Amiga Format | Code Like It's 198x

Amiga Format called itself the best-selling Amiga magazine in the world, and at the height of the machine’s popularity the audited figures bore out its size. In the first half of 1992 it sold an audited average of 161,256 copies a month. That summer it told its readers that its circulation was “more or less the same” as that of Q, the best-selling music magazine. Eight years later, after the Amiga market had shrunk and Commodore itself had gone, Amiga Format was still coming out every month from Future Publishing in Bath, with a coverdisk and a CD. Its 136th issue, dated May 2000, was its last.

Out of ST/Amiga Format

Amiga Format began as half of another magazine. In July 1988 Future launched ST/Amiga Format, which covered the Atari ST and the Amiga together, with a disk on the cover. After thirteen issues, Future decided that each machine could support a magazine of its own. The July 1989 issue announced the split. Each new title would have its own 3.5-inch disk, and publisher Greg Ingham promised readers more programs on disk, “twice the number of relevant articles inside the magazine and consequently twice the value for their pennies”. Amiga Format would be on sale on Thursday 13 July, and ST Format a week later. Until then, the magazine said, Amiga owners should send their contributions to Bob Wade.

Issue 1, dated August 1989, came from 4 Queen Street, Bath. Its cover promised “880K of programs” on the disk, including a playable demo of the arcade game The New Zealand Story, an art gallery, utilities and “Workbench hacks”. Inside, the contributing editors Brian Larkman and Jon Bates wrote about graphics and music.

Format Gold

Amiga Format marked games for graphics, sound, “intellect” (how much thought a game needed) and “addiction” (how much fun it was to pick up and play), and gave each an overall percentage. The best received the Format Gold award. In issue 1 one went to Anco’s football game Kick Off, reviewed by Andy Smith, with a mark of 91%. Not every reader agreed. A letter in issue 3 complained that Kick Off “didn’t deserve a 91% rating or a Format Gold award”, because its players had never heard of the offside rule.

The award was hard to win. In September 1989 the reviews section said that Rick Dangerous, Sleeping Gods Lie and others “all came very close to attaining the coveted Amiga Format Gold — perhaps twelve months ago, they all would have — but only Kult scooped it”. Amiga games were “getting better by the month”, it explained, and the magazine had to alter its outlook to match.

Editors

The mastheads name the editors:

Bob Wade, from the first issues to February 1991. In March 1991 the magazine announced, as a joke, that he had been overthrown “in a bloody coup over Christmas”. In fact he had left to edit Future’s new Amiga magazine, the one “that’s serious about your Amiga”, Amiga Shopper.
Damien Noonan, his deputy, from March 1991 to February 1993.
Marcus Dyson, the magazine’s former art editor, from March 1993 into the spring of 1994.
Steve Jarratt, introduced as the “new editor” in June 1994, to February 1995.
Nick Veitch, from March 1995 to March 1999. His last masthead reads “Nick Veitch (1993-1999… bye!)”.
Ben Vost, as associate editor from April 1999 and as editor from July 1999 until the end.

Disks, full games and the CD

The coverdisk was part of Amiga Format from the first issue. Most carried playable demos of new games, such as Lemmings in January 1991, alongside utilities and public-domain programs. For a time in 1991 the magazine went further and gave away whole commercial games, among them Interphase, which came on the disk with the January 1991 issue. The magazine’s review of 1991 said the industry’s reaction was “of concern: if AF gave you games worth £30 for nothing, who’d buy theirs? An agreement was reached and we were prevented from doing it again”. Its timeline for the year recorded the result: “No more free games from mags.”

In June 1996 (issue 85) the magazine added a CD-ROM edition, sold alongside the floppy one. The team called their first CD “quite an experimental project”.

