HUGE Lots Of Magazines in the FB group I belong to...

[vgmax]

@kitsunebi77:

there have been prototype releases for the past 25 years. They are invariably the result of someone giving a ROM to somebody who then dumped it with a copier. Romhacking.net has a bunch of sourcecodes for old Atari games, all made available by the original programmers. All this stuff started on sites like Zophar.net... there are communities like TCRF and Betaarchive who are determined to obtain every prototype ever made. Software is the legacy of those who programmed it... programmers want to be remembered for what they made, hence they release the prototypes they kept as keepsakes of their endevors. Stuff trickles out with or without a makeshift authority mediating handovers. If anything VGHF sterilizes the passion and frenzy as a function of its formality.

[kitsunebi]

Since the topic of this thread steered away from magazines and towards video games, I have absolutely no stakes in the argument (I've got little to no interest in games whether prototype or not), so I guess I'm playing devil's advocate, but I still fail to see how the VGHF is working AGAINST the effort to preserve gaming history in any way.  There might be others that are doing more, or doing it in ways that you view as preferable, but it would be indefensible to claim that they aren't doing anything beneficial at all.  You're absolutely right that the VGHF is not the first and only place to have ever released a prototype ROM, but I'm positive that no one was making that argument, and so it seems pretty strange to criticize them for doing something simply because it's been done before.  Anyone who preserves anything for the sake of others should be thanked, not criticized - regardless of whether they've got a fancy acronym for a name or they're completely anonymous.

Now again, in regards to magazines and whatnot, I think that making scans available is far more useful than keeping physical copies in a museum.  And even though I personally could care less, in an ideal world, all unmarketable prototype ROMs and whatnot would be available for everyone who wanted to see them in action.  But somebody has to be the one to obtain the original before it can be released to everyone.  And someone needs to keep copies of original hardware and documents.  And preferably, that someone isn't just a private collector, or else who knows what will become of the originals over time.

I think the biggest confusion here might be the view of the VGHF as a "makeshift authority."  It's no more an authority on preservation than Retromags is.  Just like us, it's just a group of people volunteering their own time and money into sharing their collections with the world.  How they go about that is up to them, but if they share just one thing, (and spoiler alert - they already have), they've already shared more than 99.5% of all the members of Retromags have ever done.  I don't know you personally, so maybe you also spend lots of your time and money helping create and release newly preserved content of some sort into the world, and if so, I would suggest that all you have left to do is build a website and perhaps attract a like-minded community of people to help you, and you'll have officially created same type of "authority" on preservation as the rest of us could ever claim to be a part of.

[vgmax]

This place = rebellion; VGHF = empire. That's the way I see it. Keep the faith, Retromags first!

[kitsunebi]

10 minutes ago, vgmax said:

This place = rebellion; VGHF = empire. That's the way I see it. Keep the faith, Retromags first!

Well, again, Retromags isn't an organization.  There's a website called Retromags which Phillyman created, but everyone else who has ever contributed to it in any way is just some random joe who stumbled across it somewhere on their travels through the interwebs and said to themselves "goddamit, it's about time I stopped being a leech and gave something back."  In so much as Retromags is only whatever its members make it, then we are in part made up of the VGHF, as they are made of us, since at least some of their members are our members as well.

Likewise, the VGHF wasn't formed via committee in Congress and given startup and operating capital, it's simply a group of individuals who had an idea to do something and then went about actually doing it using their own time and resources.

Good or bad, it can at least be agreed upon that anyone doing something is doing more than anyone who is only watching them do it.

[vgmax]

"goddamit, it's about time I stopped being a leech and gave something back."

Talk like that is a clear sign this hobby is getting to you. Take a break from it.

[kitsunebi]

Oh, I have done.  I've got no plans to release any more of my magazines.  But I'm also not going to complain about the efforts of other people working to preserve things as being not to my liking.  Try to stay positive and keep those panties unbunched!

[E-Day]

15 hours ago, vgmax said:

This place = rebellion; VGHF = empire. That's the way I see it. Keep the faith, Retromags first!

Nope. No rebellion in any way, shape or form. If a content owner asks us to take their stuff down, we do it. We aren't rebellious; we're just filling a void. 

[dowen]

In case this is still available, does it have a price list?

[Kartia]

Nice.