As you have probably seen, since a few months back, the release dates have been added to several new Spectrum games on the ZXDB entries (by the way, congrats for this new feature to the people involved! I love it!).
This new addition to the ZXDB led me to wonder, what about the games from the 80s/90s? Would it be possible to add the release dates for the Spectrum games published in the 80s and 90s on the ZXDB using every source of information at our disposal? We all know that a release date was not as established or widespread in the 80s as it is today, at least in regards to advertising in videogames, everything was or seemed slower back then and customers were not as aware of when a new game was coming out as they are today. The “available soon”, “coming soon”, “out now” announcements were the norm in most adverts. The news sections of computer magazines didn't cover all the new games coming out, a lot of them didn't get a review either, some magazines are not scanned yet... therefore I had some doubts about its feasibility.
So, with this idea in mind, a few weeks back I started doing some research about the softography of some much loved British software houses in order to try setting an accurate release date for their games: Hewson, Durell, Gargoyle/FTL, Odin, System 3, and Palace were the chosen ones, especially because they have short enough, hence manageable, catalogues to start with.
My main aim was to avoid taking as a fact the reviews’ publication of a certain game on Crash/Your Sinclair/Sinclair User as the equivalent to "the real release date". During my research I’ve come across certain games that, for instance, were released in November 1986, but as they were no big releases by a large company, with not too much fanfare, the main magazines pushed back their reviews until February or March 1987 issues. There's also games that magazines reviewed in an unfinished form and weren't released until months later. So IMHO it can be confusing and inaccurate to say the least using the monthly issue of Crash or whatever to set a release date.
My intention was being as accurate as possible comparing different sources published and scanned of magazines from back in the day at our disposal on each entry of the ZXDB and also, in some cases, doing some additional research on the Internet (blogs, websites, webzines, etc.), although in cases like this I prefer to rely on written documentation from back in the day, especially the news and preview sections of the three main British Spectrum magazines as well as Home Computing Weekly or Popular Computing Weekly magazines, amongst others.
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CONS
As you can guess, this is not an easy task at all, it’s very time-consuming and sometimes quite tricky. In some cases you have to do quite a bit of fact-checking and it’s often an ungrateful job; in some cases you can spend half an hour or more with just a single game to get nothing in the end. In other cases there’s not enough information to set an accurate release date or you just get contradictory dates impossible to check out by any means. On other occasions several software houses like Durell, Gargoyle or System 3 used to include the exact release date (day/month) or simply the month on their adverts at the time, but even in these cases we can’t take this information for granted because some release dates were delayed for various reasons (a robbery at System 3 offices that pushed back the release of International Karate comes to mind), so more research is needed in order to set an accurate release date. In other cases we have to be careful if multiplatform magazines like ACE, The Games Machine or C&VG are referring to a release date for a certain game (except is a single Spectrum release), because it may be for the C64 version or the 16 bit versions instead of the Spectrum version, so double checking is needed with Spectrum magazines, and in these cases the publication of the firsts Spectrum reviews could be useful to have a reference point to compare. Also, software houses like Palace Software or System 3 were focused on the C64 and released most of their games first on the Commodore and several weeks or months later came the Spectrum and Amstrad versions, therefore these kinds of details must be taken into account too.
There’s also a “dark age” around 1982-1984 where the Spectrum market was still in formation and focused on mail-order sales. There were few magazines in the market then and several companies used to advertise their products with titles such as “Our 1983 games’ range” “Our 1983 games’ catalogue” and such, where they also included games released earlier, so in that cases is really difficult to set a reliable release date.
PROS
Keeping in mind all commented above, once we are used to the proceedings, the research process can be hugely satisfaying when we finally come accross certain release dates that seemed particularly difficult to track down. In the end this task is fascinating and really enjoyable if you like doing a bit of research. Also, during the research process, it is very likely that you will find information about other games, including full release dates for them. Please do not ignore them, write them down to investigate at another time. In my particular case I have more than 20 full release dates and other 20 partial release date to investigate further.
More than just a plain year on each entry as we have now on most entries of the ZXDB, I think it’s key to set a month/year basis or even better a day/month/year basis (or year/month/day as it is on the ZXDB) for every game released, whenever is possible, especially when we are referring to a time when the techniques in every department of a game improved and evolved so quickly that within the same year there was a huge leap technology-wise, so from a historical point of view I think it makes sense doing it this way. Also, adding an accurate date it might help to set a correct release date to some entries on the ZXDB, where we have an inaccurate or unknown year of release.
Likewise, I firmly believe that we will get to date hundreds if not thousands, of games. There's a lot of complete or partial release dates published on magazines, and not only that, for instance, the type-in games or the new games released on Covertapes not released on any other format automatically should have the release date of the magazine itself, so literally hundreds of games could be dated that way.
Last, but not least, you will learn a lot about the issues some games had during development, in some cases the reasons behind their delays and you will discover a lot of things about the ins and outs of the software industry at the time.
