VGBounceHouse work-in-progress

[VGBounceHouse]

It's still pending approval but I have archives Video Games, Issue 1, August 1982

Database Page: 

 

Download Page: 

 

As always the pages are archived on my site. along with my own identical CBZ plus a Text-Recognized PDF: http://vgpavilion.com/mags/1982/08/vg/pages/

The editor of this mag (which came from the National Lampoon/Heavy Metal publishing group) is still around and I'm trying to get in touch with him for an interview. He published a book, Video Invaders, which had an ad in this issue which I tweeted at him. No response yet.

[kitsunebi]

Sorry for the delay, I checked out the gallery for this mag and saw what a disaster it was (every single file misnamed) so I wanted to fix that before I approved this.

Btw, there's not much point in posting links to the download before it's approved.  Anyone besides yourself who isn't a mod/admin won't be able to see them until the file is approved, anyway.

[VGBounceHouse]

On 7/5/2019 at 3:59 PM, E-Day said:

Is there a way to clone you 10 times so that you can edit everything? I don't have the patience to make everything look immaculate the way you do. I could use 10 clones of you myself to edit the non-GamePro stuff I'm scanning .

Thanks, and yet all I can do is worry about the stuff that still eludes me like color matching facing pages or aligning plate offset errors. I gotta say getting a handle on using a hair dryer to separate perfect binding has been a revelation for the most part, except for the smudging on the inside covers. I use gloves but the glue there is so haphazard it can make reconstruction of ad spreads even more difficult than just the glue discoloration on its own.

i will be focused on my Xbox Documentary for the next two years (conventional length documentary at the end of next year, the full project complete to coincide with the Xbox’ 20th Anniversary) but will find time to get as many of the early 1980s mags done along the way, for a sanity break if nothing else  

[kitsunebi]

The most dangerous thing about debinding with heat is if any glue gets left to harden on the page, since it can scratch the glass of an ADF scanner.

I'm curious about this documentary.  First of all, what made you settle on the Xbox?  Don't get me wrong, I owned all the consoles of its generation (..the LAST generation of consoles I owned), and on multi-platform titles I typically preferred the Xbox for it's slight technological edge over the others.  But the system never really seemed to have much personality to me, or much in the way of memorable exclusives.

Second, this sounds like a huge project.  Is this a hobby or is there some amount of professional involvement?  Do you have other documentaries under your belt?

[VGBounceHouse]

22 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

The most dangerous thing about debinding with heat is if any glue gets left to harden on the page, since it can scratch the glass of an ADF scanner.

I'm curious about this documentary.  First of all, what made you settle on the Xbox?  Don't get me wrong, I owned all the consoles of its generation (..the LAST generation of consoles I owned), and on multi-platform titles I typically preferred the Xbox for it's slight technological edge over the others.  But the system never really seemed to have much personality to me, or much in the way of memorable exclusives.

Second, this sounds like a huge project.  Is this a hobby or is there some amount of professional involvement?  Do you have other documentaries under your belt?

My ADF seems to work fine but it pulls the pages too close to the edges of the bed for me to trust so at least I'm safe if slow with my hand scanning 

I've been planning the documentary for a long time though I've only been working on it daily since the start of the year. I thought about doing one on the Intellivision as a test case given it's much smaller library but decided that my past work was always "go big" I'd go with my first choice, the original Xbox, for three primary reasons: it was the return of an American company to the console space after decades; it started a paradigm-shift in terms of development which was Microsoft's impetus along with the "battle" for the living room; and it was a well known brand creating a distinct new brand which had internal as well as external challenges. The book "Opening the Xbox" was published near launch and documented development of the console with a lots of insider access, and the more recent "Project X" series is also loaded with interviews with people that were there, but neither looks at the console's lifespan, or the games themselves, and almost all of the material comes from Microsoft past and present personnel.

