Quoting this post I found over in the Adventure Games News thread in this thread:
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-making-of-sam-max-hit-the-road/
The making of Sam & Max Hit The Road
Creator Steve Purcell discusses the characters' origins and the classic adventure game in this archive interview.
Welcome to the first Retro Gamer guest article on PC Gamer, where we feature PC-focused articles from across the magazine's long history. This making of Sam & Max Hit The Road was originally published in issue 22 of Retro Gamer all the way back in 2006, and here it's presented online in full for the very first time.
This made me do a spit take. PC Gamer, the "pinnacle" of PC gaming websites/magazines (LOL) is now digging up old articles from the Retro Gamer magazine and reprinting them.
This needs a little backstory. Retro Gamer is, as the name suggests, a monthly magazine specializing in retro gaming, be it on home computers, old consoles, arcades, homebrew or emulation. They've got it all covered. As I've mentioned numerous times here, I've been a subscriber for almost its entire run, and despite some problems and setbacks I've stayed a faithful subscriber for close to 14 years now.
Until early last year, when Retro Gamer's publisher was bought by Future Publishing, which publishes PC Gamer. Far too many people reacted to the buy-out with a "uh-oh"-sound. It didn't take long to realize why. Magazines that used to arrive in durable plastic bags to subscribers started arriving damaged in flimsy but
intact plastic bags to subscribers. It took a while to figure out why that was: Future Publishing was shipping print fault-magazines (copies that become damaged during printing) to subscribers. We're talking torn covers, broken spines, holes that go through dozens of pages, and so on. I had heard of people getting their issues in such horrible conditions before I even got my first damaged copy, and I immediately contact Customer Support when that happened. I might as well have yelled at a wall. For three months I sent them photos of the damage on my magazines and demanded that replacement copies be sent. For three months I had their service representatives telling me that the copies were in the mail. For three months I got no replacement issues. Fortunately for me my subscription was about to expire, so I just let it. I sent off one final message to Customer Support telling them how they'd lied to me for three months, and told them I would not renew my subscription until they fix their shit. Their reaction was to extend my subscription for six months for free. That meant six more damaged issues. I had to replace every single one of them via a third party, and I've been buying the mag from a third party ever since.
Except now even that is starting to fail, as the third party-sellers (bookstores and magazine retailers, all based on London) are also now getting damaged magazines from Future Publishing. They are
not improving their printing runs, as they should have done the moment this shit-storm started. But I'm getting weekly messages from them (either by e-mail or snail mail) about how they have such wonderful subscription offers for me. Yeah, no.
And now Future Publishing is using Retro Gamer's back catalogue of articles in their "flagship" gaming magazine, while doing absolutely nothing for Retro Gamer itself. Retro Gamer is literally being carved up at the butchers, by its own publisher, to prop up other publications. If I were employed at Retro Gamer I'd start looking for a new job right about now, as this is a slippery slope to the day when Retro Gamer gets cancelled as an independent mag, and its content (past and future) just becomes a set of pages in other gaming mags from Future Publishing.
Retro Gamer's most recent issue is #178 (which came out Thursday). Unless Future Publishing gets its shit straight the mag won't live to see #200, and even #190 isn't a guarantee at this point.
of the single best source of retro gaming news there is.
