Newsfield Publications: История британских игровых журналов

Former British magazine publisher

Newsfield Publications Ltd (also known as Newsfield) was a British magazine publisher during the 1980s and early 1990s. Newsfield Publications Ltd was founded by Roger Kean, Franco Frey and Oliver Frey in 1983. Based in Ludlow, Shropshire, Newsfield published a number of popular computer game magazines from the mid 1980s to early 1990s. This line up was later supplemented by a number of less successful magazines covering role playing games, film, horror and youth culture. Faced with financial difficulties, the company went bankrupt towards the end of 1991. This didn't spell the immediate end for some of their magazines though. Another magazine publisher, Europress, continued to publish Newsfield's flagship publications, Zzap!64 and Crash, for a further six months before the former was relaunched as Commodore Force and the latter sold to rival publisher EMAP and merged with Sinclair User. Thalamus Ltd, Newsfield's sister company, was set up in 1985 to publish a number of computer games on various 8 bit and 16 bit platforms, with a slant towards the Commodore 64. Thalamus initially survived the demise of Newsfield before it too finally went bankrupt in 1993. Roger Kean, Franco Frey and Oliver Frey operated Thalamus Publishing, an independent book publisher, until it closed in 2009.

Crash began life in 1983 as a software catalogue, offering reviews of games and a mail order service. The first issue of the dedicated monthly magazine was published in February 1984. Focusing exclusively on the ZX Spectrum, it was a lively, colourful magazine that soon attracted a considerable cult following. It remained in print, as a Newsfield publication, until October 1991. When Europress Impact took over publication of the magazine, it lasted for a further six months before finally being sold in 1992 to rival publisher EMAP and merged with Sinclair User. The May 1992 issue was the only merged issue published. Sinclair User ceased publication in 1993. In December 2020, Crash was relaunched as a bi monthly publication by Fusion Retro Books. Consisting of reproductions of original covers from Oliver Frey, retrospective articles, new reviews and contributions from many of the original team.

Amtix! was Newsfield's short lived gaming magazine dedicated to the Amstrad CPC platform. Launched in November 1985 (although a special "issue zero" was given away with Crash and Zzap!64), it offered as much in depth coverage of the Amstrad gaming scene as its sister magazines did for the Spectrum and C64. Amtix! was unable to compete with Amstrad Action, the leading publication for Amstrad CPC users; only 18 issues of Amtix! were published before Newsfield sold the magazine to Database Publications, who merged Amtix! features into their own publication, Computing With The Amstrad. CWTA was a general Amstrad CPC/PCW/PC magazine, which used Amtix as the brand for its games review section. CWTA later split into three single format magazines including Computing with the Amstrad CPC, and it was CWTACPC which continued using the Amtix name for its games section.

LM (variously said to be short for Leisure Magazine, Leisure Monthly, or Lloyd Mangram a pseudonym used by editors in Newsfield's computer magazines) was launched in December 1986. It was a bold move for Newsfield, attempting to capture a youth market within the 18 30 demographic with a wide range of pop culture coverage. The magazine failed to attract sufficient advertising revenue and was discontinued after four issues. It began life as a full colour newsstand magazine edited by former deputy editor of Sinclair User John Gilbert. Newsfield, keen to find publishing ventures outside the volatile computer game market, agreed to publish Fear with Gilbert as managing editor. The first issue of the magazine, which would be dedicated to horror book/film reviews and original horror, fantasy and science fiction, was published in June 1988. Despite relatively low sales it managed to survive for the duration of Newsfield's business operations, seeing off rivals such as Skeleton Crew and Phantasmagoria, which entered the market midway through its run. Mark Kermode wrote several film reviews for the magazine. Fear reviews have been quoted on the back cover of books by authors including Peter F. Hamilton.

With their flagship titles, Crash and Zzap!64, no longer attracting sufficient advertising revenue or circulation, due to the fading 8 bit gaming market, Newsfield were in severe financial difficulty. As a last ditch attempt to capitalise on the rising popularity of the new generation of video game consoles, Newsfield planned to split Raze into two separate publications, Sega Force and N Force (the N standing for Nintendo). However, following an audit during the autumn of 1991, it became clear that Newsfield would no longer remain solvent beyond March 1992. The company's directors signed for voluntary liquidation in September 1991.