Commodore Format | Code Like It's 198x

Commodore Format arrived late on purpose. When Future Publishing launched it in October 1990, the Commodore 64 was eight years old, ZZAP!64 had been covering it for five, and most of the big software houses were moving to 16-bit machines. Future bet that there were still enough C64 owners to support a new monthly, and gave them a covertape with every issue. Within a year Commodore Format claimed to be selling more copies than ZZAP!, and it outlived both ZZAP! and its successor. Its last issue, number 61, came out in October 1995.

Fast facts

Publisher: Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath.
Run: 61 issues, October 1990 to October 1995.
Price: £1.95 at launch; £2.95 by November 1993.
Covertape: on every issue; called the CF Smash Hits tape for the first two issues and the Power Pack from issue 3.
Editors: Steve Jarratt, Colin Campbell, Trenton Webb, Andy Hutchinson, Dave Golder, Karen Levell and Simon Forrester.
Sales: audited at 50,135 a month for January to June 1991, rising to 60,045 for the first half of 1992.

Launch

Issue 1 introduced itself as “Britain’s brightest and definitely newest C64 magazine”, promising “more C64 reviews than in any other mag” and an “Amiga-free zone”. Steve Jarratt was editor, with Sean Masterson as deputy, Andy Dyer as staff writer, Trevor Gilham as art editor and Lam Tang as designer. Jarratt had written for ZZAP!64 “before it went all Amigaish” and for Commodore User “before it dumped the C64 altogether”, as the team page put it. Greg Ingham was publisher.

The timing was not only about the old machine. The same issue led on Commodore’s new C64GS, a cartridge-only console version of the C64 at £99, and promised money-off vouchers for cartridge games alongside the tape. The magazine was never only about games either: the first editorial promised room for “art and music, hardware utilities, comms, PD software”, and the first issue carried a feature by Martin Walker on making sounds on the C64.

The tape

The cassette on the cover of issue 1, the CF Smash Hits tape, carried three games and two demos. Revolution was a previously unreleased shoot-’em-up by Simon Pick, with title music by Martin Walker. Tau Ceti was Pete Cooke’s Spectrum game in John Twiddy’s C64 conversion, and Rebel a maze game by The Gang of Five. A playable demo of Virgin’s Iron Man, coded by Graftgold, and a playable level of Storm’s St Dragon completed it. From issue 3, in December 1990, the tape was renamed the PowerPack, and the name stuck. When the magazine closed, it remembered the tape as a promise kept: “oodles of free software, game demos and the like on a free cover mounted Power Pack”. See cover tapes.

Overtaking ZZAP!

In September 1991 the magazine announced its first figure from the Audit Bureau of Circulations: an average of 50,135 copies a month for January to June 1991. The mastheads tracked the numbers from then on: 55,178 for the second half of 1991 and 60,045 for the first half of 1992. After that they fell, to 44,442 for the second half of 1992, 41,626 for the first half of 1993 and 25,063 in the figure printed from May 1994.

At the peak, Commodore Format was the market leader. Looking back in the final issue, Greg Ingham said his best moment had been “launching the mag and immediately selling more than Zzap”, and Steve Jarratt that “we overtook Zzap! 64 after just a few issues”. ZZAP!64 closed in November 1992 and its successor, Commodore Force, ran only until March 1994. In July 1994 a reader asked Commodore Format not to “do what Commodore Force did and shut up shop”.

Seven editors

The staff changed often, and the final issue joked that “as soon as you get a working team together, someone else leaves to work on another magazine three doors down”. The mastheads show seven editors:

Steve Jarratt, issues 1 to 14 (October 1990 to November 1991). He and Andy Dyer left to start a new magazine at Future, which became the Nintendo title Total!; Jarratt later launched Edge.
Colin Campbell, “ex Amiga Power man”, issues 15 to 17 (December 1991 to February 1992).
Trenton Webb, from issue 18 (March 1992) to issue 35 (August 1993), with Dave Golder as production editor.
Andy Hutchinson, formerly editor of Your Sinclair and ST Format, from issue 36 (September 1993) to issue 43 (April 1994).
Dave Golder, from issue 44 (May 1994) until late 1994, when he left for the console magazine Ultimate Future Games.
Karen Levell, from issue 51 (December 1994) to issue 58 (July 1995), with Rebecca Lack as production editor.
Simon Forrester, the final three issues, 59 to 61.

Some regulars outlasted editors. Roger Frames, the magazine’s fictional skinflint, reviewed budget games from the first issue and wrote a farewell in the last.

