Bad Suggestion: Dont Make People Work/pay To View Stuff.

[gargus]

I used to love this site and frequented it often when I would get nostalgic for a certain issue I used to own or maybe just want a couple issues for a flashback but I log in today and see that now I have to donate money or work on something for the site to view stuff.

I can understand the need for this but on the other hand me personally Im not going to donate anything just because I cant for the life of my validate giving a website money for this. I always prefered the warm fuzzy thought of this site being a labor of love free for all the fans, if that was the case Id been happy to donate some time and effort to helping improve the site, but telling me I have to now is kind of a insult almost and makes me delete the shortcut from my favorites list and not come back, Id rather go back to hunting for stuff on torrents. Cause honestly if I am going to pay for these magazines its going to be for a real hard copy off ebay or something.

You want people to give you free work and free money and sit back? Honestly now, you want donation, people to upload their mags to you, work on your wiki entries and everything else in exchange for you letting them view the work they are doing for you. Any new comers or returners like myself that come in and see that warning thrown up will make us not want to come in anymore.

Everyone in the game industry is nickel and diming gamers to death, we dont need anyone else doing it.

At any rate I loved the site and thanks for the work up till now but Im bowing out of this site.

[triverse]

I used to love this site and frequented it often when I would get nostalgic for a certain issue I used to own or maybe just want a couple issues for a flashback but I log in today and see that now I have to donate money or work on something for the site to view stuff.

I can understand the need for this but on the other hand me personally Im not going to donate anything just because I cant for the life of my validate giving a website money for this. I always prefered the warm fuzzy thought of this site being a labor of love free for all the fans, if that was the case Id been happy to donate some time and effort to helping improve the site, but telling me I have to now is kind of a insult almost and makes me delete the shortcut from my favorites list and not come back, Id rather go back to hunting for stuff on torrents. Cause honestly if I am going to pay for these magazines its going to be for a real hard copy off ebay or something.

You want people to give you free work and free money and sit back? Honestly now, you want donation, people to upload their mags to you, work on your wiki entries and everything else in exchange for you letting them view the work they are doing for you. Any new comers or returners like myself that come in and see that warning thrown up will make us not want to come in anymore.

Everyone in the game industry is nickel and diming gamers to death, we dont need anyone else doing it.

At any rate I loved the site and thanks for the work up till now but Im bowing out of this site.

Where to begin on this? I mean, on one hand you say you love the site but on the other you are saying it is kind of an insult to ask for participation to maintain the site in some small way (sure, donations are the quickest and easiest way to get the downloads-you do know that there are free for everyone Rapidshare links available for about 99% of the mags here right?). It is a shame that you are not willing to take the time to look at the releases. Sure the newest ones are usually without Rapidshare links, not because we want to charge you for access but because there is 1 (one) member willing to take time out of their day and upload releases to Rapidshare (that costs them about $80 a year for a premium account so that the files are never deleted due to inactivity). There are other methods of earning access to the direct downloads, sure, as you stated, doing something for the site like working on the wiki or, gasp, uploading a magazine you scanned and edited are two options. There is also the option of freely participating in the forums (25 posts gets you started with something like 3 downloads a week, sure not much, but it is better than the other options that you feel are too harsh).

It is your right to not donate to the site, not do any work here, not to help out in any way. Guess what, you still get access to the files with the Rapidshare links-no clicking, no posting required, no money donation no uploading a magazine and no working on the wiki required. Unfortunately, just giving access to the direct downloads doesn't work for the members that want to help out (most members join just to get one or two magazines or on the other hand to grab as much as they can and then they are gone forever but may come back periodically and grab more). The settings are in place to keep the FTP server available to the members that volunteer here so that they can access files without a problem. Like torrents? Download the files from Rapidshare and torrent them out for others and see how many people actually stick around to seed after downloading the file. You are more than welcome to torrent, we don't because of the lack of participation of people after they get the 100% on the file they download.

If you are not interested in doing a little bit of editing on the wiki, not interested in making some posts on the forum or one of the many other methods of getting access to the files then go ahead and spend money on ebay to purchase the mags you want (I have personally watched issues like Gamefan #1 go for $450, EGM #3 go for close to $100 and many more, that is a lot more than a simple $5 donation here to access plenty more files).

