Well, ok... Let's earn my guest editor role a bit more! So, Alessandro here! I have to say a huge thank you to Dudley for, first of all, wanting to make this video and for letting me help! The job he did here, explaining a literal part of my childhood, was superb, and I'm very thankful for that. And thank you for everyone here that is enjoying this strange slice of history and of, in fact, my life. I'll wander here, reading comments from time to time!
What surprises me is that cassettes were cheap enough to produce back then and that there was enough capacity to produce them to enable this sort of "software distribution". The other thing that annoyed me back then was that cassettes - even legitimate ones - cost far less than floppy disks. I would like to end this paragraph by saying: bastards.
All those blurry images of games has got me dewy eyed with nostalgia for a time when taking a screen shot meant sticking your monitor in a big black box and taking a photograph.
Fascinating video! It's always great to hear in detail about video game markets that aren't UK/North America/Japan. A part of me wonders if the names/branding of games might also have been removed to delay the chance of a game buyer distinguishing between legitimate/illegitimate copies, more on the social/fiscal consequences end rather than legal ones. And of course your mention of the clone Irem/Atari's Moon Patrol does show that the specifics of game protection did also take a while to come together over here...
That is a fascinating video on a gaming culture I've never really learned much about. In terms of the UK experience, I never got involved in the covertape wars as I was an Electron owner (yes, that was me) and as far as I know no Electron mag ever even carried a covertape. I suppose it was a double-edged sword, the fact that you could get 7 or 8 decent, commercial games a month for £2 sounds crazy and as if these mags had a death wish, surely they realised that they were going to kill stone dead the games market that sustained the very magazine they relied on for their livelihood? But then again, did they in fact keep the mags afloat? Maybe people as late as 1992 or 1993 were still buying 8-bit mags not because they were remotely interested in reviews of new games but because it was a cheap source of games to keep them entertained while they saved for an Amiga, SNES or Mega Drive?
As a small child I had a C64 and I think the tapes kept mags like Commodore Format and Zzap 64 in business. I mean, I had a SNES and Amiga for almost a year by the time I stopped subbing because SNES carts at £40(or even £60 in some cases) and Amiga games going at £10-25 a go, those magazines basically let me get new games on the regular. The same went for Amiga Format CDs, which was a sorta rolling thing(they'd have all the stuff from previous months on the next CD and add to it, since 650mb was practically infinite for an Amiga) that contained 100s of programs/games at the end, which I think was '98.
Yeah, when Roger said they ruined magazines I think he really did mean editorially, they survived longer for it at the cost of the overall industry. Also don't worry about that Electron, you'll be hearing much more from Acorn next month.
@@Yesterzine To be fair, by this time(1988) the only people still using 8-bit machines were primary school kids(older kids would definitely have had Amigas and STs by now) who couldn't afford costly game console cartridges and probably wouldn't've read the magazine much outside of game/demo instructions. Outside of covertapes, they probably only ever got Hit Squad and Kixx games, and with that meant releases were really drying up with the only way being down. I think magazines and companies by including demos of upcoming titles and cashing in on titles that otherwise probably wouldn't have sold kept these machines used and magazines running for longer than they would've otherwise. Look at how quick turnaround has been on most generations of machine since.
I remember playing Rockford on the Amiga. Back in the days where you could go to a big city department store in Canada and find discounted Amiga gsmes, alongside those for other systems, in a big unorganized pile filling a plexiglass-sided display case. Better, simpler times... What are you going to do these days, dig for hidden treasure on steam?
Well, ok... Let's earn my guest editor role a bit more!
So, Alessandro here!
I have to say a huge thank you to Dudley for, first of all, wanting to make this video and for letting me help! The job he did here, explaining a literal part of my childhood, was superb, and I'm very thankful for that.
And thank you for everyone here that is enjoying this strange slice of history and of, in fact, my life. I'll wander here, reading comments from time to time!
