RF Generation Message Board

Ok so many of you may know that I am the Admin over at Retromags.com, and that we specialize in preserving old gaming magazines from 198x-2003. These magazines give people that are just now getting into retro gaming a chance to get unbias reviews on games that came out 20+ years ago. I love this site, and its fantastic that I can list down all my systems, games, manuals, boxes and accessories....but no where do I get to catalog my magazines.

Its the final piece of the puzzle, you have the games and systems.....but do most of you have the magazines that gave first insight into the SNES CD-Rom.....or reviewed such classics as Legend Of Zelda LTTP?

Planting the seed on here to see how many more people would be interested, I already own 95% of all EGM, Nintendo Power, Sega Visions, GamePro, Next Generation, PSM and Official Xbox magazines. So I can surely help with the covershots.

-Phillyman

Magazines are rather focused. Is there anything else that can be included in such a database? Gaming books? Strategy Guides? Trinkets? How do we index this stuff? What architecture / policies are needed?

There are a lot of things that need to be agreed upon before the process of coding a new database is started. It's not as simple as just "poof!" it's there. It needs to be designed and thought out. If you are willing to take the task of defining the scope of such a database and essentially creating the policies and architecture of said database, then we'd have something to work from. I can't say when such a database would be added, as there are other projects and bug squashing currently being dealt with, but if something concrete is presented then we're certainly more likely to move forward with the addition of a third database.

I could help design said database, if phillyman wanted help.

That actually does sound like a really good idea. It would just require some hard work, but it would probably be able to be done.

Just throwing the idea out there to see how much interest there is in this. Magazines should be a fairly simple add, as they are not as complex as games, you dont need to attach multiple pictures for box art and manuals, its just 1 picture of the cover, also they dont require seperate entries for box and manual.....either you own it or you dont :)

Database entries would probably be....

Name
Date
Covershot
Publisher
Region
Price (if you wanna get fancy)
Pages (if you wanna get fancy)


TraderJake is right though, Magazines and Game Guides will overlap, for instance Nintendo Power Issues 13, 15, 17 and 19 are actually Guides and not standard issues of Nintendo Power.  So I believe that Guides would need to be added, and probably should be. Maybe I came across as over simplifying this project, I appologize....My only intentions at this point were to see how much interest we have and get the idea's started.

-Phillyman

Here's a few things from the database perspective:

- how it would show up in one's collection
- search page variables
- how each different database script would work and how everything is classified
- what info per page (isbn, upc, year, region, sub region, contents
- images for covers, inserts and discs
- guidelines so staff can approve these properly and members submit them properly as well
- variations such as alternate covers, 2nd, 3rd, etc printings, direct editions versus news stand editions

Also, if I remember correctly , wasn't there a few variations in Nintendo Power during the late 90's for the N64?

There was Nintendo Power Advance which ran for 4 issues, also the Precursor to Nintendo Power was Nintendo Fun Club, and its Canadian equal Nintendo Power Flash. But no N64 variations to my knowledge

Well I bought one awhile back (The one covering Yoshi's Story, Volume 104, January 1998) and I checked the back and it says "Subscribers Only NSider Collector's Series" it's probably nothing though.

Well I don't know about Mags. But I always wished there was a Game Guide section.

Any explanations on why not magazines?

My collection is not as big, but its getting there....

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/06/04-week/

I really think that this would be a great idea! There would be a lot more variables to think about, and you would have to go over the submission guidelines with the people designated to do so. Pity I don't know how to code, because I would love to make this database work!  :P

Magazines won't be easy to add. Unlike games, most magazines are country-specific. The staff won't be able to review all entries properly, if they don't live in the exact country and such...

I don't think mags really fit into the equation.
While I think old mags are great, simply because a game was featured in a mag doesn't really match it up, and as mentioned each country had their own mags. I mean where to from there, also a mention of any movies or TV shows that showed gameplay of the game too? No.

The reviews in these mags however that were mentioned earlier do have an important role I think. We could definitely use a snippet of the reviews as part of the game's database, as it is undoubtedly more credible that user reviews.

That would be copyrighted material used without permission and would get us into a lot of trouble. I think people forget that we can have multiple reviews on every game page. I'd much rather take the opinion of a half dozen user reviews from people who paid good money for their games than someone paid to review them with the pressures and influence from editors and publishers.

True, it would be copyrighted. Ironically it is kind of funny as all of the game scans technically would be in breach of copyright too.

Although I'm sure there would be a lot less of a chance of the game developers/publishers acting on this than former magazine reviewers.

I think somewhere down the line there's an understanding that scans and screenshots etc form the basis for an non-profit archive and that preserving gaming history only helps those publishers and developers in the long run.

Reviews however, are creative materials made for a title, not from one, and they fall under privately owned literature not retail information. That's why we have the disclaimer at the bottom of every submission, to protect our rights as well as that of the member. If someone's work is added without their consent to the disclaimer, it's unprotected and unauthorized.

I'd love for a steady stream of reviews to come in from our members. It's the one thing in the database that is almost non-existent from one section to the next. Nearly 37,000 games and there is probably only 200 reviews or less, probably closer to 150. Complete game pages are half of that or less.