Mayhem in Monsterland

As the commercial software dried up, Commodore Format turned towards the programmers still writing for the C64. Its best-remembered story came from John and Steve Rowlands of Apex Computer Productions, known together as Apex, who wrote a development diary for their platform game Mayhem in Monsterland in the magazine. In March 1993 John Rowlands described adding “a piece of code that rolls the definition of a few characters in the opposite direction of the scroll (which gives the illusion of parallax)” (see character-shift parallax).

When the finished game was reviewed in November 1993, the magazine gave it 100%, with the verdict “This is as good as it gets”. The review asked itself how the magazine could “justify that big 100% rating”, and the same issue printed a reader’s letter asking whether it was “just a shallow bit of circulation boosting hype”. The final issue still stood by the mark, calling Mayhem “the first computer game ever to score 100%”, a claim that was the magazine’s own.

The DIY years

By 1994 new full-price releases were rare. The final issue described how, after Golder’s return, the magazine “expanded on columns like Techie Tips” to support readers using their machines for word processing, databases and GEOS, and how “PD sections became bigger as the DIY aspect of the C64 influenced the whole mag”. Its “PD Format” pages reviewed demos from the demo scene, and in August 1992 it had run a guide to the scene with an A to Z of demo groups. Games still arrived: Lemmings reached the C64 in December 1993, under the cover line “Lemmings is finally here”.

The last issue

Issue 61, dated October 1995, was “jam-packed from cover to cover with goodbyes”. Its news page explained the closure plainly: “as the readers dwindle, the whole venture becomes less and less profitable for the people who run it”. Former staff sent messages. Jarratt, by then launch editor of Future’s official PlayStation magazine, wrote that “the mag has lasted longer than anyone ever dreamed it would”.

The issue ended with advice rather than a trailer for next month. A “What now?” page listed C64 fanzines, clubs, PD libraries and mail-order dealers, and urged readers to “start your own fanzine”. The closing editorial told them that if they moved on they should buy a computer, not a console, because the C64 had lasted as long as it did by letting its owners write their own programs. The masthead credited an “Available editor” and an “Unemployed art editor”, and a note on the office telephone: “there’s nobody from Commodore Format around anymore”.

Sources

Commodore Format issue 1, October 1990: cover (£1.95, the C64GS at £99); contents; masthead (Steve Jarratt, Sean Masterson, Andrew Dyer, Trevor Gilham, Lam Tang, publisher Greg Ingham, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath); editorial and “The team”; the CF Smash Hits tape 1 pages.
Commodore Format issue 2, November 1990: cover (CF Smash Hits tape 2). Issue 3, December 1990: the PowerPack tape.
Commodore Format issue 12, September 1991: first ABC figure, 50,135. Mastheads with ABC figures: issue 13, October 1991 (50,135, January–June 1991); issue 21, June 1992 (55,178, July–December 1991); issue 26, November 1992 (60,045, January–June 1992); issue 34, July 1993 (44,442, July–December 1992); issue 40, January 1994 (41,626, January–June 1993); issue 44, May 1994 (25,063).
Commodore Format mastheads, issues 1–12 (Steve Jarratt), 15–17 (Colin Campbell), 18–35 (Trenton Webb), 36–43 (Andy Hutchinson), 44–49 (Dave Golder), 52 and 56–58 (Karen Levell; Rebecca Lack, production editor), 59 (Simon Forrester). Issue 15, December 1991: news of Jarratt and Dyer leaving and “The new editor is Colin Campbell (ex Amiga Power man…)”. Issue 51, December 1994: Karen Levell’s first issue. Issue 54, March 1995, letters: Dave Golder’s move to Ultimate Future Games.
Commodore Format issue 23, August 1992: the demo scene feature and A to Z of demo groups.
John Rowlands and Steve Rowlands, Mayhem in Monsterland development diary, Commodore Format issue 30, March 1993, p. 37.
Commodore Format issue 38, November 1993: cover (£2.95, 100%), the Mayhem in Monsterland review and the readers’ letters on the mark.
Commodore Format issue 39, December 1993: cover (“Lemmings is finally here”).
Commodore Format issue 46, July 1994, letters: “Please don’t do what Commodore Force did and shut up shop.”
Commodore Format issue 61, October 1995: cover; news history of the magazine (pp. 6–7); “Rogues’ Gallery” of former staff, including Steve Jarratt and Greg Ingham (p. 18); “What now?” (p. 22); closing editorial and masthead (p. 23).
ZZAP!64 issue 90, November 1992 (the final issue) and Commodore Force issue 16, March 1994, as cited in the ZZAP!64 entry.