You want people to give you free work and free money and sit back?

I am sorry but that statement is completely false and wrong in almost every way. Look at the active members on the board. Most of them are moderators (myself, Phillyman, Thor, meppi etc) and the ones that aren't moderators are here because they enjoy the site (we all are volunteers except Philly, he is the one that is stuck with the server costs, domain and other fees involved with keeping this site up and running every month). The point is, everyone here is here because we want to be here and we do what we do on the site because we want to. No one is sitting back and just rolling in the dough or fun and excitement from this site. If you wish to help out, great, jump in. Not sure where to help? Just ask, or look around. I see you have alreadys stated you are deleting Retromags from your bookmarks and going to go off looking on torrents for your releases so you will probably not come back to even read this. Shame.

Yes is a shame that the gaming industry is nickel and diming gamers to death, it happens because gamers will allow it to happen. Don't like it? Don't support it. It is sad that you think that is what we are attempting to do here at Retromags though. I could see that point of view if the only way to access the downloads was to pay something, possibly even a small amount per issue or something but it is not, we have many free methods of access.

If you wish to come back and participate, then great, if not, take care and happy hunting for torrents.

[meppi]

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

Just so you know, there have been certain members in the past which were very vocal about making the download system (not just the download manager, but rapidshare and everything) available only to people who either scanned a certain amount of magazines, or paid for them.

First of, just to clarify: we aren't asking people to pay to download magazines. Everything you see on here is free, that's one of the ground rules of the project. Everyone can access the rapidshare links and most do so without any problems or complaints.

By donating to the site you don't buy any of these magazines. We don't owe them so how could we sell them?

What you do is help us acquire more magazines for the project as well as pay all the server costs and everything that comes with running a website.

Back to the people that wanted us to become some sort of private club, which seems to be the way you mistakenly view the project and it's members.

Whenever the point was brought up to make this more of a closed project, we have always stood firmly against any such actions, believing that everyone and anyone who visits the site should be able to grab the magazines that are on here.

We state on every release we do as well as in other parts of the site the following:

Our goal is to preserve these classic video game magazines

by digitizing them before they are lost forever.

By creating cbz files from them, anyone who is but a mouse click

away will be able to enjoy them once more.

We have no intent nor desire to profit from these magazines

in any way, shape or form.

Nor do we have any desire to financially harm any publisher,

editor, writer or person involved in creating these,

or any other magazines for that matter.

We are not here to do harm,

but to help protect their legacy.

We would like to thank everyone who makes this project possible.

From the original writers, editors and publishers,

to everyone involved in acquiring, digitizing, preserving

and releasing these magazines.

For people who are looking to help us out, in whichever way possible.

Be it by donating magazines, scanning, editing or releasing them,

please join us on the forums.

One last thing,

if you come across people trying to sell these releases,

please do not support them!

And we all stand 100% by this.

[Phillyman]

The settings are in place to keep the FTP server available to the members that volunteer here so that they can access files without a problem. Like torrents? Download the files from Rapidshare and torrent them out for others and see how many people actually stick around to seed after downloading the file. You are more than welcome to torrent, we don't because of the lack of participation of people after they get the 100% on the file they download.

You don't have to contribute, you don't need to donate....but the attitude of "Gimme Gimme" is not an acceptable one. What exactly do you propose I do? The magazines are between 100MB and 200MB in size. That means every 5-10 magazines that get downloaded is a 1GB deficit against our bandwidth quota. Our hosting companies rules are the following....

7. Resource Usage

User may not:

a) Use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds. There are numerous activities that could cause such problems; these include: CGI scripts, FTP, PHP, HTTP, etc.

So no, I can not open up the floodgates for you guys to leech. Now to why I quoted Triverse.....He is Exactly correct!

Not one member on this forum....has taken the initiative to make a torrent out of our releases. Why? Because you cant be bothered to, you want everything presented to you. I have no compassion for people with your opinion. In your fantasy world this is how Retromags would function....

