what is your reason for downloading magazine scans?

[orthicviper]

for me i just wanted to relive the memories of gaming enthusiasm i had when i read them many years ago. how about you?

[nirvbew]

Preservation and nostalgia, of course. I'm sick and tired of people hoarding and purposefully making things rare by not digitizing some of this stuff. Many collectors are doing it for the money when things like this need to be preserved, not collected and sold.

A great example is the DVD version of Audioslave's self-titled 2002 album has never been digitally preserved and ripped to .flac format. It's 24bit 48kHz and apparently sounds really good, but society will never know because almost nobody has a copy of it to digitize. :(

[MrSaturn]

Because it is thouroughly enjoyable to look at these old magazines and see what people were saying about games back then. Remembering what I felt like reading these old magazines gives some goose bumps when I read about a forgotten game that looked real interesting back in the day.

[twiztor]

because i still play NES games and want to fully immerse myself in the experience.

[E-Day]

Because finding and buying the original print versions is difficult and expensive.

[orthicviper]

Preservation and nostalgia, of course. I'm sick and tired of people hoarding and purposefully making things rare by not digitizing some of this stuff. Many collectors are doing it for the money when things like this need to be preserved, not collected and sold.

Yeah really. None of these magazine companies seemed to have bothered with a digital copy. None of the magazine staff seems to have kept copies for themselves. If i never get those back issues of Game Players magazines I'll go crazy! I need to laugh at that magazine again.

Because it is thouroughly enjoyable to look at these old magazines and see what people were saying about games back then. Remembering what I felt like reading these old magazines gives some goose bumps when I read about a forgotten game that looked real interesting back in the day.

Indeed

[RetroDefense]

Many reasons.

Nostalgia

Having lived through video gaming's rise in popularity, there's something about video game magazines that really take me back. The gaming press was my Internet back then.

Curiosity

There are so many magazines I've never heard of - especially those from other countries. It's great being able to try out stuff I've never read before.

Convenience

It's far easier to pull up a digital file on a PC or tablet than digging a physical copy out of my magazine collection.

Preservation

Let's face it, physical magazines won't last forever. Digitizing and disseminating mag scans helps preserve them for future generations, in the same way digitizing other forms of media allows for greater permanence.

Cost and Availability

Some magazines are difficult to find, and when they are found, they're often very expensive. Many magazine publishers are out of business or don't offer back issues for sale.

History

Video game magazines ARE video game history. Modern magazines may offer retro coverage, but always with the bias of hindsight. The gaming mags of the day reflected the attitudes and mindset of the day. They're essentially time capsules.

Assistance

I'll still reference an issue of Tips & Tricks when working on a particular game.

[winniethepujols]

Many reasons.

Nostalgia

Having lived through video gaming's rise in popularity, there's something about video game magazines that really take me back. The gaming press was my Internet back then.

Curiosity

There are so many magazines I've never heard of - especially those from other countries. It's great being able to try out stuff I've never read before.

Convenience

It's far easier to pull up a digital file on a PC or tablet than digging a physical copy out of my magazine collection.

Preservation

Let's face it, physical magazines won't last forever. Digitizing and disseminating mag scans helps preserve them for future generations, in the same way digitizing other forms of media allows for greater permanence.

Cost and Availability

Some magazines are difficult to find, and when they are found, they're often very expensive. Many magazine publishers are out of business or don't offer back issues for sale.

History

Video game magazines ARE video game history. Modern magazines may offer retro coverage, but always with the bias of hindsight. The gaming mags of the day reflected the attitudes and mindset of the day. They're essentially time capsules.

Assistance

I'll still reference an issue of Tips & Tricks when working on a particular game.

Great post! I agree with much of what you said.

My interest in reading through old magazine comes and goes; I'll get the urge to do it, and then I'll go many months without having any desire to do so. When I do get the itch though, my motivation includes the following reasons:

• It's a nostalgic experience. I have distinct, fond memories of gaming magazines. For example, in an issue of EGM2, they did an in-depth walkthrough of Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals; the only reason I rented the game in the first place was because I wanted to use the guide the magazine provided. Or, similarly, Nintendo Power once featured Breath of Fire 2 in Counselor's Corner; I remember one of the questions being, "what is the best party?", and I was like, "what the heck is a 'party'?" Breath of Fire 2 was one of the first RPG's I played, and again, it was because I read about it in Nintendo Power.
• It's fun viewing through the lens of hindsight. I love seeing what gaming magazines said about games, being that I now have the benefit of hindsight. It's cool to see games that were hyped up but bombed, or games that received minimal coverage but were awesome.
• It's a cool reminder about how different the world used to be. It's hard to believe that I used to go into rental stores and pick out games on the basis of box art / two-or-three screenshots on the back of the case. It's also crazy to think that I would buy games based solely on a positive recommendation from GamePro or EGM. Today, you have dozens (if not hundreds) of professional/fan reviews at your disposal. Further, tips/tricks/walkthroughs in magazines used to be invaluable. Nowadays, all of that is available virtually instantaneously through a search engine.

[DEKALBO1]

To experience a part of my life that truly meant something. Gaming magazines are now almost a thing of the past. With the ability to download certain issues; we can finally relive the good ole days.

[Sean697]

Honestly, for me it's mostly for historical reference. I'm really big into retro games, and when a discussion comes up and someone says something that is not quite how I remember. I like to look back at old magazines for reference. Especially for release date info, as most current sites such as moby games have horribly incorrect release date info. And to look at review scores and general impressions of games at the time in their historical context. So mostly I don't download a lot. It's usually me looking for a parictular issue or set of issuer to find something I'm looking for. Also some mags had great interviews like Next Generation that really put games into historical context, or refute some of the common assumptions I hear thrown around today about some things that supposedly happened in gaming history.

