Retro Gamer

RETRO GAMER is well into year 26 of an incredible run. It feels like it should be one of the oldest computer magazine in the world, let alone the UK, and yet it turns out to be quite a long way down the list. EDGE and PC GAMER both started in 1993 and are still going. Then you move on to the magazines no one (ie, me) has ever heard of, like APC (AUSTRALIAN PERSONAL COMPUTER) which started in 1980 and is still going strong. Then you step back and consider non-computing titles like PRIVATE EYE (1961), or the RADIO TIMES (1923), or NEW STATESMAN (1915) and suddenly RETRO GAMER looks like a positive sapling in a forest of old growth.

RETRO GAMER should have been an automatic shoe-in for this blog. We both fish from the same pond and their detailed and informative articles provide a frequent source of references. Somehow, it never occurred to me to write about them. Not even after I dropped the magazine a speculative email to see if I could parlay this blog into some sort of article for, you know, actual currency. I got an incredibly nice reply from Nick Thorpe, the features editor, who also mentioned how their old offices in Bournemouth were literally just up the road from where Addictive Games were based [1]. As it was, I didn't think about featuring RETRO GAMER until I was on the train to Bath and remembered the magazine is now published by Future. This bit of the blog was actually written in 2025 between London Paddington and Reading. Here's a photo to prove it.

April 2025

That's one of the Oracle buildings at Thames Valley Park, just before Reading Station. You'll have to take my word that the metadata for the photo says it was taken at 11.23am on 07 April 2025. I should have taken a copy of the day's paper with me. It was the Future Publishing connection that made me think of writing about RETRO GAMER during my journey down to Bath. RETRO GAMER is now part of that huge organisation which represents the bulk of the UK's magazine publishing industry but that's not how they started. 

Live Publishing International Ltd, Europa House, Adlington Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 4NP

In the beginning of years, when the world was so new and all (January 2004) Live Publishing produced the first issue of RETRO GAMER [3]. It was edited by Martyn Carroll and published quarterly, so issue two would be along in April 2004. RETRO GAMER looked back at itself for issue 50 and spoke to Martyn about the early days:

The idea for a retro mag was first broached by editorial director Wayne Williams in 2002. At the time I was editing a cheats mag called TipStation, having previously worked on Live's PC titles since joining the Cheshire-based publisher as a staff writer in March 2000. Wayne knew I was interested in retro and put my name forward as a potential editor. However, the publisher, Robin Wilkinson, wasn't convinced there was a market for a retro mag and it ended up on the back burner, where it simmered for about 12 months.
"I pitched the idea a couple of times again, each with limited interest, until another launch ideas meeting in 2003," says Wayne.... "We were looking for ideas that were easy to produce and could be done without needing additional staff...The timing seemed right and it was something different, something that Future or Paragon wouldn't even consider."

I find the comment about timing really interesting. There's a good argument to be had that RETRO GAMER wouldn't work before before the year 2000. The Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad were all viable formats into the 1990s as were the Atari ST and the Amiga and the MegaDrive and the SNES. The PlayStation was still brand new. You need the psychological cut-off provided by a new decade (or, even better a new millennium) to make it feel like those systems have been officially consigned to the olden days.

The formula for RETRO GAMER is dead simple. Retro is always about 15 years old. This allows for a constantly moving window of nostalgia guaranteed to tweak the ducts of someone's memory. It makes for unique situations like issue 287 which covered the making of Assassin's Creed. A game that was new in 2007 when RETRO GAMER was writing about Doom and James Pond. I've had a subscription to RETRO GAMER for years now, and occasionally when it's pushed through my front door [4] I look at it and wonder if it's time to cancel my subscription. That reads way more negative than I mean it to, but I'm passed the point where 15 years ago seems like nostalgia. These days, 15 years ago is the wink of an eye. I'm more likely to remember what I was doing in 2011 than where I left my keys. Anyway before I start rambling my point was, I look at a cover like the one for Assassin's Creed and think, "well that's great for the kids but I'm not really interested,"  and then I look at the contents and realise they've also written about Atic Atac, and Shadow of the Beast, and Dino Crisis, and AMIGA POWER, and the ending of Highway Encounter [6], and there's tons of stuff for me to read. Basically, the magazine is really well balanced to make sure none of the potential readership is left out. There's PlayStation 2 stuff for the young 'uns and articles for people like me who played Ludus duodecim scriptorum on Babbage's Difference Engine.

