THE IMAGINE PUBLISHING ERA

2010-2014

We were five years into the mag’s life at Imagine by this point and it was obvious we weren’t going anywhere.

Sales and subscriptions were extremely healthy and while the market for magazines was becoming trickier, we were weathering the storm well.

We were fresh off a redesign and did some really creative covers in 2010. RG 76 had a cover supporting Microsoft’s incoming Game Room (apparently the first time a digital Xbox 360 game had appeared on a games cover), we did an awesome Mario advent calendar to celebrate the plumber’s 25th anniversary for RG 82 and a follow-up Donkey Kong cover for RG 83 that was infamously referred to by Ryan King as ‘the Goatse cover’ (don’t Google it). Another cool cover we did was make RG 81’s Laser Squad cover look like a game box (I think that was Damian’s suggestion). We finished off 2010 with a win at the Games Media Awards, which was delightful. Part of RG’S success during this period was definitely thanks to the talented production editors behind the scenes, which included Matt Hoddy, Olly Williams and Rebecca Richards. If you’ve ever read any of Darran’s Twitter posts, you’ll be well aware of the Herculean task they had on their hands.

During 2011 we said goodbye to designer Stephen Williams and said hello to Katie Stevenson (then Logsdon), who started on

RG 90. While she recently shared with us that her only previous videogame experience had been playing Crash Bandicoot and Tony

Hawk’s Pro Skater on her brother’s Playstation, you’d never guess it from looking at her work. Katie would stay with us until issue 100 and it would be several more months before we got a permanent replacement for her, with Jonathan ‘Jonny’ Wells eventually arriving for RG 109 (a big thanks to Will Shum for keeping RG ticking over in the meantime).

This era was also when we lost Stuart Hunt, whose last issue was RG 123. Stuart did some sensational work during his six years on the magazine and we had a lot of fun discussing the Amstrad and Master System when we weren’t having high-score competitions with Ste and Jonny. Fortunately, those Master System conversations would continue when Nick Thorpe joined me for RG 124.

Another change was that we were using this period to ‘feel out’ newer options for the covers. If you look back at Imagine’s first five years we played it pretty safe with covers, but this period saw us experimenting with Gamecube and Dreamcast games like Crazy Taxi, the Neo Geo, Sega’s Saturn and even an image of Electronic Arts’ Trip Hawkins. They didn’t always work out but it’s always nice to try something new, and I think you have to do that if you want your magazine to have a long shelf life.

Darran loves Strider, so he was over the moon when John Szczepaniak sorted out an interview with Kouichi Yotsui in RG 76.

Ste Williams did such an amazing job on RG 85’s Secret Of Mana cover that other designers kept nicking our spare issues so we had none to send to developers. It was a real honour when John Romero agreed to guest edit RG 75 for us. The cover was cracking too. Some covers effortlessly skipped through the cover meeting gauntlet, with RG 125’s Paperboy being a notable example. A great idea and a great execution. Interviews with Japanese developers are always tough, but supportive publishers like Sega, Nintendo and Capcom helped make them easier. One of Stuart’s favourite memories is of spending an afternoon playing various board games based on classic videogames for ‘work’. The idea for this cover was fine, but it never really worked the way we wanted. It sold okay, mind.