Phillyman buys the old magazines off Ebay out of his money

Phillyman scans the magazines

Phillyman edits the magazines

Phillyman creates a torrent with the magazines

Phillyman seeds that torrent 24/7......365 days a year

Sound about right? If you think that is how its gonna go? Your dead wrong! You should have read the FAQ....

About Premium Membership

Retromags is a small community and we realize that 98% of the people that come to this site are only here to download as many of our releases as they can and then leave. These are the same people who immediately stop seeding torrents once they have 100% and honestly this site is not set up to be beneficial to them. This site is set up for the other 2% of people visiting this site who are NOT leechers and wish to help us out. We give members of this site multiple ways to help us out and it is up to them to decide if they wish to help or remain part of the 98% of leechers. We created the Premium Members group to show who on this website has stood up and put forth an effort to make this site better. Premium Members are any member of the following groups....

* Premium Members

* Scanners

* Editors

* Premium Scanner

* Premium Editor

* Scanning God

* Editing God

* Moderators

* Wiki SysOp

[Gnash]

To have access to the files all you have to do is be part of our community once in a while. It is not a business it's a community that shares love for magazines and games. Making an interesting thread or making replies to posts is good enough. If you consider this too much work then I consider you lazy. Donations are optional so how can you say they are getting paid for the work? If you had bothered to surf the site you would have found that there are many options to get the magazines.

Example:

http://www.retromags.com/forums/Create-10-...-in-forum7.html

Next time you make a post making accusations I suggest you look around a bit more and read the help thread.

http://www.retromags.com/wiki/FAQ

BTW this is my personal opinion, I'm neither staff nor affiliated with Retromags in any way besides being a member of the forum. The staff tries to be nice to everyone but I don't have to. You only have 4 posts and are already complaining. I say good riddance and don't let the door hit you on your way out.

[Thor]

I'm sorry but...

Oh and by the way those donations go right back into the site one way or another. Either to buy the more expensive magzeines to be uploaded or any other costs.

None of this money is kept for financial gain. Nore is there enough donation for that anyway.

[Phillyman]

I'm sorry but...

Oh and by the way those donations go right back into the site one way or another. Either to buy the more expensive magzeines to be uploaded or any other costs.

None of this money is kept for financial gain. Nore is there enough donation for that anyway.

Now now Thor, Gargus has a point....I mean through Retromags I was able to quit my job and retire to the Bahama's. Not only that but I am able to afford my personal trainer and 5 star chef.....some weeks I even have enough for me and my super model girlfriend to jet half way around the world.

To anyone that is wondering, I get maybe $10 in donations per week from Retromags. That is about $520 a year.....

$520 per year

- $120 in hosting fee's per year

---------

$400

- $100 forum/download manager software updates per year

---------

$300

- $70 domain name renewals

---------

$230

- $300 in magazine purchases per year

---------

-$70 Profit!!!!!

Yeah I am living large

[Gnash]

I think it was just someone that wanted the magazines spood fed and didn't even bother with reading or looking at the site.

[Thor]

I'm sorry but...

Oh and by the way those donations go right back into the site one way or another. Either to buy the more expensive magzeines to be uploaded or any other costs.

None of this money is kept for financial gain. Nore is there enough donation for that anyway.

Oh an just to clear things up if it wasnt...

the above Emot Icons are just a combination of icons I had to use to show my emotion while reading this thread.

I'm not laughing at someone that is crying.

I just couldn't find an icon of someone laughing so hard that they were crying because that's exactly what I was doing. So I completly apologize.

[Areala]

I used to love this site and frequented it often when I would get nostalgic for a certain issue I used to own or maybe just want a couple issues for a flashback but I log in today and see that now I have to donate money or work on something for the site to view stuff.

I can understand the need for this but on the other hand me personally Im not going to donate anything just because I cant for the life of my validate giving a website money for this. I always prefered the warm fuzzy thought of this site being a labor of love free for all the fans, if that was the case Id been happy to donate some time and effort to helping improve the site, but telling me I have to now is kind of a insult almost and makes me delete the shortcut from my favorites list and not come back, Id rather go back to hunting for stuff on torrents. Cause honestly if I am going to pay for these magazines its going to be for a real hard copy off ebay or something.

