Retro Gamer Magazine.


alyinsanfran

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I'm sure everyone (well, everyone old enough to appreciate it anyway) gets this excellent mag', but does anyone else have problems with distribution? I first found it during a trip to Boston last October. Back here in San Francisco I'm having all kinds of problems finding a shop that stocks it within 3 months of publication. Yet I was just in Banff, Alberta and there was the latest copy.
I'd subscribe but it's super expensive to get sent to the US.
Do others have difficulty finding a shop that consistently stocks the latest issue?
Maybe it's just teething troubles, it's still a young rag.
 
yeah, RG distribution seams very sporadic (at least outside of the UK); I used to see every other issue or every third issue show up, 3 months late, at local bookstoresd and magazine shops, if I saw it at all. I just subscribed to it instead, back around issue 3, since it wasn't too expensive and easier to just have it show up at my door. (And now they've changed from 6-weekly to monthly, so god only knows when my subscription will run out..)

The only problem I have with RG is its a little UK/Euro-centric, in the sense of 50% of every issue being about Spectrum's :)

jeff
 
yeah yeah, i know it's off topic, but gotta say this, whilst i love the mag, the overseas subscription is terrible!!!!

There, I've said it! :p
 
skeezix posted on Apr 20 2005 at 03:20 PM said:
The only problem I have with RG is its a little UK/Euro-centric, in the sense of 50% of every issue being about Spectrum's :)

jeff

Well considering a huge percentage of the readership is from the UK and then Europe what do you really expect ??!? ;-)

If anything most RG fans who i've spoken to would stop buying it if it concentrated too much on american gaming or machines.
 
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I'm not American ;) But it being "Retro" gamer, it should cater to everything I'd imagine.. especially if they want to increase readershiup outside of the UK :)

Naturally I've no issue with the Speccy (a cool line), an d they've given me a healthy jonesing for the Acord and their cool machines, and some respect for CPC that I never saw before.. but I dont' think I've seen a Vic 20 screenshot in a single issue, for instance, and not a lot of Commodore 64 mentions. The C64 was huge in North America here, but it was also pretty popular in the UK I think.

Just one of those things.. they shouldn't be 'so' centric, but I don't mind them being a little centric :)

jeff
 
I think they have an excellent spread of featured consoles/micros.
I'm not sure that the home micro wars were as hard fought in the U.S. as in the Commonwealth/Europe. I've only been here in the States for a few years but it seems that outside of Vic20/C64, Atari 400/800/XL, Apple II, TI994A and TRS80 there wasn't much around, though I'd like to be brought up to speed by any Americans who were there. I know the ZX81 and Speccy were here as Sinclair/Timex but how common were they? There was of course a good range of consoles in the early 80's.
I know that even in humble old New Zealand we had a big range of micros. We had BBCb's, Atoms, Electrons, Dragon 32s were about, Orics, Dick Smith Wizards, MSX, Sega SC3000 in addition to the usual suspects (Sinclair/Apple/Atari/Commodore/TRS).
Fodder for another topic altogether really!
But overall I'm impressed with RG, I've learnt of several machines I'd had no idea existed.
But the charge for a US subsription.... bloody hell.
So I keep looking for a decent stocker.
 
mattmagoo posted on Apr 20 2005 at 11:42 AM said:
if anyone wants magazines i've got issues 1-9 or 10 (cant remember) that i'm looking to unload

all with CD


I think you may want to check out the value of those early issues (issue 1 in particular) on EBay.
I've heard they're worth a lot!
'Course youy may already know that.
 
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alyinsanfran posted on Apr 20 2005 at 08:33 PM said:
mattmagoo posted on Apr 20 2005 at 11:42 AM said:
if anyone wants magazines i've got issues 1-9 or 10 (cant remember) that i'm looking to unload

all with CD


I think you may want to check out the value of those early issues (issue 1 in particular) on EBay.
I've heard they're worth a lot!
'Course youy may already know that.
Yeah true, in fact there's an advert in the magazine with a screenshot of one selling on Ebay for a lot of cash.
 
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Since the new look (which happened a few months ago) RG is aimed more at a worldwide audience - For example there has been a few Atari features and theres also a regular look at the Japanese market.
 
wraggster posted on Apr 20 2005 at 05:06 PM said:
i loved the article on the dreamcast scene and my interview in it ;)

my wife or kids have hidden the damn mag now though :(

What issue is that wraggster? If I have it I'll be glad to mail it to ya no sweat.
'Course being (apparently) at the end of the world (California, go figure), I may have not actually seen that issue yet. Had to go to Canada to get issue 1 volume 2, so....
Offer stands though.
 
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yeah yeah, i know it's off topic, but gotta say this, whilst i love the mag, the overseas subscription is terrible!!!!

There, I've said it!

It's kinda bad here in Britain. Our newsagents never got Issue 7
 
Way too much spectrum worship in RG... not enough 16-bit stuff either. It comes out late in Aus but it seems to be in most newsagents around the same time.
 
Iorgy77 posted on Apr 21 2005 at 02:19 AM said:
Way too much spectrum worship in RG... not enough 16-bit stuff either. It comes out late in Aus but it seems to be in most newsagents around the same time.

It may just be teething problems, it's still a young mag'. I'm betting that distributors in each country have no idea how many copies will sell. It's certainly a niche publication. I found about 15 unsold copies of one issue at a local huge (Borders) store, my local Barns and Noble said they weren't stocking any more but other outlets would be. Perhaps now it's monthly it'll be a bit more consistent? Sure hope so, I pore over the thing when I get it.
 
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Again, I love the mag!!! It's not so fulllof speccy stuff, but the speccy was so popular in UK. But there is a lot of C64 stuff, and LOADS of Atari. In the last couple of months (haven't got this months yet) we have had wonderful articles about the 2600 5200 and the 7200 (?can never remember the daft numbers they thought up!!!).

I rate it as the best compy mag since Crash (wow). Edge for me seems to be written in code (well written, just can't understand half of it). I like Games tm as there is a lot to read, and a good retro section. But RG i read it cover to cover.

When it comes. Cos as I said, the subscription service is a mess!!! I ordered another mag from the same publishing house. (PC extreme emulate-very good). " months later TWO copies of the same mag arrived. And that's not going into how difficult it was to get my RG in the first place.

But still :D
 
lubidog posted on Apr 21 2005 at 03:27 PM said:
I rate it as the best compy mag since Crash (wow). Edge for me seems to be written in code (well written, just can't understand half of it).

Edge is quite an academic magazine (which I quite like), but it can sometimes be a bit heavy.
 
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am I the ony one who think RG sucks blass

the language is simplistic, and the subject matter is boring

there is no news, except for a few remakes which om loaded full of spyware


EDIT: typo
 
mattmagoo posted on Apr 21 2005 at 09:12 PM said:
am I the ony one who think TG sucks blass

the language is simplistic, and the subject matter is boring

there is no news, except for a few remakes which om loaded full of spyware

TG = Total Games???


:huh:
 
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