Happy Christmas and a merry New Year. Once again it's time to take a break from the two-week update schedule and cast an eye over the blog itself and answer the big questions like what are the Top 10 most popular articles? And will Softek/The Edge be number one again? Right now, I don't know. It's time to use all available fingers and toes to do some counting.
Before I calculate the results, I'm going to make some guesses. The article about Mosaic seemed to do quite well as did the two part article about Artic so they might both figure in the Top 10. The thing is, a lot of the older articles have got such a head start I don't know if the status quo is locked in forever.
The statistics have gone a bit nuts this year. I passed a grim milestone on 2nd June when I got my first direct referral from chatgpt.com. Plus, I've had several months where the blog is clearly being swarmed over by bots. I'd love to believe I got 6000 readers in July 2025 but I suspect it's much more likely I'm being ripped off to train large language models. If some terrible AI system is suddenly suspiciously well informed about Mogul Communications Ltd then I plan to claim all the credit.
Right, this is how the Top 10 worked out for the previous three years.
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
| 1 | Ultimate Play The Game/ACG/Rare | The Edge/Softek | The Edge/Softek |
| 2 | Software Projects | Ocean | Ocean |
| 3 | Mirrorsoft/Imageworks | Melbourne House | Mastertronic |
| 4 | Durell | Odin Computer Graphics/Thor (Computer Software) | Melbourne House |
| 5 | Design Design/Crystal | Ultimate Play The Game/ACG/Rare | Ultimate Play The Game/ACG/Rare |
| 6 | Elite | Elite | Durell |
| 7 | Melbourne House | Software Projects | Odin Computer Graphics/Thor |
| 8 | Micropower/Program Power | Durell | Graftgold |
| 9 | Silversoft | Design Design | Mirrorsoft/Imageworks |
| 10 | Denton Designs | Silversoft and Mirrorsoft/Imageworks | Imagine |
And this.... is how things look in 2025.
1. New Generation
2. The Edge/Softtek
3. Mosaic
4. Gremlin
5. Konix
6. Mastertronic
7. Software Creations
8. Ocean
9 Newsfield
10. Melbourne House
The Edge/Softek dethroned! I can't say I'm sad to see them knocked off the Number One spot but I am a little surprised it was done by an article on New Generation. I posted a link to that article on Reddit, and I can only assume that really boosted the numbers. There's clearly some sort of lesson here about publicity. If only I can work out what it means. Obviously I was wrong about Mosaic and Artic.
Durell, Ultimate Play The Game/ACG/Rare, Graftgold, and Commodore were all just outside the Top 10. Newsfield (publishers of CRASH and ZZAP!64, obviously) are the only non-games publisher in the Top 10 and their software house Thalamus is a bit further down the list in the mid-twenties.
Thank you to everyone who has linked to this blog or reposted an article on Bluesky. It's always appreciated and it helps spread the word.
Last year's update ended with a backslapping list of five articles I was really pleased with. I promised, for balance, that this year I would include five which I don't think really work. Here we go.
Imagine. The problem with Imagine is, the easiest things for everyone to talk about are the megagames and the company's spectacular liquidation so I don't think this article really goes into any new areas. It also leans much too heavily on CRASH's brilliant article The Biggest Commercial Break Of Them All. Fortunately I feel like a had a second, better, go at an Imagine article when I wrote about the BBC's lovely high definition Youtube release of their Commerical Breaks documentary.
Automata: I tried to be a bit too clever with this article. I don't think I pulled it off. Also, I never got round to updating the Automata adverts piece once the Internet Archive came back online.
Ubisoft: I had no real interest in or nostalgia for Ubisoft. It shows.
Grandslam. What I said about Ubisoft. Ditto. Having written about Argus Press Software, it made sense to write about the second phase of the company but I never really engaged and the result feels like a contractual obligation rather than something I wanted to write. There's precious little information online about Grandslam. I don't think I added to it.
Elite: I often struggle with the perils of BLOAT! Articles get too big too quickly. Elite, by contrast feels too short to do the company justice. I don't want or need to write about every individual game, other blogs like Super Chart Island are in a better place to do this, but looking through the Elite article it seems a bit dumb not to have mentioned the saga of Scooby Doo
Plus, as a bonus, an article I've never written.
Acorn Computers/Acornsoft. Acorn Computers gives me the fear. It's irrational but stoked largely by the fact that my experience of the BBC Micro is limited to seeing one in the computer lab at school which was never turned on because no one knew how it loaded games. It feels like too big and technical a subject. Look at the Wikipedia page, it's about five miles long. Plus on a more boring and prosaic level, I've been to Cambridge twice now and I still don't have photos of all their offices. I have a plan to at least mention Acorn in 2026, kind of, but it's a crummy compromise. Watch this space.
This blog wouldn't be possible without the Internet Archive and their astonishing collection of old computer magazines and the work they do with the Wayback Machine to preserve websites. If you have the opportunity, please consider donating to help cover their running costs.
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