[Zarxrax]

For me its also mainly nostalgia reasons and historical reference.

But another thing is simply looking back at these things that I saw as a child, and reframing it from an adult's point of view.

For instance, I was absolutely shocked when I read through the first couple of years of Gamepro and learned that it was nothing more than glorified advertisements. They never said a bad word about ANYTHING. There was nothing but praise to be found.

And the letters from readers are also extremely interesting to read... those times just seem so much... simpler.

[lalalei2001]

I spent years looking for a particular letter from an issue of Game Players (possibly from '93-early '95). Since I couldn't remember which issue or magazine it was, I decided to make a blog to post letters from video game maagzines in case anyone else ever had the same problem.

When I ran out of magazines I actually owned in print, I turned to sites like these. ^^ Thanks!

http://videogamemagazineletters.tumblr.com/

Edited March 12, 2015 by lalalei2001

[jokerschortle]

I've always felt bad about losing much of my 1992-1998 collection of video game magazines due to things out of control. And given that space is a premium these days, I'd like to have an avenue to where I can seek out what I vaguely remember, in the hopes of embracing the nostalgia. Original ads and all.

Don't get me wrong, being able to hold an original magazine is nice, but it's not really meant to last, no matter how much we try to preserve and "take care of" a particular issue. So the next best thing is to have scans of it.

[roushimsx]

Especially for release date info, as most current sites such as moby games have horribly incorrect release date info.

To be fair, release date info in old magazines isn't always entirely accurate either, it's just generally a great way to nail down the window a hell of a lot better than what a lot of sites bother trying to do. You'll still get into wiki-editing wars with conflicting sources of information where one magazine reported one date and another magazine reported a different date. But that's a fun mess to encounter and dig through, just like reading reviews for canceled games (The Shadow SNES, Wing Commander II SNES, Renegade II PC, etc).

I'm also a huge fan of interviews covering the before/during/post development process, because they really give you insight into how a game shaped up to be (and then you have the retrospective hindsight now to gauge the overall impact). Reading old material from Looking Glass and Monolith Productions is a total trip...id's history has been thoroughly well documented, I think...but there's so many other major developers that had interesting evolutions and developments over the years that just haven't been properly documented online. Sometimes hitting the old rags is the only way to really get caught up on what went on.

Really wish more magazines published game sales data. Not uncommon to see charts showing the top 10 sellers, but finding raw numbers was so rare back in the day. loved the annual sales reports published in PC Gamer for a few years. Super insightful stuff that helps cement just how depressingly overlooked some games were or how much smaller the market really was back then when you figure a mammoth success then wouldn't even break even with today's development costs.

It's also fun to read between the lines in the reviews. Scores were generally inflated, but the reviews themselves would sometimes use some weaker words to convey the faults of the game without looking like they were outright bagging on it. The Shaq Fu reviews in particular are fun to read, because they give a more honest assessment of the game's strengths and faults (especially within the context of the era) without resorting to decrying it as WORST GAME EVER.

The cringe-worthy terms like Doom-clone are actually kind of fun to see abused, misused, and run into the ground, too.

[Xscapist]

My main interest in old magazines is history and research.

I usually OCR any gaming magazines I downloaded that haven't already been made text-searchable. For this reason, I much prefer PDFs over CBR/CBZ (which can't be OCR'ed). I even converted all the Nintendo Power CBR/CBZ files to PDF so I could search them.

It's one of the reasons I'd love to see all the issues on this site made available on Archive.org, where they can be searched before being downloaded.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Xscapist

[Leathco]

I think everyone nailed it in this thread. Preservation and nostalgia. Everyone remembers reading these in school or after school. Hell, sometimes I think my local supermarket only got gaming mags because of me and maybe a few other people. But I also like reading issues I missed out on, and I have a large hard drive collection of mags I have gotten over the past ten years or so

[RetroDefense]

Welcome to the forums, Leathco!

[Leathco]

Welcome to the forums, Leathco!

hehe, thanks. Been with Retromags for many years, but usually don't get on the forums as I can't contribute a lot other than moral support.

[crillin]

i'm downloading so my son has access to the same stuff i read as a kid. he's already playing through (and beating) a lot of the NES and GB games that gave me a hard time when i was his age but he's always asking for guides so here i am

[tcaud]

The demise of MegaUpload and now rapidshare shows that file availablility isn't a sure thing unless it's a game. Old X-play episodes are probably lost forever. Media companies have precious little incentive to make old content available: audience leisure time is limited and technically every moment spent on free content reduces sales. Really I'm amazed at how many ebooks are no longer available since the fall of Rapidshare... The Sams Teach Yourself series is practically extinct in electronic form.

[MetalJuggalo]

Because 1. Large retro game/pc collection and the magazines compliment them , 2. To relive how awesome these magazines were and in certain cases experience them 1st hand and 3. To spread the tale to friends who ask about them

[dragonz]

I'm not so much interested in getting full sets of old magazines more getting those issues I specifically I remember reading and trying to 'relive' the excitement of reading them as a kid again lol.

[Metron4]

I download video game magazines mostly for the nostalgia factor, since I bought many of these magazines in my late teens/ early 20's. I am also interested in video game journalism and magazines such as these are true research sources.

[vice350z]

Because I love looking back on the stories, technology, layouts and all that of the gaming mags I grew up with. Also something about just having them in a digital format knowing i can look whenever I want instead of getting to that stack of retro mags in my garage.

[RobertDuncan]

Basically to read up on some magazines I didn't own and to find out what people thought at the time including rumors and such. Also I rather read digitally because my ereader has night mode,reads to me and it can zoom in ,which I can't do with regular books.