Scanning Rules
• Adhere to cutoff dates for magazines (see below)
• No Diehard Gamefan Magazines
• Please scan the entire magazine
• Share with everyone
• Submissions must have the Retromags "Thank You" Page
• Submissions are forever
Rules Explained
What do you mean "adhere to cutoff dates for magazines"?
This project operates in a very gray area of the law, legally we have no right to digitalize these magazines. We try our best to show the publishers of these magazines that we mean them no harm and that this is a fan site. From the very beginning of this sites creation we have had a cut off date. This cut off used to be 5 years from the current date, as of January 2009 we changed the cut off to December 31st 1999 to further reinforce this. Recently, and adjustment has been made to this rule.
The 1999 cutoff still applies to magazines that are still on newsstands. Examples of this are GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Nintendo Power, Edge, Game Informer, Tips & Tricks, and so on. If a magazine is still being published, the scannign cutoff is still December 1999.
Magazines that started publication after December 1999 are still not eligible for scanning, regardless of whether they are still being published or not. This would include magazines like The Official Xbox Magazine and others.
Discontinued magazines can go passed December 1999, up to the end of 2004. Examples are (but not limited to): The Official Dreamcast Magazine, Gamer's Republic, EGM2/Expert Gamer/GameNow, and Next Generation. This will give people the chance to have a complete collection of their favourite magazines that have ceased publication.
If you are ever unsure about the eligibility of something you have for scanning, just ask about it :)
Why no Diehard Gamefan magazines?
The publisher and owner of Gamefan, Dave Halverson, has made it known that he does not wish for digital copies of his magazine to be made available on any site, and that if they wee, there would be legal action. So of course, we respect his wishes concerning his content, and thus, no Gamefan magazines are to be submittd to Retromags.
The only thing we allow scanned from Gamefan issues are the covers for the Cover Gallery.
Why scan the entire magazine?
A magazine is more than just the articles aout games. The experience of reading a magazine includes flipping through the ads, looking at/skipping the bonus guide, and so on. The general feel of a magazine is lost when only the articles are scanned, so please scan all the pages.
Why share with everyone?
Why include the "Thank You" page? What is Submissions are Forever? The premise of this site is simple. Scan magazines, make them available to visitors of this site, download magazines, and talk about magazines (and other things). Pretty simple, right? But someway, somehow, some people feel the need to cause drama and trouble on the forums around game magazines of all things. So let's set some forum rules that will keep things relaxed and peaceful, as well as preventing the site from looking like a community of immature members. 1. Avoid discussions based on religion, race and/or politics. Those discussions never end in anything but disagreement and arguing. There are plenty of other sites and forums for discussing those topics. Please do it there. We want to keep things friendly and easy going here. 2. Do not request/provide links to Warez, Keygens, Roms, ISOs, etc, and do not discuss topics such as R5 Movies, Modchips or Flash Cards. 3. Swearing isn't prohibited, but don't use it excessively. Racial/derogatory terms and statements, however, are prohibited. Don't use them. 4. Do not post any pornographic material, nor posting or linking to nasty material (animal abuse, gore, etc) 5. Do not personally attack other members. There really is no need for it here. This is a game magazine site. Someone's ugly face or thoughts on the current political administration having nothing to do with the new scan available on the site. If you have a problem with another member, discuss it with them through private messaging, or contact a moderator if the problem is them bothering you. 6. Do not disrespect the publishers/content owners of the game magazines we are scanning (or any publishers, for that matter). It is their content we are scanning and making available without their express permission, after all. They have been kind enough to ignore us so far and leave us alone. If you didn't like a certain magazine, that is fine. Nothing wrong with that. Calling any or all of the publishers shills, frauds, sellouts, or anything else like that, however, is not fine. 7. We do things a certain way at Retromags. You may not like how we do things, and that is fine. You may think there is a better way to do something. If that is the case, then by all means let us know! We are always interested in hearing about new methods or ideas. But that does not mean we are obligated to put your suggestion into action. If we don't your suggestion fits the site, don't take it personally. And don't keep arguing about it. Others have tried, and it's gotten them nowhere when the moderators all agreed it wasn't a good idea. If you ultimately do not like how things are done here, no one is forcing you to stay. 8. If you have a problem with how another site does things or is run, take it up with them over there. Do not bring your little battles here. We don't need nor want them. 9. Members wishing to advertise an Auction/Sale, should use one topic and bump it as new items become available. Retromags is not responsible for any transactions between you and another member of this site. 10. Scanning and contributing magazines to the site does not give you carte blanche to do and say whatever you want. We appreciate everyone who helps out, but we won't let you run wild because of it :) 11. This site is not a beacon of free speech. No government provides absolute free speech, and we are not obligated to do so either as a privately run website. You can pretty much say what you want on here except for those things listed above. If you are warned about something you said that was best left unsaid, please don't claim it's a violation of free speech. It's not. We have standards we want to uphold to make this site as good as it can be. • Please only submit magazine covers that you scanned, or have permission to use! • Do not submit magazines/guides past our December 31st 1999 cut off date!
Sharing with everyone basically means to make the scan available in the Downloads section of the site. You're here because others here have shared their scans with everyone else, including yourself. So it only makes sense to do the same.
If someone comes across your scan though some other means but this site, they will know where it came from, and in turn will probably come to the site. These people could be like minded individuals who wish to contribute to our site. We can always use more help! We are also proud of our work, and would like people to know who is responsible for the hard work that goes into scanning a magazine.
When you submit a magazine to our site, it stays on our site forever, or until the content owner asks us to remove it. You are free to distribute your scans in any way you want. But when you submit a scan to us, we can keep it on our site at our discretion. That means even after you leave the site - whether you decided to move on or leave for other reasons - the scans you submit remain on the site. We scan and submit magazines for everyone on the site and everyone who visits. So we don't let personal differences decide which available magazines are accessible to members and visitors.
Forum Rules
Gallery Rules
• Please double check that someone else hasn't submitted that magazine cover already!
• Please blur/whiteout any address labels on magazine covers before uploading!
• Do not submit Pornographic Material to the Gallery!
• Do not submit hateful images to the Gallery!
• No submitting nasty images! (animal abuse, gore, etc)
• Images submitted to the Gallery, can not be hotlinked outside this site!
Download Manager Rules
• Do not submit Diehard Gamefan magazines
• Do not submit magazines/guides that you found on the internet!
• Do not submit magazines/guides that are low quality scans
• Do not submit magazines/guides that are watermarked
• Do not submit magazines/guides that are unedited (crop, straighten, resize)
• Do not submit magazines/guides that are not in .CBR/.CBZ format. The exception to this is PDF formatted magazines/guides, but please submit them as a secondary format along with CBR/CBZ.
• Do not submit magazines/guides that are inside a password encrypted archive!
• Please scan the entire magazine, this includes the advertisements and comics!
• Magazines/Guides that are missing pages should be avoided, especially if its a high number of missing pages!
• Any submissions to our Download Manager should have the Retromags Thank You page included to show up as the last page.