KiwiArcader

I have the Nintendo Power files up to 110 converted to PDF format and have them on my Rapidshare account but I will be out of the country on holiday until late May so won't be in a position to get them online at OGM until after I get back. There's always been some reticence on the part of Retromags management to host PDF's as they prefer the CBR format and that is perfectly fine. I am more than happy to champion the PDF format

I wonder if retailers are cutting back on them then? Over here only one or two small retailers I know get EGM. All the bigger ones sell Playstation & Xbox 360 this and that, Nintendo this and that and sod all else. Even Games tm and Retrogamer only show up in one or two smaller stores and then only 1 or 2 copies at best. That's partly why I am getting them digitally on iPad now, that and the fact they are 1/4 to 1/5th the price of the print version.

Agreed. It's my app of choice for PDF's and CBR's

Yeah .... no sign of any print issues on the App Store as yet. It IS a worry when they miss print issue deadlines though so is it any wonder that subscribers start to have concerns?

I think you need to make five posts in threads before you can download ... or something like that. After five posts I think you can access one magazine per day. After 25 posts you can access five ...

Everyone's speaking like they have folded already. Nothing I've heard suggests that has happened yet. However, when print run's are late etc it certainly looks like a cashflow problem which if you are a subscriber isn't a good sign. It's relatively cheap to put out a digital mag but printing is a different matter entirely. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that. What they do need to do is get their finger out and get their print run on the App stores and for reasonable prices as the nostalgia factor due to emulation has never been higher and there are plenty of people who would pay a couple of bucks per issue to both support them and to obtain legal versions of their mags. I sure would. Those EGMi versions might have flashy video etc but don't hold a candle to the print versions.

PM sent

Did you actually read through this thread? There is a link to the OoPA website where you can get high quality versions of the OSSM mag from the guys who scanned them in the first place. You can also grab several issues of the short-lived Saturn Power magazine over at my website http://www.oldgamemags.com

Well ...with something like Wordpress you just set a template up and copy/paste into a new page for the mag and populate with the information. Additionally, you can add users you trust, just like here, to create new pages/update existing etc. But you are right ... there is certainly some work involved although I'd wager less than maintaining forums.

Then maybe it's a good time indeed to look at making the site easier for you to manage by changing it to more of a informational site on what is in a particular mag" rather than a full blown forum with all the attendent issues with maintaining it? You could turn the site into a Wordpress type site .... very easy to write page data into ... and comments are available against every page anyway ... and people will indeed submit if they want to. That way you get the benefit of reduced workload and you can still give access to content uploaders as required. It seemed like originally you wanted to hand the site off to someone else due to the workload and now you're introducing more. LOL

That may indeed work. The big question is whether E-Day wants to fork out money on a hosting company like Rapidshare in the current climate? He stated he wasn't keen on going back there but the implications to doing that rather are less than having the hosting company take exception to having locally hosted files and loading files as a free user doesn't work well as after a period of inactivity, or worse in some cases, the files are taken down. The other issue is with newsgroups there is no way to stop other content being loaded into the directory. Say you create alt.binaries.magazines.retromags. What's to stop someone loading the latest issue of XBox mag over there? Nothing ... so RM still has the potential of being implicated in pirating current content.

So have your say!! This is a democracy and everyone who participates on the site is entitled to voice their concerns. I am very interested to hear how you think the site won't be affected by the decision. When downloads were freely hosted off Megaupload the volume of people signing up to the site was extremely low because they could simply leech and not have to contribute to the site in any way. That abruptly changed when MU was taken offline and E-Day started hosting them on the site host & put restrictions on again. We suddenly see people spamming the forums to get the necessary posts to enable them to leech again. Do you seriously think that freely hosting them on newsgroups won't result in people not visiting the site? Why should they anymore when files are no longer hosted here or are no longer only obtainable from this site via a download link? Sure, the dozen off us who frequent this site continually won't change our habits but that'll be about it if past indications are anything to go by. So again ... I am interested in your thoughts and E-Day's of course.

My question is this ..... If you go with newsgroups as the method of providing the mags what is the point of even having the retromags website at all? You can just as easily annouce a new mag via Twitter etc so what's the point of even having a forum in this situation? The whole point of running a site like this I would have thought is to provide a platform for making content available locally which encourages visitors and by that definition continued interaction and involvement with them. If you no longer have download links, eg, just a disclaimer saying they are hosted in alt.binaries.x.x then people who don't have newsgroup access will simply stop coming here and those with newsgroup access won't either as they don't need to anymore. And with newsgroups you have no control of what content goes into the directory so you may as well dump the year restrictions in which case removing the retromags website is beneficial as it removes that avenue of having publishers attacking you anyway. I think this site will become fairly defunct as a result of this decision if you don't find/finance a method for linking to direct downloads

The only issue with newsgroups is retention. A lot of hosters seem to have variable retention times which can lead to files disappearing, or worse, parts of files disappear. Arghhh!!! So I'm guessing you had an email from the hosting company again? Usage?

