JHD

It is interesting that the cover story of that issue was an unreleased game. I have heard the stories about the background, but I was not aware that it was so very close to release that a strategy guide was available for it.

That is an interesting perspective, thank-you. It never would have occurred to me that the target audience was so young. Yes, by 1992 I was an adult, out of school, and employed. While I had a (modest) income, I also had more pressing things to buy than gaming magazines. Even back in the early-1980s, I never read gaming magazines -- partially because I had no independent income with which to purchase them, and mostly due to the lack of distribution. Stores in my neighbourhood did not seem to stock them; I certainly do not recall having seen any on local newsstands.

I was not playing console games in the 1990s -- I essentially skipped from the 2600 to the PlayStation -- so I never paid any attention to the NES and SNES magazines. That said, does anyone have a sense of how well titles like this sold BITD? Personally, I would only have purchased an occasional issue if there was in-depth coverage of a game that I had (or that I planned to get). I simply could not justify buying it on a regular basis, much less subscribing. There would be many issues with no relevant content. Obviously, today with generally much larger collections, and emulation, the situation is much different.

I agree! I am passionate about aspects of (Canadian) history, and I routinely travel great distances just to visit specific museums to see particular exhibits. I have spent a great deal of money on this (travel, accommodations, meals, admission chargers), but I very much enjoy the hobby, so it is money well spent. There are some amazing private collections as well -- one local collector, who was profiled in a magazine, literally has his own museum -- but as I will never be able to view them, they might as well not exist.

Actually, the Dead Sea Scrolls are made of leather, not papyrus. The storage environment does make a huge difference. Keeping paper dry and away from flight (in a closed box) will do wonders for its longevity. The one important exception is newsprint/pulp paper (where any gaming magazines printed on that stock?) -- that type of paper is inherently so very acidic that the only thing to do is copy it to another format (scan, photocopy, whatever). Even under proper storage conditions it will deteriorate. (There are specialist chemical treatments that can preserve newsprint, but they are well beyond the price of private individuals and small institutions.) I really like the tablet idea. The Rooms museum in St. John's, Newfoundland has adopted this -- there is a display case with various artifacts. In front, there is a mounted tablet where one can view pictures of the artifacts and read more background information about each object. It avoids cluttering the display with large information panels that would only be of interest to a few people. The information is readily available without having to handle the fragile original.

I look at this as a long, LONG-term hobby. I am willing to trade my time for money. For example, I badly wanted an Atari Flashback 2, but I was unwilling to buy one on eBay. It took me about 10 or 12 years to find one in a thrift shop, but now I have it! To give another, non-gaming example, there was a series of 12 (history) books that I wanted. The publisher went bankrupt towards the end, and the last few volumes in the series are extremely hard to find due to low print-runs. A few local used bookstores have complete sets, and they charge whatever the market will bear. Over the course of more than a decade (and visiting multiple thrift stores in two cities) I assembled the whole set -- one or two volumes at a time. I never paid more than $5 for any one volume, and sometimes much less. I will continue to (slowly) search for magazines and, hopefully, find something that I will be able to contribute.

Actually I am in Canada rather than the United States Some magazines (e.g. Game Informer) are just not sold in this country, so I will never see any second-hand copies, but otherwise the market is about the same (albeit much smaller than in the US). I visit Goodwill (and similar stores) about twice monthly, especially looking for books. There are often old magazines to be found, but almost never anything gaming-related. Alas, garage sales around here are hardly worth the effort -- I see kitchen stuff, kid's toys, and romance novels, but nothing much else. I shall continue to search, and hopefully someday I will be able to contribute something.

For various reasons, I am unwilling to purchase anything from eBay -- I much prefer shopping and brick and mortar stores. I routinely scour thrift shops and used bookstores in search of items of interest, one of which is (obviously) classic video games. I only VERY rarely find video game magazines for sale -- in the past five years, I have encountered maybe 3 or 4 random issues of various titles (across numerous shops in several different cities -- I travel frequently). Does anyone have any suggestions where to find old gaming magazines, other than eBay? I would like to contribute to the scanning project, but that would first require finding something to scan...