The aspects of this project include:

• A standard "viewer ignorant" two hour documentary
• Extended cut version with more material geared towards gamers
• Additional video bonus features
• Video coverage of all 1,000 games
• Extended single game and genre grouped videos
• Interviews with people across all aspects of the console and games and hopefully external sources like members of the press and advertising agencies
• Every videogame magazine published during the Xbox' lifespan scanned (and possibly converted into my HTMLization format depending on time)
• Every media file, trailer, interview and feature produced about the console and game made available in one place
• Full details on all games including credits, articles both online and off, advertising, box art, manuals, discs available online
• Coverage of games announced but never released
• All of this material cross-indexed on my site for research so anyone has a definitive starting place for their own content production

As for the Xbox having a personality, I'd point to Live! which defined online gaming during the period unlike the PlayStation Network or already ubiquitous PC gaming. Halo in particular was a phenomenon and aided in the rise of collector's editions and midnight launches. And whether positive or negative, the introduction of download-only games, and the access to the console market by conventionally PC-only developers due to the toolchain helped define the Xbox.

The project has been a hobby, as has my Videogame Pavilion site. But I will be attempting to crowdfund to work on it full-time, otherwise it will have to be part-time. In the past I created award-winning Stars Suite educational system which helped millions of kids, including hundreds of thousands of at-risk students get "normalized". I was the sole developer and designer both front-end and back-end even if the company liked to tell people they had a "dev team"  and that is only one of the handful of large projects I've handled solo. Not that I hope this is a one-man job given my dislike of many videogame genres, I hope to bring others on board to help with the commentary and analysis aspects of things I'm less excited about.

Today is my 127th day in a row of tweeting updates (and posting many of them to the project's Facebook page):

https://twitter.com/VGBounceHouse

https://www.facebook.com/XboxDocumentary

I also have hundreds of videos taken from all of the Official Xbox Magazine demo discs, Microsoft's Exhibition disc series and LucasArts' Xbox Experience on my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz6qUFvxiiaZAoQ09ZZmHPg

Finally my site has a dedicated page to the documentary along with three of Microsoft's game catalogs scanned as a starting point:

http://vgpavilion.com/xbox-documentary/

From there you can scan the over 2,000 web pages that host information about every game released for the system.

I have never done a documentary before, but I've studied a few I really like, and a lot I don't, to get a sense of direction. In the realm of videogames I've yet to see anything like I'm planning, much less the larger "experience" I'm putting out there in terms of text, images, videos and links.

[kitsunebi]

I think I missed out on appreciating some of the things that other people liked about the systems of that generation.  For example, despite the dearth of quality games for the PS2's first year, many people were happy to own it because it doubled as a DVD player, which at the time were new and quite expensive.  But I already had one (won it in an online contest, actually), so I never once played a DVD in my PS2.

And with the Xbox, I sort of forget all about Xbox Live, since I dislike online gaming and never subscribed.  Unlike now, it was totally optional and I can't say I felt I was missing out since I had no intent of engaging in multiplayer gaming.  It might also explain why I never "got" Halo, which to me was a decent if somewhat dull FPS, and not nearly as amazing as its reputation had me believe.  Today, I honestly can't say I even remember it all that fondly or have any desire to revisit it (I never even played Halo 2, despite owning it).  But I suspect that those who enjoyed multiplayer and played it on Live! must have had a wholly different experience from me.

I'll tell you one feature of the Xbox I DID appreciate - the hard drive making it unnecessary to purchase memory cards.  I also remember using it to store some MP3s that I could play during certain games in lieu of whatever songs would normally be playing.

I'm definitely looking forward to checking out your doc when its finished.

Will you also be discussing the Xbox's (lack of) impact in Japan, or strictly focusing on the American market?

[VGBounceHouse]

21 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

I'll tell you one feature of the Xbox I DID appreciate - the hard drive making it unnecessary to purchase memory cards.  I also remember using it to store some MP3s that I could play during certain games in lieu of whatever songs would normally be playing.

I'm definitely looking forward to checking out your doc when its finished.

Will you also be discussing the Xbox's (lack of) impact in Japan, or strictly focusing on the American market?

Other hardware innovations like Dolby Digital encoding (and the rest of the nForce design used) and broadband on board will definitely be covered. There will be fond remembrances of the original Xbox' custom soundtracks which were a software feature rather than an OS-level one as in subsequent generations. Creating your own mix and then having the game cut in the fake commercials and other bits was awesome in GTA San Andreas.