Was much appreciated :D
What surprises me is that cassettes were cheap enough to produce back then and that there was enough capacity to produce them to enable this sort of "software distribution". The other thing that annoyed me back then was that cassettes - even legitimate ones - cost far less than floppy disks. I would like to end this paragraph by saying: bastards.
Yeah, they added about 50p to the cost of UK magazines and it felt like cassettes should be more complex than that.
Man I love your videos Dudley I wish you got more view's
I wouldn't say no, tell your friends! Tell your mum!
All those blurry images of games has got me dewy eyed with nostalgia for a time when taking a screen shot meant sticking your monitor in a big black box and taking a photograph.
And in this case possibly deliberately blurring things if they were using the official version for the shots :D
'The Secret Ingredient is Crime' Nice Peep Show Reference.
I'm cheating too because the fact it wasn't a crime was pretty much the point :)
(36:40) Oh man, my favorite C64 game, New Mad Intelligent Magic Ball Race Dimension 2.
Fascinating video! It's always great to hear in detail about video game markets that aren't UK/North America/Japan. A part of me wonders if the names/branding of games might also have been removed to delay the chance of a game buyer distinguishing between legitimate/illegitimate copies, more on the social/fiscal consequences end rather than legal ones.
And of course your mention of the clone Irem/Atari's Moon Patrol does show that the specifics of game protection did also take a while to come together over here...
I suspect by 1988, there weren't official options so that's probably unrelated.
@@Yesterzine Yeah, that makes sense.
That is a fascinating video on a gaming culture I've never really learned much about. In terms of the UK experience, I never got involved in the covertape wars as I was an Electron owner (yes, that was me) and as far as I know no Electron mag ever even carried a covertape. I suppose it was a double-edged sword, the fact that you could get 7 or 8 decent, commercial games a month for £2 sounds crazy and as if these mags had a death wish, surely they realised that they were going to kill stone dead the games market that sustained the very magazine they relied on for their livelihood? But then again, did they in fact keep the mags afloat? Maybe people as late as 1992 or 1993 were still buying 8-bit mags not because they were remotely interested in reviews of new games but because it was a cheap source of games to keep them entertained while they saved for an Amiga, SNES or Mega Drive?
As a small child I had a C64 and I think the tapes kept mags like Commodore Format and Zzap 64 in business. I mean, I had a SNES and Amiga for almost a year by the time I stopped subbing because SNES carts at £40(or even £60 in some cases) and Amiga games going at £10-25 a go, those magazines basically let me get new games on the regular. The same went for Amiga Format CDs, which was a sorta rolling thing(they'd have all the stuff from previous months on the next CD and add to it, since 650mb was practically infinite for an Amiga) that contained 100s of programs/games at the end, which I think was '98.
Yeah, when Roger said they ruined magazines I think he really did mean editorially, they survived longer for it at the cost of the overall industry.
Also don't worry about that Electron, you'll be hearing much more from Acorn next month.
@@Yesterzine To be fair, by this time(1988) the only people still using 8-bit machines were primary school kids(older kids would definitely have had Amigas and STs by now) who couldn't afford costly game console cartridges and probably wouldn't've read the magazine much outside of game/demo instructions. Outside of covertapes, they probably only ever got Hit Squad and Kixx games, and with that meant releases were really drying up with the only way being down. I think magazines and companies by including demos of upcoming titles and cashing in on titles that otherwise probably wouldn't have sold kept these machines used and magazines running for longer than they would've otherwise. Look at how quick turnaround has been on most generations of machine since.
I remember playing Rockford on the Amiga. Back in the days where you could go to a big city department store in Canada and find discounted Amiga gsmes, alongside those for other systems, in a big unorganized pile filling a plexiglass-sided display case. Better, simpler times... What are you going to do these days, dig for hidden treasure on steam?
Unironically yes really. but also there's a lot fewer hidden treasures I guess just because of the cost of producing a game, at least on console.