Could We persuade Future Publishing to make one last Amstrad Action?

[Badstarr]

Doesn't time fly? The CPC will be exactly 30 years old soon! It's got me thinking, as Future Publishing in a lot of ways owes its existence to the CPC and will its self be hitting the big "three O" (if my information is correct), is it not right and proper that they make some kind of fitting tribute, by perhaps releasing a special addition of the magazine that started it all... Amstrad Action!?

I'm wondering if we, with our collective powers of persuasion, could make some sort of petition asking them to release a special final issue of Amstrad Action in time for Christmas this year. Maybe some sort of MagBook style publication? Perhaps with an RRP of £9.99? I myself would love to be able to walk into WHSmiths and for one last time and buy a brand spanking new copy of Amstrad Action! OOoo giddy nostalgia!

This might be just my reoccurring pipe dream, but I do wonder if we could persuade them to do this in a kind if kick starter style, offering to stump up the retail price in advance for a copy? I suppose not everyone would want to do that but maybe if we show them there would be significant interest they might like the idea and it would be a good tribute to the CPC and to Future Publishing!

I'm not sure if there are any plans underway for something like this but I thought it would be worth suggesting it at least.

What do you guys think? Would you be as enthusiastic as I am to get a new issue of Amstrad Action?

[Gryzor]

It'd be great indeed, but I doubt they'd do that... It's not necessarily because they would lose money, but it probably isn't worth their effort, even at ten quid. bear in mind that the serious money comes in from ads, and who would place ads in it? Not many, and certainly not at the full price the market is used to.


So... yeah, I'd love it to happen, but I don't think it will

[steve]

Failing that we could produce our own e-mag, a forum thread could suggest articles selected from the web, some people could write new articles and some forum posts could be selected to emulate the letters page and include some of the more interesting old adverts.

[ralferoo]

Actually, there was a flip Spectrum/C64 30th retro gamer special last summer. So, there's a possibility they might consider it...

Also, I bought it even though I had neither computer, so there's probably a bigger market for it than just Amstrad users.

[Badstarr]

Thank you all for your thoughts, I suppose they might not see it as worth their effort, which is a shame. It's always struck me as odd that the CPC community isn't as large as the Speecy and C64. So again not a massive market potential, having said that, as far as I know Amstrad Action was the longest surviving 8bit magazine so it had enough of a readership to hang on in there even if it started to become a little emaciated towards the end.


The retro gaming magazine market clearly has legs as RetroGamer magazine continues to prove, I would wager that the market has become a lot less divided over the last decade and even fans of other retro platforms would buy a special edition of AA just out of retro enthusiasm. If I had spotted the magazine ralferoo mentioned I probably would have bought it even though I'm not a C64 fan and not much into the Spectrum.


Perhaps a special flip edition would be less of a risk for them, so they can make a flip edition of Your Sinclair and Amstrad Action and maybe a flip edition of C64Format(was it called that?) and another retro platform?

[Carnivius]

I'd have to agree that a booklet contained in issues of Retro Gamer would be the most realistic chance of having Amstrad Action back on shelves (with a corner of the RG cover making it clear that's what's within the issue).  Would be nice to have it review (or re-review in some cases I suppose) a lot of the CPC games that came out long after the demise of Amstrad Action such as the Mojon stuff, the new ports of R-Type & Bubble Bobble and such, done in the same presentation style of Amstrad Action and of course the usual look back and the classics.   Does RG have any ties to Future at all or could get the rights to use the AA name and style?

[Badstarr]

That's actually possibly a more viable idea Carnivac! I know that RG did a Your Sinlcair tribute many moons ago, I still have it somewhere! Perhaps we could petition RG to do something. It could go one of 3 ways, Future Publishing give it the green light and it happens, or FP don't want a rival publisher to use their intellectual property and decide to do something themselves, or both hate the idea and nothing happens 

[Gryzor]

Sadly, I think RG is much more likely to do a PS2 booklet than a CPCone...

[zeropolis79]

RG have stated that the CPC is not popular enough to make a book..

[Xyphoe]

RG have stated that the CPC is not popular enough to make a book..

Have they said that recently somewhere eg on the RG forums? If so, got a link?

[Nreive]

There was an unofficial fan tribute to Amstrad Action released around 6 years ago.  I know it's probably not the kind of issue fans were looking - no staff or professional writers directly involved - but it did include some pretty neat articles, a catch up on some new games releases since AA117 - including RoboCop and Last Ninja 2 - which were famous for their omission from the original AA, for different reasons.  Yeah, the issue has its faults, but it is what it is and for basically a two-man team, I think we did a decent job.

As for Retro Gamer... it is published by Imagine Publishing, closest rivals to Future Publishing.  Future are also very protective over their IP so any official AA issue of any kind is unlikely. 

The thing with fan projects... They get spoken of very highly but most never see the light of day, especially when it comes to the CPC.  I've forgotten how many AA/CPC projects that have been bandied around over the years.  If there is going to be any fan made AA issues or tributes - and let's face it, there is more chance of a fan project than any official issue - then it needs someone at the helm who is going to see it through, even if it takes over 18 months to get done. 

So to answer the orignal question, no, we couldn't persuade Future to release one last issue of AA. We would have to produce our own issue.

[steve]

AA118 tribute magazine is in the downloads section.

[Gryzor]

RG won't even do a decent article on the CPC series. The one they did years ago was half-baked to say the least...

[ralferoo]

They did one about a year or so ago that wasn't too bad from what I remember.

[Gryzor]

About a year ago? Their CPC cover was a few years back...??

[ralferoo]

Crikey, issue 92, July 2011. It only feels like a year ago!  Obviously, I'm getting too old!

As for Retro Gamer... it is published by Imagine Publishing, closest rivals to Future Publishing.  Future are also very protective over their IP so any official AA issue of any kind is unlikely. 
...
So to answer the orignal question, no, we couldn't persuade Future to release one last issue of AA. We would have to produce our own issue.

The thing is though, Amstrad Action is the magazine that started Future Publishing off from a tiny 4 person team (IIRC) to what's now one of the biggest magazine publishers. I'd quite imagine that they'd also want to celebrate their 30th anniversary too...

[EgoTrip]

Crikey, issue 92, July 2011. It only feels like a year ago!  Obviously, I'm getting too old!
The thing is though, Amstrad Action is the magazine that started Future Publishing off from a tiny 4 person team (IIRC) to what's now one of the biggest magazine publishers. I'd quite imagine that they'd also want to celebrate their 30th anniversary too...

This has previously crossed my mind too. Future Publishing is massive now, and owes its success to AA. AA never had closure, I think it would be fitting if they produced a one-off tribute to it. We should get as many people to request it directly from FP, even get up a petition. Theres around a year or so before the 30th anniversary, so theres plenty of time. It obviously wont sell as well as their main current titles, and we all know that money is all corporations care about now. But maybe they will surprise us.

[Nich]

Have they said that recently somewhere eg on the RG forums? If so, got a link?

Someone wrote a letter to RG stating how much they enjoyed the Spectrum/C64 anthology book, and asked if there were plans to publish a CPC anthology. RG's reply to the letter was that they didn't believe there wasn't enough demand for one and they had no plans to publish one. I can't remember which issue this appeared in, unfortunately.

[Gryzor]

Someone wrote a letter to RG stating how much they enjoyed the Spectrum/C64 anthology book, and asked if there were plans to publish a CPC anthology. RG's reply to the letter was that they didn't believe there wasn't enough demand for one and they had no plans to publish one. I can't remember which issue this appeared in, unfortunately.

I can confirm that.