Against expectation, issue two turned up in February. Martyn Carrol explained why in his editorial:

The original plan was to publish four times a year, but issue one has proved so popular, with many shops completely selling out within the first fortnight, that the decision has been taken to increase the frequency. The magazine will now be published bimonthly, so you can look forward to six copies a year. We've also added an extra 16 pages of retro content. 

Wayne Williams added a little more detail in RETRO GAMER 50:

Issue one went on sale on 15 January 2004. There was no fanfare, but news of its arrival spread quickly across the web. Interest began to snowball and a very respectable 11,922 copies were sold on UK newsstands. Little did they know, but the people who bought that first issue effectively secured RG's existence. "The idea was to just publish the one issue and see how it went," says Wayne, "but in order to get it into Smiths we had to say we were going to make it quarterly. We had no plans to produce more than one issue, or more than four at the absolute maximum, until we saw the first issue sales figures. It was more successful than anyone expected. We had a meeting with Smiths shortly afterwards about various things, but all they were interested in was RG. They increased their allocation for issue two and we agreed to go bimonthly with it."

Issue two sold 10,439 copies, enough to put the magazine on a six weekly publication cycle of eight issues each year. This was announced in issue three which then sold 14,204 copies. It was announced in issue four that, from 29 June 2004, RETRO GAMER would be going monthly. The snag, issue four was the worst selling to date; 8382. Issue five did better, 8,940 copies and issue six was just shy of the 10,000 mark at 9,994. Then sales levelled off around 8,000. A new look was introduced for issue 13 and sales dropped to 7,611 copies. Issue 14 was even worse, just 5,144. Those numbers are bad but I might be able to put them in context. I was an irregular reader of RETRO GAMER because I couldn't find it anywhere. I never found it in WH Smith and it took ages before I learned I could guarantee to find a copy in the Borders shop in Oxford Street. I must have brought either issue two or three because I remember being confused about the production cycle and thought the magazine was published bimonthly long after the point where it was actually coming out each month. In short, just finding and buying the magazine was a saga (and it never occurred to me to subscribe). If my experience was a common one, then no wonder the sales figures were poor. I can only assume that even with these low sales, the magazine remained profitable enough to justify continuing. Then Live Publishing went into liquidation. The closure was abrupt. MCV reported the news on Wednesday 24 August 2005 noting: "Live will stop trading by Friday." A website called sinclairlair.co.uk went into a little more detail:

The news that the magazine had bitten the dust came barely two weeks after Live announced [RETRO GAMER] would only appear every two months. In the same week the company had revealed that PC Extreme was being axed and staff members had been laid off.
Although sales figures for Retro Gamer had dropped since it initially burst onto the scene, circulation figures are thought to have been around 18,000 for issue 18, which proved to be the last...
Some punters had only recently renewed their subscriptions after a rallying call by editor Martyn Carroll in issue 18 to support the title. He claims that the death of the magazine was a complete shock to him and he really expected Live to pull through its problems.

The Live Publishing website is archived on the Wayback Machine and it's possible to see the website updated between 30 July and 05 August to reflect the return to bi-monthly publishing as a cost saving measure. It's also possible to see but not browse the last few forum thread titles, there's one called  "So long, everyone" and another called "Final RG Appreciation Thread...."

Live Publishing website
archived 31 October 2005

Live Publishing were based in Macclesfield at a place called Adlington Park in a building called Europa House [7]. Europa House is still there although for a long time I thought it had gone AWOL. I'm pretty sure it's this building at the end of the road and I'll have a chance to have a proper look later in the year. In the absence of a picture, please enjoy this slightly blurry photo from RETRO GAMER issue 50.

Imagine Publishing Ltd Richmond House 33 Richmond Hill Bournemouth Dorset BH2 6EQ

Imagine Publishing website
Archived 12 December 2005

RETRO GAMER was dead, long live RETRO GAMER. Imagine Publishing were themselves a new company, founded in May 2005. It took a couple of months to sort out the transfer of assets but issue 19 appeared in newsagents by 05 December 2005 [8]. The magazine relaunched with a new, and better, look and the price down from £5.99 to £4.99; a saving generated by dropping the cover disc. The first issue from Imagine Publishing was numbered issue 19 and not something weird like Volume 3 issue 1. Live Publishing had been working on issue 19 in house and it was complete when the company went under; Martyn Carroll told RETRO GAMER 50:

"Live didn't have enough cash to print the finished issue 19, so the pages just sat there, waiting to be uploaded."

The material was later published as a CD-ROM and can still be brought, with proceeds going to the 'Retro Gamer Unpaid Freelancers Fund'. 

