Thanks for the link to my column!
I don't know if I'm just being paranoid, but it seems a little odd to me that all these game companies are closing down right when I become EIC of Computer Gaming World.

Is the collapse of the industry all my fault?


p.s. There's a copy of Jar Jar's Desktop Adventures on its way for review to ya, Mark!

Jeff --- I sent in my subcription a while ago, did you get it?

(sorry, couldn't resist. I used to work in magazines and I loved when people would come up to me at trade shows asking if I had received their renewal. I always wanted to go "Ah, you mean this one?" and pull it out of my inside pocket to impress them.)

Greenspeak is funny -- you're crazy.

"Is the collapse of the industry all my fault?"

No, but we will all hold you personally responsible if it doesn't get better soon. Rembember - 'A riot is an ugly thing, and I think its about time we had one'(Young Frankenstein)

>Is the collapse of the industry all my fault?

No, but know that I blame all this "misterdj" posting crap here on you.

Jeff,

No. Don't. It's wasted on Mark. Send Jar Jar's Desktop Adventures to me. I won't even use the words "suck" "suck-ass" or even "suckitude" in my review. After spending three weeks working on Prima's Star Wars Ep One Gungan Frontier strat guide, I feel like I have a mystical bond with Jar Jar...

(Nobody tell Jeff this, but back when I was at CGW, the running expression for something being extremely unlikely was "Yeah, that'll happen. The day Jeff Green becomes editor-in-chief!" Usually followed by uproarious laughter...)

Hey Jeff I really love that "exclusive" release of AVP2 you hosted on your website which I downloaded from The Adrenaline Vault before it was "exclusively" released by CGW. :-)

Well no one's laughing now Denny--they're just weeping. Including me!

Sean: well, yeah, that's your classic case of us getting screwed. Whaddyagonnado? We were promised the exclusive, the Sierra folks that we know were good to their word---but then someone in Sierra's staff over in Europe leaked it to a web site, and the rest is history....

Ah, the 10 second glory of the "internet exclusive". You guys are clearly drunk with power.

Speaking of which, what about that greenspeak archive, Mr. Green? I want to read some of the older ones.

Psst, Jeff
(Green)
...
pony up those past issues for him... but be sure to charge a small payment for each one.

It could work.

-Andrew

Hell no! All content should be free, bub.

Especially yours, if you catch my drift.

Isn't it cool how Wumpus can talk out of both sides of his mouth at the same time??

That's cool!! Do it again! ;-)

Not sure what the deal is with the "Greenspeak archive". They have all my files, but for now just posted the last years' worth. The site is still very much a "work in progress" (obviously). I'm sure they'll all be up there eventually.

We're also going to be archiving all the reviews, and many of the other columns--it just takes time and we ain't there yet.

Jeff Green
Drunk With Power

I want to read all of Gordon Berg's columns online. Yeah I know I am a cheapskate !

Yep, we got royally screwed on an "exclusive" demo too. We premiered the free beta of Asheron's Call on CGM's cover CD. As soon as the issues hit, people started posting the beta, and all the "legit" sites grabbed them from personal sites or CDs and put it up too. Despite there being a readme that stated it was not to be posted online.

Wouldn't have been that big a deal, as you were supposed to need a special code--every issue had a custom code in it. But the printer royally screwed up the codes and they were nearly unreadable in many issues. So MS just made any code work.

Some sites pulled it down when I asked them to, to their credit. But then I talked to MS and we just let it go... The idea was to actually sell magazines by making Asheron's Call fans rush to the newsstand to get the demo disc. Didn't work at all.

Call it a learning experience. :-) Nowadays exclusive downloads are a waste of effort. The few times I've tried to download an "exclusive" demo and found the download was coming in slow, it never took me more than a minute or two to find lots of mirror sites.

Well, at least as EIC you can hopefully afford lots of comics, Jeff. :-) You bastard... Leaving those JLA issues sitting around to hook the rest of the office. You should see the size of the freakin' box I get from my old comic store every month.

And now I'm reading some Marvels, too. Curse you, Busiek and Straczynski!

What's really weird is to think that CGW and CGM each have triple the circulation of the best-selling comic books.

>What's really weird is to think that CGW and CGM each have triple the circulation of the best-selling comic books.

Yeah, in north America, where the best selling comics these days sell about 125,000 issues. Those numbers are a bit deceiving, because they don't include reorders, although Marvel doesn't overprint anymore. Far cry from the 1,000,000 issues that were common for major comic events in the early 90s.

Stefan

"I want to read all of Gordon Berg's columns online. Yeah I know I am a cheapskate !"

A few months ago, you could. Before CGW got their own website back, every Inside Gaming column was posted online when Gamespot had ownership. Not sure where that content is now. Hopefully all that archived writing will eventually be put back up, but unless they hire someone to specifically do it, I doubt it will happen any time soon.

Just tear the shrink wrap off the mag when you're out shopping, Sean. Damn cheapskate indeed. :)

"Hopefully all that archived writing will eventually be put back up, but unless they hire someone to specifically do it, I doubt it will happen any time soon."

Perhaps it would happen sooner if the columnists offered text versions of their columns to CGW for posting. I have all of my columns in electronic format and could easily submit them for the website. Heck, they could have the screens and captions if they wanted.

"Far cry from the 1,000,000 issues that were common for major comic events in the early 90s."

Yeah, to say nothing of the 4-6 million of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories in the '40s and '50s. :-)

Carl