Coverdiscs on Retro Gamer Magazine

Post by **CraigGrannell** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:59 am

jdanddiet wrote:Amazon women and dinosaurs. How did it fail?

I think the tiny flaw was that the game itself was utter pap.

jdanddiet · Post by **jdanddiet** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:08 am

...and perhaps because the advert artist knew more about dinosaur anatomy than women's....

Gabe · Post by **Gabe** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:04 pm

paranoid marvin wrote:Not bothered about a disc any more , especially after seeing what's happened to Totaal PC Gaming

What would like to see however is a tribute pullout like the Crash/Zzap! ones , a poster like the Game Over one

Most of all though I would love to see RG give us a retro calendar free with each November/December issue

OT, but Total PC Gaming is amusing - they claim they're giving away 2 full games worth Â£35, but you can actually legally download them both for free anyway, and have been able to for a while.

Dudley · Post by **Dudley** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:11 am

Gabe wrote:
paranoid marvin wrote:Not bothered about a disc any more , especially after seeing what's happened to Totaal PC Gaming

What would like to see however is a tribute pullout like the Crash/Zzap! ones , a poster like the Game Over one

Most of all though I would love to see RG give us a retro calendar free with each November/December issue
OT, but Total PC Gaming is amusing - they claim they're giving away 2 full games worth Â£35, but you can actually legally download them both for free anyway, and have been able to for a while.

Which quite frankly should be illegal.

But then they're allowed to claim they're giving away free gifts having just put up the price Â£1.50.

Not that I care, as soon as I saw the price rise I stopped buying it, just as I did when they pulled the same crap with N-Rev and will if they ruin 360 the same way.

Bub&Bob · Post by **Bub&Bob** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:50 am

Dudley wrote:Not that I care, as soon as I saw the price rise I stopped buying it, just as I did when they pulled the same crap with N-Rev and will if they ruin 360 the same way.

The price rise for N-Rev didn't bother me as much as the fact that its now illegal to buy this mag if you are over the age of 10

mattwerk · Post by **mattwerk** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:49 am

When RG had cover discs, I didn't know the mag existed yet. But I can't imagine what was on them. I would imagine that old games would either be PC games that are freeware (which you can download for free) or roms (which would be illegal, yeah?). Or maybe demos of retro games revamped and released on new consoles. Anyway, free old games would be cool in the sense it saves you looking and downloading yourself, roms (oh come on, who'd know? he he he) would save you the hassle as well... demos, does anybody care about demos?

So I'd say no, avoid a cover disc and I wouldn't pay extra. Sorry RG, the mag is great but I find 5 quid rather a lot for a magazine... being back in England I do miss paying 10 Rand (about 60p) for a back issue or 30 Rand (about 2 quid) for a fairly new one back in Durban...

GarryG · Post by **GarryG** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:58 am

mattwerk wrote:When RG had cover discs, I didn't know the mag existed yet. But I can't imagine what was on them. I would imagine that old games would either be PC games that are freeware (which you can download for free) or roms (which would be illegal, yeah?).

They were mostly this, but there were one or two noteable ecxeptions. Ant ROMS on the disks were compleatly legal as permision was given and they were in the PD.

I voted NO to the poll, but if something a bit special could be found for 'special' issues (eg xmas) then I wouldn't be opposed to paying Â£1ish more on a one-off basis.

JetSetWilly · Post by **JetSetWilly** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:35 pm

I voted no as well, as most stuff you can get off the t'internet anyway. But, as most have said, if something 'special' turns up (no, not someone with their tongue hanging out) and is a one-off, like Atari saying yes to putting the whole of Ocean's back catalogue on a disc with some making of's and some trailers and interviews, I think it might be worth it.
But i say more free calenders, posters and special edition mags like the YS or ZZAP!64 ones. They were ace!!

khisanth · Post by **khisanth** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 2:56 pm

a nice compromise would be to have a links section pointing to videos , games, emulators etc to make it easy for people.

tinyurl them to make them easy to type in or just link from the retro gamer website.

so RG could still source or produce some cool videos or interviews and we can still see them without a coverdisc

crazyteknohed · Post by **crazyteknohed** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:18 am

I voted 'no'.