Imagine Publishing were based in Bournemouth and the magazine had a new editorial team, most likely because the old staff didn't want to make the 237 mile trip south. A lot of the contributors remained the same and Martyn Carroll joined them which helped give the impression this was a passing of the torch rather than a business opportunity. At the start of issue 19 the new editor Darran Jones wrote:

Well, it's certainly not been an easy journey, but Retro Gamer is finally back where it belongs; bigger and better than ever, with a new team, a new company, but the same passion and dedication to the retro gaming scene.

Hopefully, you'll have noticed that the monthly coverdisc is now a thing of the past, and with any luck you'll be pleased to see that the magazine itself is a whole pound cheaper. Then of course you'll realise that everything looks... well... that little bit nicer than before. But don’t worry. Just because we've made a few cosmetic changes, we haven't forgotten what made the magazine so enjoyable to read in the first place...
Welcome back and enjoy the magazine.

Darran Jones had worked for Highbury Entertainment as the editor of the retro section in GAMES™ magazine. He spoke to the MAXIMUM POWER UP podcast in 2017 about his memory of the Live Publishing days:

My only real interaction with the magazine back then was to typically go onto their forums and give them grief because I didn't like it. I personally felt that, a lot of aspects of it, it felt like a bit of a missed opportunity, and I was a bit of an ass really... I didn't like the fact that they had a whole magazine to play with whereas I only had about 28 pages at the back of games™. I thought it was good but it could have been better.

After the Live Publishing purchase Darren Jones was contacted on MSN messenger asking:

...about the name of one of my freelancers to see if he'd be interested in working on RETRO GAMER. I obviously gave the acting editor at the time a load of mouth saying: 'Well hang on a minute, you should be asking me if I want to be the editor,' and they said: 'Well that goes without question. When can you start'. I basically got headhunted off GAMES™ to go on to RETRO GAMER. That was back in 2005. We started our first issue late November and it was on sale by 5th December. We basically made it in about two weeks, and I think it shows.

Highbury Entertainment went into administration in January 2006 and Imagine Publishing brought up a lot of their titles including  GAMES™. Imagine Publishing was founded by three former directors of Bournemouth-based Paragon Publishing. They had set up Imagine using the £32 million proceeds from the sale of Paragon to Highbury in 2003 and when Highbury went into administration Imagine brought back several of the titles sold off from Paragon three years previously.

"I spent the first year worrying that I'd get replaced by somebody more capable." Darran Jones told timeextension.com in 2024, for an article covering the twentieth anniversary of the magazine. He wasn't replaced. He was still in the editor's chair for the twentieth anniversary issue and he's still there now. A remarkable run.

May 2026

Richmond House is big, really big. Where Imagine Publishing were based inside it, I have no idea. These days, I think, it's mainly flats rather than offices having undergone conversion to residential properties.  

May 2026

Richmond House spills round the corner into Yelverton Road, which includes what looks like the world's longest step-free access ramp. Yelverton Road is the next street along from Albert Road, where Kevin Tom's Addictive Games were based from 1983.

The return of artist Oliver Frey to cover art was one of the the highlights of the new RETRO GAMER for me. I loved seeing his work in print again. Lots of issues used covers he had painted for CRASH and ZZAP!64, and I'll list all of them at the end of this article. I think the use on RETRO GAMER 57 of his striking September 1985 CRASH cover for Level 9's game Red Moon is the best of all of them.

The colours have been boosted and this makes Oliver Frey's artwork sing. The 1985 cover is a lovely piece of work but the colours look so murky compared to the 2008 version. There's also some really sensitive digital manipulation going on. I think the original artwork exists for this cover and it has been rescanned at a high resolution and then the snake cut out from the background. The moon itself has been replaced and the snake zoomed in, to make it slightly bigger and more centred on the page [9]. Jamming the LEVEL 9 cover text into the snake's mouth isn't the kind of gag CRASH would have done but it works; putting the teeth and tongue over the text to give a layered effect is the icing on the cake. The following issue, Oliver Frey was back with a new-ish piece of art.

This is a new version of an original painting, the cover of CRASH issue 12 from 1984. The original artwork was given away as a prize so it has been recreated. Oliver Frey explained on page 44 how a new pencil sketch was drawn, scanned, and imported into PhotoShop to be layered and have detail, colour, and lighting added effects. As someone who cannot draw, I find the whole process a little mystical and I'm amazed how closely the second painting hews to the original. The high resolution of the digital version allows for a chance to really study the small details. The image is packed with small in-jokes; the rg on the side of the spaceship, the new three-legged alien reading this very issue of RETRO GAMER. The alien walking back to his spaceship who appears to be modelled on Tik-Tok from Return to Oz. And, the poor guy on the left. In 1984 he was patiently waiting in line for his gift from Santa. He is literally airbrushed out of history in 2008 so editor Darren Jones and staff writer Stuart Hunt could be added.

