years ago

Hey, it's retro to some eight year-old kid somewhere!

But yeah, that explanation makes sense. It's sound logic.

[Areala]

The cutoff date for all defunct magazines is 10-years. So we are good to scan everything to December 2006 right now. Next year it will change to December 2007.

I stand corrected. Thank you, E-Day!

*huggles*

Areala

[DPsx7]

10 years should be a safe distance. The only problem is you have to find those mags while they're available and hold them for quite a while. Or scan them and keep it quiet...

[MisterXiado]

Gamefan had some pretty dodgy content in it, like reviews clearly written on acid (I am not being flippant), and things I may not have noticed at the time of publication. I wonder if such things, should they see the awful light of day again, might damage the reputations of the editors in today's neo-progressive world that will attempt to have the police murder you on false claims of kidnapping, if you injure their feelings with something you said back before Pokemon existed.

[Cbeckner]

On 3/3/2016 at 11:22 AM, Raijin Z said:

Gamefan had some pretty dodgy content in it, like reviews clearly written on acid (I am not being flippant), and things I may not have noticed at the time of publication. I wonder if such things, should they see the awful light of day again, might damage the reputations of the editors in today's neo-progressive world that will attempt to have the police murder you on false claims of kidnapping, if you injure their feelings with something you said back before Pokemon existed.

I remember when one of their reviewers said that Tekken Tag Tournament (arcade version, before the console version came out) was terrible, and that they'd rather play "Time Killers". If you remember, Time Killers was a next-to-worthless fighting game, except for the mid-round decapitations. 

[MisterXiado]

Yeah, Time Killers was terrible, and all anybody ever did in it was play as Rancid, and button mash until they did his spinning chainsaw attack at neck level for an easy win.

[CrazyMax46]

Time Killers for EVO. 

[Ethereal Dragonz]

Hmm I wanted to replace my bad copy of GameFan #1 and noticed that the purchase link is gone.

Oh if only it were digitally preserved somewhere that was accessible :-).

 

[StrykerOfEnyo]

I know some time has past, but Alexander Lucard bought the old site name and launched it with Dave Halverson's blessing once he saw their work around 2007 (diehardgamefan(dot)com) Sorry for the spelling, I don't know if I'm allowed to place websites in comments, I'm new here. None of the very early magazine staff work there, but they are welcome. They supposedly had new reviews and indie coverage, but I cant find any reviews, content, or comments in the achieves. If there are images, they don't load for me, and its hard telling how many staff are still working their but I know it is being run as a not-for-profit organization. I did find out that Eric Mylonas (know as ECM in the early issues) passed away on Jan 13th 2018 in New England. And as of 2023, I cant find any official archives of the DHGF magazines hosted or provide by Dave Halverson, as far as I can tell. The Internet Archives still have copies of the magazines, and I have gone through every one I could find, but several magazines have color issues, making them very hard to read in certain spots. Some have been redone as cbz and in higher quality, but several are missing. I hope Dave Halverson still does have high quality versions of the first run of the magazine. I don't mind waiting, even if I have to pay something for them at some point, but I would like to have official copies some day:) Hope this helps some.