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EtherealDragonz upload thread - Update 11/17/2020 Famimaga Apr 20 1990


Ethereal Dragonz

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It's funny how Pasocom Paradise puts a little symbol of solid gold bars over top of any "lady parts" as if they're censoring them, since those parts are already covered by a mosaic to begin with.

Oh, Japan.  Where cartoon depictions of pedophilia are legal but cartoon drawings of adult genitalia have to be censored. SMH

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10 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

I thought Phillyman bought a pristine copy of this recently for Retromags scanning purposes?  Of course, he might not get to it for some time, so maybe it's worth editing this one anyway?

Since its not many pages I can get this done fairly quickly. I want to see some first issues in the database.

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I sometimes wonder what our gaming mags might have looked like if they weren't published based on advertising revenue.  10 issues for $10 means that after printing and shipping costs (not to mention production and staff/contributer salaries) GamePro was at best breaking even and probably losing money on every mag sold via subscription (they certainly weren't profiting.)  However, by offering super cheap subscriptions, their circulation numbers would be boosted and they could charge advertisers more money to place ads, which is where all of their profits were (along with newsstand sales). 

Hell, I had several years worth of Gamepro subscriptions myself back in the day (despite it being my least favorite gaming mag) simply because I got them for free by signing up online and maybe filling out a survey or something.  Because giving away a subscription to boost circulation was an easier way for them to make money than trying to make a mag that would sell more copies on the newsstand. Gamepro wasn't alone in this -pretty much all USA mags used the same business model.  But the end result was magazines that were typically 50% advertising.

Meanwhile, in Japan, which doesn't offer magazine subscriptions at ANY price, mags were usually much longer and with FAR less advertising content.  A typical issue of Famitsu would be around 225-250 pages with around 20 pages of ads, typically clumped together near the front and back of the mag, rather than dispersed throughout on every other page like American mags. 

I also wonder if this ad-based business model has contributed to the downfall of print publications in the USA, seeing as how magazines still seem to be successful in Japan.

I'm not that familiar with practices in the UK - anybody know where the bulk of profits came/come from?

 

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  • Retromags Curator

You can look at any of the existing game magazines that are around now except Game Informer. Nintendo Force, Pure Nintendo, Old School Gamer Magazine, RETRO; they all do "per issue" subscriptions through Patreon. You pay the normal cover price when they publish an issue and they do not have much advertising at all. I think Nintendo Force has no ads at all. Or maybe look at any specialist hobby magazine, like model railroading or quilting. Their subscriptions are typically much more expensive than the cheap prices you could get for a year of EGM or GamePro, and they have far fewer ads.

I didn't mind the ads in game magazines because a lot of time they were interesting. Even if I had no interest in the game, they were often funny, amusing, cheesey, or had some nice art to them, so I read most of them. Some are permanently burned into my brain :)

I think the downfall of magazines in North America has more to do with distribution costs than anything. Japan is tiny, so it's faster and cheaper to ship stuff all over the country. The same can't be said for the US and Canada, which are huge and require a lot of distance to move stuff. Magazines with low readership seem to thrive in the UK as well. One photography magazine I read has a circulation of about 26,000 issues, including digital, and it just keeps going and seems to be thriving. Future puts out several photography magazines including one just for Canon cameras and one just for Nikon, and they all seem to be doing well. Meanwhile the latest numbers for Maximum PC from the USPS Statement of Ownership form show their circulation is about 31,000. I would guess their content to ad ratio is 75:25. And with having to ship their magazines all over two countries, I am not sure how much longer they will be in print before Future shuts them down.

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Retro hasn't had an issue out for I don't know how long. Zinio stopped at issue 11. Their website have issues 12 & 13 but I don't know if they even exist. They said "Under new management" in October last year so I'd be extremely hesitant about advocating their product at this point in time given no updates on their website in over a year.

Future canned PC Format in November 2015 so Maximum PC is now their only PC centric title. I have a subscription to that one on iTunes for a whopping $14 per year. I just wish they'd canned the latter and kept PC Format going as it was a way better mag.

Edited by KiwiArcader
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  • 2 weeks later...

Uploaded Gamest April 1991 - Happy New Year!

 

What makes this issue interesting is that this is the first article featuring Street Fighter 2 from Gamest, so its interesting to see some of the first images of the game. Although Wikipedia says the game came out in February of 91', so I am trying to figure out what the first Japanese magazine to feature Street Fighter 2 was. If anyone knows and can upload it, that would be awesome!

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2 hours ago, MigJmz said:

Great scan of the Gamest! I wonder why there is no Gamest in the database? 🤔

There are well over a hundred Japanese mags not in the database.  I have a list and will get to it eventually, but maybe you might have noticed that I'm usually pretty busy around here.😉  Patience my boy, patience.

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3 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

There are well over a hundred Japanese mags not in the database.  I have a list and will get to it eventually, but maybe you might have noticed that I'm usually pretty busy around here.😉  Patience my boy, patience.

👍I Hear ya! I might edit that  mag since all it needs is straightening .

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On 1/1/2019 at 5:43 PM, Ethereal Dragonz said:

That would be great! Let me know if you want me to re-scan any of the pages. I'll keep the magazine for awhile longer before tossing it out.

can you check the edges o to see if theirs anything cut

Pages 1, 2,, 45, 49, 54, , 62, 80,

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