I have a friend in Japan I hope will be able to wrangle some translators to add to the European and American magazine coverage of other markets than the U.S. The main documentary will cover the success (or lack thereof) in other markets but I'll be sticking to what I can dig up from primary and secondary sources rather than the speculation I often hear from people when discussing the system. Depending on funding I'll gladly add non-U.S. magazines to the mix, and I already include all games released for the system with regional exclusives broken out:

http://vgpavilion.com/platforms/consoles/xbox/regions.html

As the EU had various mixes of country grouping depending on the title that list will need work as will my current box art.

In the meantime I'm gonna bookend Video Games after dropping the first issue with the last:

[VGBounceHouse]

I’ve finished the issue and uploaded it. I’m following the lead of kitsunbi77’s thread and waiting until later tonight to post it so the current new release stays at the top for a full day. In the meantime you can preview it on my site:

http://vgpavilion.com/mags/1984/fa/vg/pages/

This one was tougher than expected. At first glance the source seemed real good, but it had two damaged spots, the right side stain that persisted the 2 front and back pages, a what looks like water damage at the bottom causing creasing at the bottom margin of every page. But those were easy fixes, the real problem was drum smear throughout the issue. This was a problem with this type of cheap paper stock where the ink wasn’t applied evenly. Luckily the worst problem, smearing, isn’t there, but loads of ink castoff was. I did my best to clean it up but I’m sure some specks remain here and there. You’ll also notice they used cover stock on the outer two pages (8 total edited pages) and you’ll see the beautiful bright white there compared to the yellowed newspaper stock used for the rest of the paper.

[kitsunebi]

1 minute ago, VGBounceHouse said:

I’ve finished the issue and uploaded it. I’m following the lead of kitsunbi77’s thread and waiting until later tonight to post it so the current new release stays at the top for a full day. In the meantime you can preview it on my site:

http://vgpavilion.com/mags/1984/fa/vg/pages/

This one was tougher than expected. At first glance the source seemed real good, but it had two damaged spots, the right side stain that persisted the 2 front and back pages, a what looks like water damage at the bottom causing creasing at the bottom margin of every page. But those were easy fixes, the real problem was drum smear throughout the issue. This was a problem with this type of cheap paper stock where the ink wasn’t applied evenly. Luckily the worst problem, smearing, isn’t there, but loads of ink castoff was. I did my best to clean it up but I’m sure some specks remain here and there. You’ll also notice they used cover stock on the outer two pages (8 total edited pages) and you’ll see the beautiful bright white there compared to the yellowed newspaper stock used for the rest of the paper.

What I do is wait until the new release email goes out for the day, then upload mine so that it will be on the next day's new release email.  Today's new release mail has already gone out (about 2 hours ago.)  Waiting 24 hours is fine if you're on the same schedule as whoever uploaded the previous mag, but I'm in a different time zone from most people here (the new release email goes out at 7AM my time.)

So in other words, if it was up to me, I'd go ahead and upload your mag now.  And give E-Day a heads up if you want him to hold off on uploading something new until tomorrow, or else he'll probably upload something else a couple of hours from now.

[kitsunebi]

Toldja. Gotta get on these things early to stop the E-Day juggernaut.

[VGBounceHouse]

56 minutes ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Toldja. Gotta get on these things early to stop the E-Day juggernaut.

Man, I was all set up to go exactly 24 hours after the last release 

Should I wait? Since it'll have to be approved it could always be delayed that way...

Edited July 26, 2019 by VGBounceHouse

[kitsunebi]

That's between you and E-Day.  But don't expect him to be aware of something you post in this thread unless he's actually replied to it.  Hell, don't expect him to be aware of something you wrote in a PM unless he's replied to it.

[kitsunebi]

Listen, approval is just a formality at this point.  You've uploaded quality scans in the past, so I don't even download them to check anymore, I just approve them.  So if you want me to wait or not is your call.  Awaiting your orders, kemosabe.