Issue 83 saw the magazine arrive with a small [10] cover flash describing the magazine as "award winning". Inside the editorial explained more: 

The reason for this is because we beat several others to the UK’s most prestigious prize in magazine journalism.

The Games Media Awards are held every year, and while we've always been nominated, the award's always gone to Edge or games™. This year was different, though. While we were convinced the recently deceased PC Zone would walk away with the coveted prize, we bloody won it instead!

For a niche mag to win such a mainstream award is an incredible achievement, and when you consider our competition it makes the triumph all the sweeter. We've had a fantastic year, which has seen John Romero guest editing, the introduction of exciting and inventive covers and an increasing readership. Not to mention new features like Same Name Different Game, Future Classic, The Unconverted and this issue's Obscura Machina, so it feels incredibly gratifying that all the hard work Stuart, Stephen, our freelancers and myself put in has finally paid off.

Oliver Frey returned again for another Christmas cover at the end of 2011. This time based on the cover for ZZAP!64 issue 9.

In the modern version, Rockford, the pet person from Little Computer People, and Thing (from Thing on a Spring) are all replaced with characters from Rare games. It's the attention to detail which makes me smile. The portrait of Tim and Chris Stamper, of Rare, over the fireplace, and replacing on of Little Computer People programmer David Crane in the original. Tucked away behind the old-school telephone is an Xbox 360 (and the fact you can tell it's a 360 is a great piece of detail). There is also a Commodore 64 and Knight Lore and Lunar Jetman running on the twin TV screens. What? WHAT! Lunar Jetman being played on a Commodore 64? That sort of factual error is COMPLETELY INEXCUSABLE! Christmas 2011 is retrospectively ruined. Festive spirits are somewhat restored by the excellent article on Oliver Frey's CRASH comic strip The Terminal Man in the same issue. A good example of how RETRO GAMER know to bend its remit when appropriate.

Then in 2016 Future Publishing acquired Imagine Publishing for £14.2 million. Nothing changed, as far as I can tell, except the company logo on the cover. RETRO GAMER stayed in Bournemouth with the same editorial team. 

The milestones kept coming. Issue 200 arrived in October 2019. It was a cleverly designed issue which told the history of videogames in chronological order, with the look of the pages changing appropriately according to the year. And on the last page, a brief Making-of article gave a chance to see what the team and the inside of Richmond House looked like.

RETRO GAMER
Issue 200 page 114

Issue 205 went on sale on Thursday 19 March 2020 and from 23 March the country was locked down. Darran Jones wrote in his editorial for issue 206:

The word ‘unprecedented’ has been thrown about a lot since we started work on this issue, but few other words are suitable for what's going on in the world right now. These are challenging times for everyone and as a result of the new measures that are happening in the UK, Retro Gamer is having to adapt just like you are, which is why the magazine is sleeker than usual. 

He continued the theme the following issue:

Working from home is now the norm for the Retro Gamer team and I'm sure we're not the only ones who have been adjusting to the change. While it's still unclear when things will get back to normal in the wider world, it's been a lot easier to deal with the challenges of making the magazine thanks to the sheer amount of lovely emails we've received about it.

Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, Somerset, BA1 1UA

What was described as "non-essential retail" reopened on 15 June and issue 208 was the first to be back on sale in shops. The previous two issues had been supplied to subscribers only. The new issue also carried a new address in Bath at Quay House. This is where the RETRO GAMER story continues and where the 250 issue milestone was passed. To try and put this into some sort of context; CRASH lasted just over eight years, 98 issues from 1984 to 1992. RETRO GAMER beat that run in February 2012 with the publication of issue 99. C&VG printed 277 issues over 32 years. RETRO GAMER recently beat that with the publication of issue 278 in October 2025. PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD, the UK's first computer magazine ran from February 1978 to June 2009, that's 392 issues, and if my maths is correct  RETRO GAMER is on course to beat that record in March 2035.

April 2025

Up the page, I mentioned how in 2022 I fired off a quick email to RETRO GAMER after seeing a request for article pitches on Twitter. My email linked to what I considered the three most interesting blog posts at the time. The reply I got from features editor Nick Thorpe was helpful and to the point but what stuck me was the opening sentence:

You might be interested to know that Retro Gamer's former office on Richmond Hill in Bournemouth was just a few doors away from the former office of Addictive Games, Kevin Toms' publishing company. 

