I hate to pile on here but I have to share this.
Mike K. (the man behind Retro VGS) successfully kickstarted a magazine called RETRO 2 years ago. I backed years 1 and 2. However, unless things dramatically improve, I will not be backing year 3. Retro the magazine has not been what I expected. I guess I was too optimistic expecting something in the spirit of early-mid '90s GameFan/EGM, but this thing doesn't even come close. My issues with Retro however began during year 1. The magazine is supposed to come out every other month, but in the summer of 2014 they fell behind, and there was a period where they went 3 months without releasing an issue! What was even more absurd was how there was little to zero communication during those 3 months until finally we got an explanation "Sorry we fell behind with it being summer and busy season and all" kind of talk. Communication, people! Why didn't you tell your subscribers that a lot sooner?
The issues used to include the date, when it was being cranked out every other month. Ever since they fell behind, they stopped printing the date on their magazine (i.e. July 2014... as a way to obviously cover their ass and try to sweep it under the rug). To put this into perspective, it's now almost October 2015, and the next issue released (whenever that will be) will be issue NUMBER TEN. Mike K. and his team "promised" that they will catch up and have the 12th issue out by December 2015, but at this rate they are pretty much going to have to release an issue monthly to meet that goal. Uh, yeah, that's not happening. The magazine lost much of its credibility with me (and many others I'm sure) when it started heading down this slippery slope. It was bad business 101 with little explanation/communication on why it's so difficult to produce a 72 page magazine every other month.
As for the content itself, it's been a massive disappointment. I did notice it improving in issues 5-6-7 but the last two (8-9) have reverted back to very forgettable fare. Here are my main issues with the magazine:
-Lack of actual retro coverage. I was expecting lots of 8 and 16-bit retrospectives and articles. We've barely gotten any. They mostly cover modern games with a retro spirit. That's not what I signed up for.
-Terrible design. I'm not expecting GameFan, but when your magazine is 85% consisting of either white or black pages, it's just so bleh. There's hardly any "life" to the magazine. Seriously, you take 3 months to make an issue and that's the best you can do?
-Lack of re-readability. I'm not inspired by the design, articles or writing that I feel the urge to go back and re-read these issues. I still re-read my EGMs and GameFans because they were fucking badass rad, and I'm a nostalgic geek. Retro's issues are one and done for me. I just don't find a whole lot of interesting content in there.
The other thing is, if you look at the Kickstarter comments you will see a lot of people not receiving the shit they should have:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socalmike/retro-video-game-magazine-year-two#comments
It is, frankly, embarrassing.
So while I think Mike K. is a good guy... there's been a lot of red flags popping up around him in the past year or so. At best, he's a nice guy who has terrible business acumen and sells off more than he can effectively back up. I hate to say all this, because he did give my little fansite a shout out on a Twitch broadcast and I even managed to get a plug into RETRO magazine, but at the end of the day, I feel like I have to share this. If Mike K. and his staff of 20+ "industry insiders" can't properly manage a video game magazine publication (especially after nearly 2 years... what the hell is taking so long to make a 72 page magazine???), what in God's good name could anyone expect Mike K. and TWO other "industry insiders" to effectively manage a VIDEO GAME SYSTEM? It just seems like Mike K. is racing from one disappointing project to another one. RETRO has been disappointing, but at least it exists (albeit very slowly). Retro VGS doesn't seems disappointing as much though as it does just plain "depressing." I was skeptical at best from the beginning, but once he went from system price $150 to $300 I knew whatever small chance it had at succeeding as a niche system was immediately dashed.
It only had 10 backers in the last 8 hours. Me thinks the "diehard" supporters have now died off. I'd be shocked if this thing makes it to 200,000 at this point. This could be the saddest most oddly interesting trainwreck in crowdfunding history as far as retro gaming goes. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on it over the next 45 days. 1.9 million? $300 a system? Seriously? Without a working prototype or a killer launch line-up? Of the games I saw, only Gunlord looked interesting. The others were OK at best, and I certainly feel like you could do much better on the SNES with games you already have or could go out and buy. I wish Mike K. the best but it just seems his lack of communication from the start and overpricing has killed his campaign.
Honestly, it reeks of Nightmare Busters 2.0 (i.e. long delays with terrible communication), but on a much grander scale. NB got fundeded because it was a "new" SNES game and people already own the SNES. But people had to wait forever until the game finally shipped. Beware people who can't keep their word or keep a timely schedule. I know everyone's busy but there's no excuse to take so long with a baby project. See Nightmare Busters. See RETRO Magazine. See Retro VGS.