[VGBounceHouse]

40 minutes ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Listen, approval is just a formality at this point.  You've uploaded quality scans in the past, so I don't even download them to check anymore, I just approve them.  So if you want me to wait or not is your call.  Awaiting your orders, kemosabe.

Since I saw both of you in that thread you created liking a delay I’ll leave it in your hands as I’ve already done my part. My really old mags never get hundreds of downloads so release it now, in 8 hours, whatever works. I have to get back to some new HTML/CSS/JS I’ve been putting off, just happy to have bookended this mag.

[kitsunebi]

Oh, no.  You're not gonna foist the responsibility on me.  I'll let E-Day approve it, then.

P.S.  you might want to PM E-Day and ask him to approve this, or else he may never notice.

And while you're at it, PM phillyman and maybe he can do something about lifting the need to have someone else approve your files now that you're a trusted uploader.

[VGBounceHouse]

15 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Oh, no.  You're not gonna foist the responsibility on me.  I'll let E-Day approve it, then.

P.S.  you might want to PM E-Day and ask him to approve this, or else he may never notice.

And while you're at it, PM phillyman and maybe he can do something about lifting the need to have someone else approve your files now that you're a trusted uploader.

I waited until morning and followed your advice to PM while E-Day was listed as online but no response and no approval oh well. If it’s still not approved by the time you log on again please do the approval.

[kitsunebi]

Good morning!  (Well it is for me, anyway.)

Ah...the ol' unanswered, unread PM.  I know it well.  If you check the online user list, you can see what everyone is currently doing.  I sometimes look at this list to get a sense of what people are interested in, or what brings guests to the site.  Many are the times I see people listed as "writing a personal message," and I always wonder...to who?  It's not to me, that's for sure.  I almost never get a PM.  I can only assume that Phillyman and E-Day's message boxes are flooded with dozens of PMs per day, so ignoring them until they have a significant chunk of free time available has become standard operating procedure.

At any rate, at this point, the "new release" email will be sent out in 10 minutes or so, at which point I'll approve your release, meaning it will be on the next day's email.  Worrying about 24 hour grace periods between other peoples' upload times is too hard, but the email goes out at the same time each day, so keeping it to one release per email is simple enough.  Just follow the rule: If you've already received a new release email for the most recent upload, then it's safe to upload something new.

Of course, this also means that If you upload something ten minutes before the email goes out, then technically someone else can upload something new ten minutes later, but them's the breaks.  You'll still get the release email all to yourself, so long as yours is the only release within the 24 hour period between emails.

 

EDIT: It occurs to me that who we REALLY need on approval duty/PM answering service is one of the fine folks at a certain site out there that mirrors all of our releases.  We upload something new, and those guys upload it to their site mere hours later!  For peoples' convenience, you know - in case they want our releases but can't be bothered to visit our site, I guess.  Like if amazon prime decided to upload all of Netflix's content so that people wouldn't need subscriptions to both.  Doin' it for the people, you see.    Dunno how helpful they'd be, but you can bet they'd be around to receive it if you send them a PM, especially if it was about a new release.

[VGBounceHouse]

1 hour ago, kitsunebi77 said:

EDIT: It occurs to me that who we REALLY need on approval duty/PM answering service is one of the fine folks at a certain site out there that mirrors all of our releases.  We upload something new, and those guys upload it to their site mere hours later!  For peoples' convenience, you know - in case they want our releases but can't be bothered to visit our site, I guess.  Like if Amazon Prime decided to upload all of Netflix's content so that people wouldn't need subscriptions to both.  Doin' it for the people, you see.    Dunno how helpful they'd be, but you can bet they'd be around to receive it if you send them a PM, especially if it was about a new release.

I didn’t know there was someone out there mirroring, but that’s always helpful to spread unique content. 

‘Thanks for pushing the release. Not sure when I’ll have another one since the next mag I’m working on is already a release here (you know me, gotta have those spreads which are impossible when mags are debound by cutting) but I’m gonna try to alternate between XBN and Video Games after I finish the one I’ve just started.