Circulation

Amiga Format printed its audited sales, as certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, on its masthead. The figures show how fast the Amiga market grew, and how fast it shrank:

Period	Average monthly sale
July–December 1989	40,371
January–June 1990	57,123
July–December 1990	81,234
January–June 1991	115,158
July–December 1991	130,143
First half of 1992	161,256
July–December 1992	144,330
January–June 1994	132,137
July–December 1994	108,144
January–June 1995	75,854
January–June 1996	42,655
January–June 1997	28,325
July–December 1997	22,175
January–June 1998	19,220
July–December 1998	14,644

In January 1992 the magazine claimed that in mid-1991, when its sales passed 115,000, it had become the best-selling Amiga magazine in the world, and “the very first home computer magazine ever to achieve sales like that for many a year”. The peak came a year later. The fall after 1994 followed Commodore’s collapse that year.

The last issue

The May 2000 issue announced its own end on the cover. Ben Vost wrote his editorial on the evening of 20 March 2000 and explained that “the decision to close Amiga Format was not taken lightly and, while the Amiga market is still going strong, it’s no longer strong enough to support a magazine like AF”. In his email to readers on the magazine’s mailing list, reprinted in the issue, he blamed “an increasing unprofessionalism in the marketplace and a lack of people willing to part with their money”. The issue carried “our last ever CD” and “our last ever floppies”, and a farewell feature. A note beside the final masthead signed off: “Right, now that’s finally over, mine’s a Guinness.”

Sources

ST/Amiga Format issue 1, July 1988: cover and masthead. Issue 13, July 1989: “Magazine splits” (the two new magazines, the disks, Greg Ingham’s quote, the on-sale dates) and the contributions address for Bob Wade.
Amiga Format issue 1, August 1989: cover (880K of programs, The New Zealand Story), the Queen Street address, the contributing editors, and the Kick Off review by Andy Smith. Issue 2, September 1989: masthead (Bob Wade, editor; Greg Ingham, publisher), “The ratings explained” and the reviews introduction on Kult and the Format Gold. Issue 3, October 1989: letter on Kick Off’s 91% and Format Gold.
Amiga Format mastheads: issue 19, February 1991 (Bob Wade); issue 20, March 1991 (“All change at Amiga Format!”, Damien Noonan as editor); issue 43, February 1993 (Noonan); issue 44, March 1993 (Marcus Dyson); issue 60, June 1994 (“New editor Steve Jarratt”); issue 68, February 1995 (Jarratt); issue 69, March 1995 (Nick Veitch); issue 121, March 1999 (“Nick Veitch (1993-1999… bye!)”); issues 122, April 1999, and 124, June 1999 (Ben Vost, associate editor); issues 125, July 1999, to 136, May 2000 (Ben Vost, editor).
Amiga Format issue 18, January 1991: cover (Lemmings demo). Issue 20, March 1991: the Interphase game on the AF18 coverdisk. Issue 30, January 1992: “The Amiga Year” (the free games, the agreement, sales over 115,000, the best-selling Amiga magazine). Issue 85, June 1996: the first Amiga Format CD.
Amiga Format masthead circulation figures (Audit Bureau of Circulations): issue 10, May 1990 (July–December 1989); issue 17, December 1990 (January–June 1990); issue 21, April 1991 (July–December 1990); issue 26, September 1991 (January–June 1991); issue 33, April 1992 (July–December 1991); issue 44, March 1993 (161,256, printed as “Jan - July 1992”); issue 46, May 1993 (July–December 1992); issue 68, February 1995 (January–June 1994); issue 72, June 1995 (July–December 1994); issue 81, February 1996 (January–June 1995); issue 94, February 1997 (January–June 1996); issue 102, October 1997 (January–June 1997); issue 113, August 1998 (July–December 1997); issue 116, November 1998 (January–June 1998); issue 122, April 1999 (July–December 1998).
Amiga Format issue 38, September 1992: circulation of “around 160,000 copies a month”, compared with Q.
Amiga Format issue 136, May 2000: Ben Vost’s editorial and the email to the afb mailing list, the last CD and floppies, the farewell feature and the masthead.