You want people to give you free work and free money and sit back? Honestly now, you want donation, people to upload their mags to you, work on your wiki entries and everything else in exchange for you letting them view the work they are doing for you. Any new comers or returners like myself that come in and see that warning thrown up will make us not want to come in anymore.

Everyone in the game industry is nickel and diming gamers to death, we dont need anyone else doing it.

At any rate I loved the site and thanks for the work up till now but Im bowing out of this site.

Sorry to hear of your departure, but you'll receive no sympathy from me. I haven't donated a dime to Retromags or Phillyman, all I did was volunteer to work on the Wiki. That's right: I take magazines that I already own or ones that I've downloaded from the site, and I index them so people can look up and see where their favorite (or least favorite) games appeared in given publications. Seriously, it's about the easiest thing in the world to do: all you need is the ability to operate a keyboard and the willingness to spend a few minutes going through a magazine (something you probably already enjoy if you found this site) and typing up some sections and titles. Add to that the fact that the staff has bent over backwards to help me make the best of my contributions in terms of providing templates and offering suggestions for fixing up my first few pages when I was still taking baby steps, and this is by far the EASIEST way to get access to the full potential of a site like this that I've ever experienced, not to mention the most fun. There aren't any ratios to honour, no torrent seed percentages to sit at, and no outlay of cash required. Plus, by using the magazines that I've downloaded from the site to help improve the Wiki indexes, I feel like I'm at least paying back the community for giving me access to them in the first place. Hopefully, this makes it so that those who aren't sure about using one of their download slots on a certain magazine or who would prefer not to wait 15 minutes between Rapidshare downloads to get a new file are able to best decide where to focus their efforts.

You've already registered an account here, which does away with the full-page ads. You've accumulated 4 posts; 21 more of which upgrades your access and lets you avoid the Rapidshare-only downloads on three issues per seven day period. With a little more work, you could easily clear the 1.8 gigabyte limit and enjoy giving back to the community, maybe inspiring others to do the same.

Wouldn't THAT be pretty cool? I think so. It's a shame you'll be missing out.

*huggles*

Areala

[Thor]

How is it Areala that after reading your post I always seem to be put into a good mood.

Maybe it's the little *huggles*

[Gnash]

*huggles* *snuggles*

[Thor]

Hey Gnash it worked! But I think it may be that kitten that helped.

[Mike M.]

Phillyman buys the old magazines off Ebay out of his money

Phillyman scans the magazines

Phillyman edits the magazines

Phillyman creates a torrent with the magazines

Phillyman seeds that torrent 24/7......365 days a year

FWIW, I've been seeding the Mininova Big Torrent Release since it came out last July. I've uploaded 183 GB so far... not bad for a gimped upload speed. Even when I can't spare the upload bandwidth, I usually leave the torrent seeding at 1 KB/s. I'm doing my part! But you are right, I have rarely seen anybody besides myself seeding.

[Phillyman]

FWIW, I've been seeding the Mininova Big Torrent Release since it came out last July. I've uploaded 183 GB so far... not bad for a gimped upload speed. Even when I can't spare the upload bandwidth, I usually leave the torrent seeding at 1 KB/s. I'm doing my part! But you are right, I have rarely seen anybody besides myself seeding.

I ran the UG torrent and the Mininova torrents for months.....and it never seemed as though anyone else was seeding.....so I decided to look into other ways to distribute the files. To tell the truth, I really like Newsgroups and since a file uploaded can stay on there for 6+ months.....that may be a better way to go in the future. Its just not many people know about that. The members here are MORE then welcome to take items out of the Download section and post them up on Mininova. All I ask is that they dont change the files in ways such as downgrading quality or removing the Thank You page. If you want to upload 1 magazine to Mininova, or if you want to bundle 100 magazines together and upload them......its totally fine by us. Again I am not trying to profit off of these magazines, the donations go toward buying more magazines, as far as the distributing goes.....share them out over DC++, Newsgroups, P2P, FTP, etc.....its all good