[kitsunebi]

1 minute ago, VGBounceHouse said:

I didn’t know there was someone out there mirroring, but that’s always helpful to spread unique content. 

‘Thanks for pushing the release. Not sure when I’ll have another one since the next mag I’m working on is already a release here (you know me, gotta have those spreads which are impossible when mags are debound by cutting) but I’m gonna try to alternate between XBN and Video Games after I finish the one I’ve just started.

Mirroring is the polite term.

But you're right, making mags widely available is a good thing - I just wish there were a few more people out there who took some of the time and effort they spend combing the internets looking for files to mirror and diverted it into producing new content of their own.

I really don't see any excuse for not contributing to this hobby aside from "don't want to," or "can't be bothered, too lazy."  Does it take time?  Yes, but anyone who says they have no time to give is a liar.  Put down that TV remote for an hour and work on a scan.  Does it take money?  Yep.  But the costs are within all but the most destitute of broke-ass college students' means.  Magazines are cheap - you don't need every issue ever published to start scanning - just one will do.  And you don't need a fancy ADF scanner -- assuming you don't already own an all-in-one printer that can do the job of scanning just fine, then you can purchase one for the price of a couple of games (and hey, you'll also finally own a printer like a real, live, civilized person!)  And editing software is free, if you need it to be.  But alas, to give up time AND money?  My god, those things are sacrifices!  Which as any sensible person knows, are things best left to other people.  

Excuse my rant.

[E-Day]

I just saw the PM now. When I came on tonight I didn't see the notification on the site. Personally, I don't care if anyone uploads something right after me. So if you see I've uploaded something, don't feel like you need to wait until the next day. A scheduling system like we were talking about would be good for making sure we can have a release every day.

Currently talking to Phillyman about fixing your issue with needing approval.

[kitsunebi]

1 hour ago, E-Day said:

I just saw the PM now. When I came on tonight I didn't see the notification on the site. Personally, I don't care if anyone uploads something right after me. So if you see I've uploaded something, don't feel like you need to wait until the next day. A scheduling system like we were talking about would be good for making sure we can have a release every day.

...and as you can see, E-Day has uploaded another scan a couple of hours after yours, both of which will be in the same new release email tomorrow, so it was all for naught anyway.

I think the lesson is, if you want your own exclusive day, you've got to bitch and whinge about it days ahead of time like I did until you get a written agreement that an upcoming day will be set aside for you.

[E-Day]

His showed up as being posted the day before. I didn't realize it was only approved later last night. If the posting time reflected the approval time I would have skipped yesterday. 

Phillyman should be looking into why VG needs approval for certain categories. We both looked yesterday and couldn't find anything that would cause that. 

[kitsunebi]

Yeah, as I said before, it's way too tricky keeping track of what time someone else uploaded a file.

For me, my rule is simple.  We all get the automated new release email that gets sent out once per day (at least, I assume we all do.)  If I've already received the email promoting whatever mag is at the top of the new releases, that means it's safe to upload something new.  Then whoever wants to upload the next file has to wait until after the email promoting my file goes out (which will always be less than 24 hours from the time I uploaded it.)

Depending on the time of day consecutive mags get uploaded, they will almost definitely not be 24 hours apart and indeed could be mere minutes apart if one was posted immediately before the email is sent out and one was posted immediately after.  However, this method ensures that only one magazine will be featured in each new release email.

Of course, my rule only works if everyone plays by my rule.

[VGBounceHouse]

I've got another issue of Video Games in the works (hopefully by the end of the weekend) but in the meantime I'm going to shill my Xbox Documentary if you don't mind 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/xbox-documentary#/

 

[VGBounceHouse]

I have finished Video Games Issue 16, January 1984, but am still waiting on the upload to be pushed. In the meantime you can view the issue on my site:

http://vgpavilion.com/mags/1984/01/vg/pages/

Like the last issue I did this one was tough because it appears they used a dirty drum creating unnatural bleed and stray ink. Again I did my edits at 100% rather than 200% to preserve sanity. The issue is very readable and replicates the in-hand look but it's always possible someone will turn up a cleaner copy than the one I had on hand.