Generations, a new premium magazine from some of the talent behind and Switch Player, hits Kickstarter today, with the goal of celebrating every gaming generation from 1972 to today.

The magazine is the work of GameBound, which is a new magazine and premium print publisher that includes the involvement of Paul Murphy (Gamebook Color, Switch Player Magazine) and Andrew J. Dickinson (the former Editor-in-Chief of and current Editor-In-Chief of Debug Magazine). It is being designed in collaboration with DayOne and will feature illustrations from Sean O'Brien.

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Last week gave us the not-at-all-pleasant news that Game Informer – a magazine that has been running for 33 years – has been shuttered by its parent company, GameStop.

The news was broken with a rather lifeless statement on social media, which was followed up by a message from the magazine's freshly laid-off staff – which was then deleted, along with the Twitter account.

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Last week gave us the shocking news that Game Informer – one of the most popular video game magazines in the world – was being closed down by its parent company, GameStop.

The mag's 13 staff were immediately let go, and the next issue – which was apparently close to being complete, was canned. The closure was conformed on the official Game Informer Twitter account in a statement which curiously read like it was formulated in a GameStop boardroom.

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The GameStop-owned magazine Game Informer – which began life back in August 1991 as FuncoLand's in-house newsletter – has abruptly been closed down, signally the continued decline of print media.

"After 33 thrilling years of bringing you the latest news, reviews, and insights from the ever-evolving world of gaming, it is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Game Informer," says the statement issued by the publication.

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There is always time for another Legend of Zelda. And, for certain, any new Legend of Zelda always needs time to appreciate. Well, for the first time, genuinely coming soon, we’ll spend the whole time on a new adventure in the company of 'HRH' Zelda herself.

Princess Zelda’s starring role is momentous news, catching everyone by surprise. The game still has a lot to prove, even when this is Nintendo, but after scrutinising the trailer (along with 5.3 million other fans), I am now counting the days.

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Last week, we reported on the sad news that legendary games journalist Andy Dyer had passed away at the age of 55.

Dyer's career in video games began back in 1990 on Commodore Format, a position he switched to after working in insurance. "I still shudder when I look back and think what would have happened had I not," he told Commodore Format Archive in 2014.

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It is with a heavy heart that we bring you the news that '90s games journalism legend Andy Dyer has passed away.

Dyer will be famous to anyone in the UK who read video game magazines in the '90s; he began his career on Commodore Format as a staff writer before helping Steve Jarratt launch Total!, the UK's first magazine devoted to covering all of Nintendo's systems.

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Mean Machines is a magazine that is near and dear to many 40-something UK gamers, and evolved out of a section within the pages of Computer & Video Games which was focused solely on console gaming.

However, despite the amazing success the magazine would have, its publisher EMAP had to be convinced that the concept had commercial merit – hence the creation of a 'dummy' issue which could be shown to prospective advertisers to gauge interest.

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Everybody makes mistakes, and, when it comes to video game journalists, we're probably at the top of that list. But with the arrival of online publishing, it's become easier than ever for us writers to issue corrections whenever we do screw up, thanks to the ability to constantly update and alter our work.

Unfortunately, though, this wasn't really the case for our predecessors working in print back in the '90s, who often had to live with their mistakes — no matter how bad or embarrassing they could be.

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The lovely folks at UK outlet The Guardian recently ranked the best British video game magazines of all time, which was wonderful to see – but when it comes to old video game magazines, the same titles tend to get referenced.

Mean Machines, CVG, EGM, Total!, Super Play, GameFan, you know the score. This is, of course, great, and those are all certified ‘bangers’ in the annals of publishing history – but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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One of the History of Games 2024 conference talks, by Jaroslav Švelch, was on British game developer and journalist Mel Croucher. As Švelch describes it, he has become Croucher's biographer, interviewing him in his home and having access to his large archive of materials.

