This week, we’re expanding our digital library with nearly 400 video game trade magazines!
For video game researchers, trade magazines are rich sources of information. Most game magazines were sold to the public. But trade magazines were different. They were meant for the professionals. Their biggest audience was actually retailers, to give them a better idea of where the market was going. Instead of reviewing games, they would talk about their sales potential, or how C-suite shakeups could impact the business.
Most of these trade magazines have never been seen by the public before. Very few had previously been digitized or made searchable… until now!
Here’s a few highlights from our new digital collections…
Games Business
Games Business (1998–2000) was one of the leading American trade magazines. Every issue included a mixture of business news, interviews with key industry figures, sales data, and editorials about issues facing the game industry. This series is a treasure trove for researchers who want to understand the inside baseball of the game industry during the launch of the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast.
We’ve digitized all 48 issues of Games Business! It took us years to get a complete set of these. None of these have been scanned before, but now, for the first time, you can read their in-depth coverage of the retail market and candid quotes from developers and executives.
That last point is a big deal. Within the privacy of a trade magazine, industry figures would say things they might never say to the public. Like this interview with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, where he criticizes Sony after the reveal of the PlayStation 2.
MCV and Develop
To our friends in the UK and Europe: We hear you! You want access to more international materials.
We hope this is a good start: We’ve added access to nearly 300 issues of the British trade magazines MCV and Develop, donated to the Video Game History Foundation by former editor James Batchelor.
MCV was (and still is) the UK game industry’s paper of record. They had the first and most in-depth reporting on the European game business. They landed interviews with European executives about their business decisions. And they did it every week for decades. James Batchelor’s donation includes 242 digital issues of MCV from 2008–2013.
Meanwhile, Develop was a magazine for developers. If you’re familiar with Game Developer magazine from the United States (also in our digital library!), Develop served the same market in the UK. Batchelor worked for Develop after leaving MCV; he produced 37 issues of Develop, which he donated to our library!
And more!
As part of Trade Magazine Week, we’re rolling out digital access to select issues of even more historical, out of-print industry publications, including:
- Electronic Gaming Retail News (1991–1993)
- E3 Show Daily (1995–2016)
- Game Intelligence Magazine (1998–1999)
- GameWEEK (1998–2001)
- Videogame Advisor (1995–1997)
…and even more!
We also took this opportunity to add even more periodicals to our digital library! Throughout our library, you’ll find several hundred new out-of-print magazines available for digital research. There are some important publications in there, like the polarizing enthusiast magazine Play. There’s also some interesting oddities, like two separate one-off magazines that used the IGN brand, or a digital audio production magazine with a special issue on game music.
We’re helping make your research even better
Trade magazines give historians an inside look at what was happening in the game business. With the game industry currently in a volatile state, it’s fascinating to go back to articles written a quarter of a century ago and find that the industry was dealing with the same problems: growing budgets, an enormous volume of products, and hopes pinned on the transition to a new generation of hardware.
We hope you enjoy exploring these rare historical trade magazines! But more importantly, we hope these new resources will make video game history research even better for years to come.