Now if the poll was whether we wanted RG to introduce cover tapes that is another thing altogether...

VinnyM · Post by **VinnyM** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 7:26 am

Hey! Now there's an idea for the Christmas special

As long as you make it a Commodore 64 game

I say 'NO' to coverdisks. All the stuff that would appear on the disks is easily available via the Net.

moora101 · Post by **moora101** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:56 am

Although I love the idea of cover discs, the additional cost probably doesn't make it worthwhile in this day and age.

However, with the whole ability to download games quite easily, I would like to see some kind of "compromise".

As a suggestion- it would be fantastic if there was a part of the website, created every month for a specific issue, where you could download a collection of the games featured in that month. Yes, I know there's issues with rom ownership, but you could easily put it together for the 8-bit home micros (Spectrum, C64, Amstrad etc) that are all easily available online (without licence issues). Maybe even some of the 16-bit micro titles in there.

Stick in some recommended emulators and it would make a great companion to the magazine. It could mean you could read the issue, and play- easily- the games featured in that issue. If you could make it as a downloadable zip file, you could then play it with the emulator (or hardware/console) of your choice. Because Retro Gamer is very "re-readable" it would make it even better going back to the mags, and then having a folder with those specific games in one, easy location. I'm sure the writers are using emulators in some cases, so they should have the files ready to hand.

Yeah, you can get them all online- by trawling the intrawebs- but it would just make it so much easier!

Post by **CraigGrannell** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:45 am

moora101 wrote:As a suggestion- it would be fantastic if there was a part of the website, created every month for a specific issue, where you could download a collection of the games featured in that month. Yes, I know there's issues with rom ownership, but you could easily put it together for the 8-bit home micros (Spectrum, C64, Amstrad etc) that are all easily available online (without licence issues).

I'd estimate that 99 per cent of the time, games featured in Retro Gamer would leave the magazine open to lawsuits if it made said games available for download. Just because games are "easily available online", that doesn't mean Imagine could provide downloads without getting into some serious legal trouble. Plus, obviously, any extra resources on a project such as that means less being spent on the mag itself.

As for emulators, that could also open up a world of pain regarding support issues. What about people with old PCs? Macs? Mobile devices? I think Retro Gamer should just stay put in informing you about the games and how they were made; those people interested in playing them can easily enough find out how via Google if they don't have access to original hardware.

psj3809 · Post by **psj3809** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:23 am

CraigGrannell wrote:I'd estimate that 99 per cent of the time, games featured in Retro Gamer would leave the magazine open to lawsuits if it made said games available for download. Just because games are "easily available online", that doesn't mean Imagine could provide downloads without getting into some serious legal trouble. Plus, obviously, any extra resources on a project such as that means less being spent on the mag itself.

As for emulators, that could also open up a world of pain regarding support issues. What about people with old PCs? Macs? Mobile devices? I think Retro Gamer should just stay put in informing you about the games and how they were made; those people interested in playing them can easily enough find out how via Google if they don't have access to original hardware.

Agree with the above, WOS have contacted lots and lots of authors for permission to host their games. 'Some' authors might not be happy if their games appear (for free )on a revenue earning magazine rather than a fan site on the web. Opens up a whole can of worms and a lot of work for someone who then has to chase the programmers/old companies for permission.

As for emulators just give me a link and i'll download it, dont need it on a cd rom.

Cover disks were superb back in the 90's/early 00's but now with faster speeds etc its just so easy to download anything. Focus more on the mag and just give me a link to download things

liveinabin · Post by **liveinabin** » Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:11 am

CraigGrannell wrote:What about people with old PCs? Macs? Mobile devices?

Absolutely, I'm a Mac user and those discs were totally useless to me. And, since they pushed the price of the mag up, I just didn't buy early RG issues. As soon as the discs stopped, I subscribed.

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