Croucher is perhaps best known for the games Pimania (1982), Groucho (1983), and Deus Ex Machina (1984) - the last one included an audio tape to be played alongside the game. In later years, Croucher moved into journalism and activism, writing for Crash magazine. Švelch's talk included archive photography, gameplay video, and detailed how Croucher was opposed to censorship but advocated self-regulation, was for nuclear disarmament, and, in many ways, was an outlier in the British games industry and press.

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It's been quite some time since the Sega Dreamcast had an 'official' monthly magazine – and with good reason; the console is no longer in active production, and Sega is now a third-party publisher with little need for its own magazine.

However, if you feel the need to scratch that particular itch, you might want to check out Dreamcast Extreme, an unofficial publication from Poland that is so slickly produced it could almost pass for the real deal.

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UK media outlet The Guardian has ranked the 15 best UK video game magazines of all time, and Future's long-running EDGE has come out on top.

Penned by acclaimed journalist and author Keith Stuart – who has actually written for several of the publications in the list – the feature ranks some of the most beloved and influential mags of the past few decades.

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Back in the early late '80s and early 1990s, the NES / Famicom dominated living rooms in North America and Japan, but the situation was a little different in the United Kingdom.

Home computers like the ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga had been the main gaming platforms for quite some time, with Japanese-made consoles being more of a niche proposition. However, that was all about to change with the arrival of the PC Engine, Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo Game Boy and Super Nintendo – machines that would drastically change the gaming landscape in the UK beyond all recognition.

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Incredibly, March marks the 20th anniversary of the UK's Retro Gamer magazine, one of the first mainstream publications to truly celebrate the incredible legacy of classic gaming.

Issue one arrived back in 2004 under the banner of Live Publishing, which sadly went bankrupt the following year. Thankfully, Imagine Publishing stepped in and took over the magazine, installing GamesTM retro editor Darran Jones in the editor's chair – a position he has now held for almost 19 years.

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Final Fantasy VIII had a tough act to follow. Final Fantasy VII had turned the series into a global megahit, making JRPGs mainstream all over the world in the process. Its sequel would need to be bigger, better and bolder – and while it remains a solid example of the genre, few would try to argue that it is truly superior to the game that went before it.

Even so, it has its fans – one of which is Video Game History Foundation library director Phil Salvador, who we've spoken with in the past.

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If you've been following Time Extension for a while, you've probably come across our coverage of the website Gaming Alexandria — the small preservation hub run by a group of video game history enthusiasts that recently managed to preserve the entire library of games that were released for the Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy.

The website, founded by Dustin Hubbard all the way back in October 2015, is home to a wealth of amazing articles, magazine scans, and dumps of old software, but has recently caught our attention again for its valiant efforts to catalog and preserve as many as old Japanese type-in programs as possible.

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Back in October 1992, a schism occurred that sent shockwaves through the British video gaming community – the multi-format console magazine Mean Machines split into two different publications, Nintendo Magazine System and Mean Machines Sega.

We might sound like we're making this a little more dramatic than it actually was, but this division was earth-shattering for fans of the magazine – which, by this point, had run to 24 issues and become one of the hottest mags on the market.

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Sometimes, video game history can be strange, just like love. Indeed, a lot of people can take it for a game. But, on a rather more serious note, video game history is disappearing at an alarming rate, especially for a medium that is barely 50 years old.

For those interested in doing research, it is often hard to find a way to do so without spending money on eBay to get a hold of magazines or paraphernalia – not to mention how difficult it is to access online archives, often taken down and disappearing without a trace. That is why the Video Game History Foundation is working on a new initiative headed by Phil Salvador: a new digital library.

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Picture the scene. It's the early 1990s, the internet hasn't taken over the world yet, and you've just wandered into your local newsagents to purchase a video game magazine. Assembled on the shelf in front of you is a plethora of competing options – multiple magazines covering the same consoles and games, but each one vying for your attention and coinage. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you spot something extraordinary: a magazine with a VHS tape on the front. Your decision made, you proceed to the counter, holding in your hands what is perhaps the first ever example of a 'let's play' video – a format which, in the present day, is all over YouTube – but, back in the '90s, was practically unheard of, at least in the United Kingdom (examples existed in Japan and North America).

