History of Retrogames - Continued...

In 1994 my collection had reached overload. Car boot sales were treasure troves of forgotten systems and games, and I just couldn’t get enough of it. I wondered if there were any other collectors of old games out there who I could swap games with, and from there the idea for Retrogames was born. I spent the next few months writing the first issue, talking about the machines I loved, and hopefully finding things people had forgotten about or didn’t know.

The shop was similar in format to the collectors shops I used to visit in Notting Hill Gate in my teens. Living on my earnings from the shop, I committed within the magazine that I would sink all profits from Retrogames back into the business. This resulted in a marketing blitz, constituting bigger advertising in Edge, Computer and videogames, and even odd places like Japanese comics and American games magazines. Sales of this visually rather pathetic, homemade magazine, grew and grew, with issue five selling well over a thousand copies.

At the end of 1996, the marketing started picking up momentum and Retrogames started earning some credibility in the gaming press, earning several high profile recommendations. I started contributing to C&VG, writing for their Retro Barn page, andworking on special features for them. It was at this time that I was approached by HMV in Oxford street. They wanted to join forces to put on a huge exhibition of Retrogames machines and games in their top floor. Once agreed, the rush of marketting activity was like stepping onto a rollercoaster. Suddenly I was having cars sent to pick me up for interviews. Features in glossy magazines, standby for several TV shows including the Big Breakfast. I met Gabrielle and Dina Carroll as we had the same promotions agency. For a couple of months I was the retro guy, king of old games. It was fantastic, but for a self conscious, internally nervous person, it was pretty stressful too, and miles away from writing about old games at home.

The show itself was manic, we had managed to persuade many famous game developers (and my heroes) to attend. They included Jon Ritman , Archer Maclean , Peter Molyneux , Jez San , Steve Turner , Andrew Braybrook and Tony Crowther. Probably the best part was after the show, when we all went over to the pub for a couple of pints. For a sweaty retrogamer like me, it was like having a soapy bath with Girls Aloud.

During the show I did many interviews, including radio five and my fist biting Radio One newsbeat interview where I muttered the gut wrenching line, ‘ to me videogames are like art’. I also did an interview with Dominic Diamond for Gamesmaster. Dominic was in playful mood, and for fun he suggested that it would be hilarious if after he asked a question about the spectrum, I would fall to the floor as if passing out. I agreed, but when it came to the part for me to fall over, I decided against it, and unsurprisingly the interview never made it onto the Gamesmaster show, though the exhibition did.

The weeks after the exhibition were like the morning after a ridiculously good party. I had a few offers of doing some retro features for a sky TV show, which perhaps foolishly, I turned down. I wanted to concentrate on the magazine, and things went back to normal. The obsession with everything retro hadn’t left the mainstream games press though. I was asked to contribute to Edge magazine, did some more for C&VG including work on a history of gaming book they gave away on the cover. Then I was offered my own regular article, Retroworld in N64 magazine. James Ashton has to be the best editor i’ve ever worked with, leaving me a free hand to write about anything I liked. He also commented often on how much he enjoyed the feature. It was a pleasure to write.

Unfortunately after a couple of years James left N64, and while I could continue to write Retroworld, the new editor wanted me to concentrate on the value of items, and what you could find at carboot sales. When you have the freedom to write whatever you want in your own magazine, you don’t really want to write in a restricted way elsewhere. I graciously resigned from N64.

As demand for the now Bi-Monthly Retrogames continued, I worked on a few special projects. Firstly C64 Groove, a compilation of classic C64 themes, years before the CDs you can now buy of this music. The product quality was poor, but the music still sounds great. Also, Retrovid, the ill fated video of rare games machines running in the flesh.Things like this are commonplace on the internet, but back then it was really hard to get a feel for how things like this are commonplace on the internet, but back then it was really hard to get a feel for how things looked when they were moving and animated. The video remains half finished and un-released. Finally, I made a commitment to release the first Retrogames game, a brand new Spectrum game which I did work on for several months before finally hitting memory limitations which dented my enthusiasm.

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