When I sent my email, I hadn't yet written about Addictive Games. Nick didn't need to include that opening line but it was clear he'd taken a look at the blog, seen what it was about, and decided to help by passing on some information he had to hand. It goes beyond professional courtesy. It was a nice gesture and one I appreciated. 

Nick Thorpe died suddenly in December 2025 aged 38. Darran Jones broke the news on his Bluesky feed and the messages of shock and condolence and sympathy made it clear I hadn't just caught Nick Thorpe on a good day. He was a popular and well-liked person who went out of his way to be nice and supportive and helpful to everyone. On Bluesky, Darran was very frank about his grief. He wrote about how it made him question whether he could continue editing RETRO GAMER without the friend he had worked with since 2013. He did decide to continue and made sure that issue 281 included a lot of tributes. Perhaps the most meaningful was on page three. This was where, since issue 19, the magazine had carried small Oliver-Frey style headshots of the writing team. The space normally occupied by Nick Thorpe's headshot was blank and has remained blank in subsequent issues.

RETRO GAMER continues with a significant absence from its pages.

Those Oliver Frey Covers

RETRO GAMER issue 22 reused the Renegade cover artwork from CRASH September 1987.
Issue 29 used ZAPP!64's zombies from May 1986
Issue 34 went with the trench run artwork from the June 1984 issue of CRASH
Issue 39 features a painting from the front of THE FANTASY ART OF OLIVER FREY but I have to confess my ignorance and say I'm not sure if this was ever used on a magazine.
Issue 41, the Speedball 2 cover, was taken from ZZAP issue 50, June 1989,
Issue 49 cleverly republished the tearing-through-the-cover Gauntlet II artwork from ZZAP 20.
Issue 57 reuses the Red Moon artwork from CRASH, September 1985 
Issue 58 is a redone version of the cover of CRASH issue 12 from 1984
Issue 84 is another redrawn Christmas cover, this time based on the art for ZZAP!64 issue 9.

Issue 92 is a reprint of the Kong artwork from CRASH issue 2, March 1984.

Issue 97 is the Christmas Special cover from CRASH issue 24.

Issue 142 is a reworked version of the cover of ZZAP 25, May 1987.

If you want to make sure RETRO GAMER reaches issue 393 then subscribe. If that's not possible, or you want to dive into an extensive collection of back issues then join your local library. Most UK libraries subscribe to a service called PressReader and your library card will give you access to the latest issue and an extensive collection of back issues which stretches back to November 2017. You'll be supporting the magazine and your local library. 

Leave a comment and follow me on Bluesky or send an email to whereweretheynow@gmail.com

[1] Unfortunately the sort of article RETRO GAMER was looking for involved actually speaking to people, always a weakness of mine. My follow up suggestion, a look at the making of the BBC2 Commercial Break documentary using production information held at the BBC Written Archive Centre, fell at the first fence because the BBC hadn't kept any production information [2] .

[2] This was a shame. The BBC Written Archive Centre is a castle on whose doors I've been hammering for years. I'd love to see what information they hold on their Star Trek broadcasts but they only let you in if you've got some sort of commission; hint hint, SFX.
[3] The copy of issue one floating around online is an odd beast. The person who scanned it only included the articles and skipped all the editorial bits. We have a missing material situation on our hands. If you have issue one of RETRO GAMER and can scan those pages we'll have a full copy. It's odd that right now a complete copy of CRASH issue one is available online but not a magazine 20 years younger
[4] I really must get a letter-box cut.[5]
[5] This joke © Michael Palin some time around 1989.
[6] Any excuse to post my GIF again. God I love Highway Encounter, see the Vortex article for more.

[7] Europa House had also been the address of Europress, a different magazine publisher. They were the bad guys in the story of CRASH and ZZAP after Newsfield Publications went into liquidation. Europress were purchased by IDC and became IDC Media in 1994. This was the same year Live Publishing were founded. I cannot work out if there is anything significant in two different Macclesfield-based magazine publishers using the same building or if the whole thing is a MASSIVE COINCIDENCE! 

[8] This is a guess but a reasonable one as the next couple of issues always appeared on the first Thursday of the month.

[9] This would need to be done because, something I've only just realised, although the pages of CRASH and RETRO GAMER are the same height, CRASH is about 2cm narrower.
[10] It is very small indeed. You would have been justified to boast a bit more guys.