After 33 years of delivering news to the gaming community, Computer and Video Games / C+VG (or CVG as it's now known) is set to close in Feb 2015. We reflect back on this.
In our early ages of gaming Computer & Video Games was the mag that did it all. Sure there was Crash and Zzap!64 later, Your Sinclair and many others - and then the 16-bit magazines - but this was one of the first. November 1981 was when it all started and back then this was our world.
No internet in the early 1980s of course - but also very little computer games in shops and no TV coverage of gaming. For those who didn't live back then, we can assure you videogames was more of a hardcore hobby than it was in the mid-late 80s, and no where near as mainstream as today.
So the likes of C+VG gave us all the latest gaming news from most of the available computers at the time in the UK (before the ZX Spectrum 48K was actually launched in 1982!) but also it gave us the arcades.
The arcades back then ruled - the graphics and sound and gameplay were hugely superior to what was available at home - even up to the early 90s, and C+VG covered it. Screen shots of Super Sprint, Gauntlet Bombjack, Space Harrier, Outrun and all the greats filled us with wonderment.
Then there were the listings pages - spread after spread of code we would type in. Sometimes effectively - sometimes not. Either during the process. knocking the computer so it went off or even missing that all important line of code.
The magazine was full of adverts back in the, 80s too - Imagine, Ocean. Elite and many others. But we loved the adverts - they inspired us to go into computer shops having seen the screen shots and read the review. This was the time of wonderment.
And CVG then carried on. Where other magazines were dedicated to consoles and computers that disppeared from the shelves (yet still stayed in our collections) CVG moved with the advent of 16-bit, 32 bit and beyond. The world wide web brought new opportunities in the 90s, but also more competition and content from all areas. Gaming was becoming global and on the radar and everyone could access and produce gaming information and content 24/7 - 7 days a week.
So now at the end of this great brand - there is the Games Radar brand 'carrying on' but none of the staff will be joining them and the CVG brand itself will be no more.
All we can say is good luck guys and wish you well. Also to the people who made CVG in the past - we're glad we were with you from the beginning. It's been an exciting time.