Curious about the status of GamePro 154-158 and beyond

[NorrinRadd]

I've been streaming myself reading and playing through GamePro Magazines once a week for the last 67 weeks. I started in 1995 issues and am currently almost bumping up against the beginning of the gaps in the archive around 2001. I would like to continue doing this show for as long as I can make the games run, but not having the issue will become a problem.

Here is a link to last week's June 2000 episode

I spend at least 8 hours researching for each episode, gathering games and researching other movies and music that came out that same month to tie it all together. The show is pretty important to me, and if I can avoid trying to buy all these magazines used just to continue, I would love to.

If anyone has any information, or magazines they feel like donating, please let me know. I can scan issues if needed. I am all ears!


 

[E-Day]

You can always go back and start at Issue 1 when you run into the gap

Unfortunately I do not have any of those missing issues for scanning. I have them in my personal collection, but those cannot be destroyed for scanning. Phillyman might have the issues, but no one knows. He has so many boxes of magazines he doesn't even know what he has. Maybe you can figure out a way to motivate him to sort through his issues. I have been trying for years with no luck

[Areala]

I checked my collection earlier this evening, and the only issue I have which is missing from our archives is #190. It would fill in a gap, and I'm willing to donate it to the cause, but won't be of much help when you bump up against the missing issues.

(I also have GamePro Code Vault Issue 32 which, again, I am happy to donate to the cause, but this will not help you in your specific problem).

I think much of our hopes rest on @Phillyman indexing his hoard.

*huggles*
Areala

[NorrinRadd]

I appreciate the update! And yeah, while that does not help me in my immediate jam, I am glad to hear there are those out there with some copies to fill in gaps in the future. I wouldn't say there is a rush on it at least from my perspective. I just wrapped up Issue 142, so I am still 12 weeks away from having to change course when 154.

@Phillyman I am pretty new to posting here, but it sounds like you are the big player in this game. I've been at this project of long form recording myself play through GamePros for over a year and have played 807 games up to this point (Here's the Game List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ZY7EpEYw0564L_AeDBq0Py2fh_9FbQjG__aoY4mQw0/edit?usp=sharing). If there are any of these missing GamePros floating around that could be archived, I would be super grateful!

[Melki]

Hi. im a big Gamepro fan...and a team member, ive tried to get all the missing gamepros edited but its hard because nobody got those issues, i know @Phillyman scanned some missing 2001, 2002, 2003 gamepros back in 2019 , i think...but no 154-158...and i maybe he'll need to rescan or upload to editing...btw $148 and 153 re missing too T.T

  

[NorrinRadd]

I am running out of weeks to find these missing mags. I have a redditor who will scan me the table of contents from his issues (eternally grateful), but I am curious if there are actually *any* magazines from these missing months?

Seems like just about every magazine drops off at 2001, which is super weird since the PS2 was just hitting it's stride. Do any of you know of a Magazine that has a complete 2001? I'll even take non English.

[Areala]

5 hours ago, NorrinRadd said:

Seems like just about every magazine drops off at 2001, which is super weird since the PS2 was just hitting it's stride. Do any of you know of a Magazine that has a complete 2001? I'll even take non English.

https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/nextgen/

NextGen (the version 2.0 of Next Generation) has a complete 2001 archive scanned here, but they only ran until January 2002, so this is a stop-gap measure for certain.

I'm not entirely sure this is the case, but I suspect the reason the early 2000's era is hard to find archived here is that, for the longest time, the cutoff for Retromags to host magazines was 1999. Because of that, major effort was expended early on to find and preserve material from the 80's and 90's, while the 2000's and beyond were essentially ignored. Back then, we were trying to keep publishers from seeing us as competition, so we went out of our way to ensure the only stuff we offered was older material. Now that most magazines have gone under, and none of the remaining ones have turned their own attention to digital preservation and archival, we're a bit more lenient with our cut-off dates.

The early 2000s is also the rise of the internet age, with periodical numbers dropping all across the board as people increasingly turned to the Web, and not magazines, to get their information. A lot of people canceled subscriptions during this time, and thus there are fewer issues out there than one might think. It's relatively easy to find game magazine lots on eBay, but more difficult to locate specific issues or years.

In any case, I hope this helps.

*huggles*
Areala

[E-Day]

I just scanned GamePro 148. It will be the next thing I edit. Not sure when it'll get released though! 

[NorrinRadd]

Great work! I managed to find a weird PDF scan of that one just by sheer luck, but it will be excellent to have it part of the main archive!

@Areala Thanks for the heads up! I guess I will have to make a lateral move over to Next Gen when the GamePros start to run out. It will be weird to be reading\playing a different mag after 70+ episodes, but it will absolutely do!