Did you ever get rid of these or do they still need a home?

Already have. Issues 1 - 91 of Nintendo Power are online over at OGM. Also the issues I have between 1 - 31 of Gamepro are now available.

I can help with that if you are interested in PDF versions

God yes. And what a ra.... er ... stop that right now Kiwi. She's gorgeous alright

All I was saying was they can only do so with the goods their studio's decide to make available. That statement didn't imply they were blameless ... just that not all the blame can be laid at their feet. Now where in the heck is a Blu-ray of Moontrap for goodness sake? Hell, I'd even settle for a DVD version.

I think maybe you guys are confusing the MPAA/RIAA with availability of product a tad too much. I think it's the individual production companies/studios that actually dictate whether a program/movie is available or not and that invariably boils down to economics. Does a 30 year old TV show have a chance of being picked up in syndication for re-runs and if so what needs to be done about restoring it? Are the economics of cleaning up damaged film stock likely to be recouped by the re-run fee's from the TV channels? In a lot of cases you'd probably have to say no to that. That's not to say the program is poor quality etc and that people wouldn't want to watch it. Movies have been getting restorative treatment more so than TV series. There's a better chance of sales in new mediums like Blu-ray for movies than TV as TV was usually shot on lesser quality recording gear. Then there's the fact the world has gone all PC on us. Chances of seeing The Black & White Minstrel Show again? Zip, on account of white guys dressed up as blacks and singing Negro music is considered offensive nowadays. Or Lancelot Link? Again ... the idea of studios filming chimpanzee's smoking cigars etc is not good with the PETA crowd. Even Disney have shelved classics like Song of the South due to implied racism. Not everything is a conspiracy within the MPAA membership etc

All the PDF files on the site were pretty much uploaded by me as most everyone else here uses/likes .CBR files. Now that I run my own site E-Day 'may' prefer to stick with .CBR versions for continuity reasons. I have Nintendo Power 1-120 from this site all in PDF format though so if you want RM to stick with CBR's I can always upload the PDF's over at OGM.

Yep ... I am taking a different approach to E-Day. I have a cut-off date of Dec 2004 for ALL mags but where the mag is defunct I make a judgement call on it. Generally, I am more relaxed if the magazine is for a console that is no longer produced or is a previous generation, eg, the PS2 is okay for releasing 2004/2005 mags dedicated to it while a combo mag with PS2/PS3 content is a total no-go. So is releasing mags that are currently able to be obtained via digital delivery. EG, Retro Gamer have every issue available through the Apple store so no scanning those while Edge only has 2011 content available so up to 2005 is okay UNLESS they start making earlier back issues available at which point they also become verboten. I find taking a hard and fast date approach is rather ridiculous as everything we scan other than the ones we have permission to do is rather illegal and there are no shades of grey as far as the law is concerned. I think the reason some publishers turn a blind eye to us isn't so much the date/age of the content but that it actually is free publicity. I have signed up for a subscription to both Games Master and Edge as a result of obtaining old mags to scan.

Yeah .... I decided I could sit around waiting to se what happens or take a chance. I decided on the latter

Hmmm ... hosting through someone else isn't totally ideal as you never know when they will disappear and while you could say that about filehosting companies they are fairly transparent about what you can do. Well ... until Megaupload going down they were. The other issue is if their provider does an audit like Dreamhost did to Retromags you may find everything disappears anyway. Catch 22 I guess. You could approach Dreamhost and identify content that is able to be distributed legally ... all Newsfield mags ... Antic ... Analog/ST Log etc ... and see if they would then allow local hosting as they wouldn't be legally targeted but really ... most RM content isn't legal ... so filehosting companies or torrents seems the only way to go. I do like Rapidshare though. They seem to have no concerns over the MU saga as it's BAU as far as they are concerned. One really great new addition is you can import files from other Rapidshare user links directly into your account so if that user dropped their files or they were taken down you still have them in your account. Pretty cool.

Anything I posted I have copies of so you can drop that content if you desire and I'll take care of hosting that once we get a better picture of the landscape in the next few days.