I remember doing a comparative study of our competitors and realized that Mean Machines Sega / Nintendo Magazine System had over 50 rival magazines competing against them. It was insane, really

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]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-148345 https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-making-of-nintendo-magazine-systems-street-fighter-ii-vhs-the-ultimate-cover-gift Sat, 16 Dec 2023 12:00:00 GMT Mega!

Back in Christmas 1991, the Sega Mega Drive had just enjoyed its first full year on sale in the United Kingdom and was fast becoming the country's most popular game console.

Publisher EMAP – which had multi-format magazines such as Computer & Video Games and Mean Machines under its belt – noticed this shift in the market and launched MegaTech, which was one of the first Western publications to devote itself entirely to a single console.

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]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-159846 https://www.timeextension.com/features/iconic-issues-megatech-1-december-1991 Thu, 14 Dec 2023 13:35:00 GMT Will hopefully launch "sometime next year".

In a new video on its YouTube channel, The Video Game History Foundation has revealed an exciting first look at its upcoming library tools that will eventually be made available to researchers, academics, and video game enthusiasts in the future.

Ever since The Video Game History Foundation was first launched back in 2017, members of the organization, including its founder Frank Cifaldi, have repeatedly spoken about the desire to create a readily available digital archive of its video game materials, so that people could take advantage of its discoveries without having to hop on a plane. But up until this video, we hadn't actually heard that much information about what this database would look like or exactly what would be included in it.

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]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-159771 https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/12/the-vghf-library-will-bring-video-game-history-right-to-your-fingertips Sun, 10 Dec 2023 12:00:00 GMT Mega!

If you're old enough to have lived through the console wars of the early '90s then you might recall a publication by the name of Sega Force.

Published by Europress between 1992 and 1993, it featured the artwork of the late Oli Frey, and focused on covering Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, Master System and Game Gear titles.

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]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-159517 https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/12/sega-force-mega-is-a-new-old-magazine-you-can-pre-order-now Sat, 02 Dec 2023 12:05:00 GMT It was a different world 30 years ago...

30 years ago this coming January, UK publisher EMAP launched Sega Magazine, a monthly tome which was focused on the dazzling array of console hardware Sega had on the market at the time. That included (deep breath) the Master System, Mega Drive / Genesis, Mega CD and Game Gear – and, towards the end of its 22-issue print run, the Sega Saturn.

A little bit of historical context might be in order before we dig into the contents of this debut issue. EMAP was, alongside Future Publishing, one of the leading lights of the British video game media industry in the early '90s, having tasted success with Computer & Video Games, Mean Machines, Megatech and Nintendo Magazine System. The latter was the first officially licensed magazine of its kind and was created after the bosses at EMAP decided that splitting the multi-format Mean Machines into two platform-centric publications would generate more cash (the other post-split mag was Mean Machines Sega).

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]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-159105 https://www.timeextension.com/features/iconic-issues-sega-magazine-1-january-1994 Fri, 24 Nov 2023 14:00:00 GMT The future of video gaming.

Iconic Issues is a new series we're running which takes a look back at classic magazines from the past. We're kicking things off with the first issue of a publication which is still in print today...

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It's difficult to communicate the impact that the first issue of EDGE magazine had on the world of UK game journalism back in 1993. While it certainly wasn't the first magazine to take aim at more mature readers – ACE had arguably done that a few years previously, and many of the early '80s home computer magazines had been written with adults in mind, rather than children – but, coming off the back of a period of time where most publications were gunning squarely for the 'teen-and-below' crowd, EDGE felt astonishingly grown-up.

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]]> https://www.timeextension.com/#article-158777 https://www.timeextension.com/features/iconic-issues-edge-1-october-1993