Computer & Video Games | Code Like It's 198x

Computer & Video Games, known to its readers as C&VG, went on sale in November 1981, when the ZX81 was Sinclair’s newest computer and neither the ZX Spectrum nor the Commodore 64 was yet in the shops. It was a monthly about games on any machine, and it kept that brief for more than twenty years, through the 8-bit computers, the 16-bit machines and the consoles that replaced them. Along the way it started the Golden Joystick Awards, ran an arcade championship whose winner later became its editor, and its editor planned EMAP’s first console magazine.

Every kind of machine

The magazine’s own advertisement for its first issue described “a brand new monthly magazine” that “brings the best entertainment out of all types of computer, from personal Sinclairs, Ataris, Tandys, VICs, Apples and PETs plus right up to mainframe IBMs”. It promised a programming workshop, brain teasers “(some with prizes)” and “the secrets of beating Arcade video machines”. The magazine, it said, was “packed with new levels of stimulation for people who get fun out of computers”, and the cover carried “some free brain torture in the form of the most tantalising little puzzle since Rubik’s cube”. Readers who could not solve it had “four whole weeks of frustration”, because the answer was not printed until the second issue.

A first issue has no readers’ letters, so the magazine wrote some of its own and asked the North London Computer Club to answer them. Among the advertisements was one for the ZX81, which promised a BASIC that “handles logs and trig”.

EMAP’s magazine

The small print from the second issue on read “Published and distributed by EMAP National Publications Ltd”, with the copyright held by Computer & Video Games Limited and the editorial office at EMAP’s Durrant House, 8 Herbal Hill, in London’s EC1. The editor named on the early mastheads was Terry Pratt, with Tom Moloney as publisher; by November 1982 Eugene Lacey had joined as staff writer.

The editors that later mastheads name include:

Terry Pratt, from the early issues to at least January 1984. He was back as publisher by 1987.
Tim Metcalfe, by May 1984 and until at least October 1987.
Eugene Lacey, by March 1988 into 1989.
Julian Rignall, deputy editor from January 1989 and editor from September 1989. By November 1990 Paul Glancey was associate editor.
Tim Boone, by January 1992 and still in November 1992, when Rignall was managing editor.
Paul Davies, in 1995 and again in 1998.
Stephen Fulljames, in 2001, after the magazine had passed to Dennis Publishing.

Golden Joysticks and an arcade champion

In July 1983 C&VG announced five “Golden Joysticks” for British software, to be voted for by readers, because “we felt it was time that the best of British was given the chance to prove itself”. There were awards for the best arcade-style game, the best strategy game, the best original game, the software house of the year and, “the most coveted Golden Joystick” of all, the game of the year. The winners for 1983 were presented at a dinner in London and published early in 1984. Readers made Jetpac game of the year, with The Hobbit second and Manic Miner third, and voted Ultimate Play the Game software house of the year. Manic Miner won the arcade category and The Hobbit the strategy one. The magazine hoped the awards would “become the UK Oscars” of the games business.

The same summer C&VG held an Arcade Games Championship. Its final was played at Xenon, a nightclub in Piccadilly, and the magazine introduced the winner in September 1983: an 18-year-old from Dyfed, Julian Rignall. Five years later he joined the magazine, and in 1989 he became its editor.

A rival and a family

By 1987 C&VG had been revamped, and its rivals noticed. When Newsfield launched The Games Machine that September, the C16/Plus 4 Handbook said Newsfield had been “angered by the success of a re-vamped Computer and Video Games”, and that the new magazine was “Newsfield’s answer”. That is a competitor’s reading, not Newsfield’s own.

C&VG was also where EMAP’s first console magazine began. In July 1990 Rignall, then its editor, planned Mean Machines with the artist Gary Harrod and EMAP’s publisher Graham Taylor, and it launched that October. From November 1991 each copy of C&VG came with Go!, a free magazine that called itself “Britain’s first ever magazine completely and utterly devoted to hand-held video games”, with Tim Boone as launch editor and Rignall as managing editor.

The end of the print magazine

C&VG stayed with EMAP through the 1990s; in 1999 the magazine described “EMAP Active” as its publisher. By October 2001 it was published by Dennis. According to later secondary accounts, EMAP had sold it to Dennis in February 2001, Dennis sold it to Future Publishing in 2004, and the last print issue was dated October 2004.

Sources

Computer & Video Games issue 1, November 1981: the house advertisement for the first issue; the letters page; ZX81 advertisement, p. 22.
Computer & Video Games issue 2, December 1981: colophon (EMAP National Publications; Computer & Video Games Limited; Durrant House).
Computer & Video Games issue 4, February 1982: masthead (Terry Pratt, editor; Tom Moloney, publisher); issue 13, November 1982, and issue 27, January 1984: mastheads (Terry Pratt; Eugene Lacey).
Computer & Video Games mastheads: May 1984 to October 1987 (Tim Metcalfe; Terry Pratt as publisher in June and September 1987); March 1988 to April 1989 (Eugene Lacey); January and April 1989 (Julian Rignall, deputy editor); September 1989 to March 1990 (Julian Rignall, editor); November 1990 (Paul Glancey, associate editor); January 1992 (Tim Boone); November 1992 (Tim Boone, editor; Julian Rignall, managing editor); November 1995 and July 1998 (Paul Davies); October 2001 (Stephen Fulljames).
Computer & Video Games issue 21, July 1983: “Vote for our five Golden Joysticks”; issue 23, September 1983: nominations and the “UK Oscars” hope; issues 28 and 29, February and March 1984: the 1983 Golden Joystick Award winners.
Computer & Video Games issue 23, September 1983: “Meet the Champion”, the 1983 Arcade Games Championship.
C16/Plus 4 Handbook vol. 2 no. 2, 1987: news of The Games Machine’s launch.
Mean Machines issue 15, December 1991, p. 84: the magazine’s history and the July 1990 meeting.
Go! issue 1, November 1991, given away with Computer & Video Games issue 120: masthead and welcome.
Computer & Video Games issue 216, November 1999: “EMAP Active, publishers of Computer and Video Games”.
Computer & Video Games issue 239, October 2001: masthead (Dennis).
Wikipedia, “Computer and Video Games” (web, secondary): sale to Dennis Publishing (2001) and to Future Publishing (2004); last print issue October 2004. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_Video_Games