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So, all in all, as you can see, we have to take into account very different aspects in order to set an accurate release date. Obviously with lots of games we will never get anywhere, but I think that knowing at least the release month would be very useful and would add a new feature interesting for research purposes, so overall including this feature to ZXDB would be a great addition, since no other games database that I know of have something along the lines... well, except for EveryGameGoing, that includes a list of release dates for almost every game ever released on every imaginable platform out there, but I simply don't know they got the information from, since I have detected a lot of wrong release dates, not only by days or weeks, but by months and even years (for instance, according to this website Nebulus was released by ERBE in Spain on November 4th 1984)
Well, I'm really interested to know, what do you think about this project? Is it worth it? does it make any sense?
To begin with I will share with you all the results of my research of the Hewson catalogue, and in upcoming posts I will share the Durell, Gargoyle/FTL, Odin, System 3 and Palace Software catalogues. Those games omitted from its softography is simply because I have not found information reliable enough to include it here, for instance, just one source or multiple but contradictory. Please, do share if you have it or find it!
Hope you are interested enough to contribute whenever is possible.
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HEWSON
+ More accurate
+ City Slicker. Release date. 1986/November/25 (25/11/1986). Although Your Sinclair published that City Slicker was going to be released on September 23rd 1986, the same magazine included the game again in their Future Shocks section on the October issue. It seems the game passed through some troubles during development. The first advert was published on Crash in December as well as the first review, so I give full credit to the release date that Crash published on their feature on Hewson for their November issue.
+ Firelord. Release date. 1986/October/29 (29/10/1986). Sources: C&VG / Crash / Sinclair User). Also Popular Computing Weekly listed both Firelord and Uridium as new releases on the week of 23-29 October 1986.
+ Uridium. Release date. 1986/October/28 (28/10/1986) Sources: Crash / Popular Computing Weekly / Sinclair User).
+ Technician Ted. Release date. 1985/January/9 (9/1/1985). Interesting case. On the ZXDB is dated as a 1984 game, but according to this brief article on Home Computing Weekly, Hewson decided to take advantage of the post-Christmas market, so it seems that several new releases were delayed until after Christmas, including Technician Ted for the Spectrum and Amstrad. Popular Computing Weekly also published this news. On the Retro Diary section from the Retrogamer magazine issue 111 we can read "9 January 1985 - Hewson Technician Ted releases on the Spectrum". Besides, all the advertising campaign was done in 1985 starting in January. IMHO this is a fine example of a game developed during 1984 but released in early 1985, just delayed for commercial reasons. So the release date we have on the ZXDB should be changed even if on the game itself it reads 1984.
+ Marauder. Release date. 1988/June/28 (28/6/1988). C&VG is a multiplatform magazine and I'm not in favour to give credibility when they publish information about multiplatform games like Marauder. Sadly most issues of Popular Computing Weekly from 1988 are missing on archive.org, so since we haven't confirmation from another source, I will cautiously give credit to the C&VG news. Apart of this, the brief advertising campaign for Marauder started in July 1988 and the first reviews were published in July/August 1988.
+ Astroclone. Release date. 1985/October/10 (10/10/1985). Although C&VG and Crash published an estimated release date of October 1985, finally Home Computing Weekly set a release date. Other magazines such as Popular Computing Weekly or Your Spectrum refer to an early or mid October release. The firsts adverts were published in October also and the first reviews appeared in October (by weekly magazines) and November.
+ Dragontorc. Release date. 1985/March/28 (28/3/1985). To check the release date is interesting to remember that Eamon McGing was the first to beat the game on April 7 1985, six days after purchasing it. Also on the Merely Mangram section on the April 1985 issue refer to Dragontorc as arriving too late for a proper review. Precisely on the news section of same issue of Crash they published the complete release date.
+ Gunrunner. Release date. 1987/May/20 (20/5/1987). C&VG sets the release date on May 20. Crash talks about a release at the end of May. The Same goes for Popular Computing Weekly. Other magazines simply refer to a May release. The short advertising campaign started in June. All reviews are from May/June 1987.
+ Pyracurse. Release date. 1986/June/26 (26/6/1986). Sources: C&VG. Crash talked about an end of June release and in this news on the July 1986 issue they complain that the finished version of the game arrived too late for a review, so taking into account that article was written in June 1986 it makes sense. Popular Computing Weekly, Your Computer and ZX Computing Monthly also talk about an end of June release. The advertising campaign lasted just two months (July/August).
+ Quazatron. Release date. 1986/April/28 (28/4/1986). Sources: C&VG, Crash and Sinclair User confirm the release date. Computer Gamer talks about an end of April release. Popular Computing Weekly includes Quazatron as new release for their 17-23 April issue. The advertising campaign took place in May/June.
- Cybernoid II. The Revenge. Release date. 1988/September/20 (20/9/1988). According to Crash the game had an end of September release date. Sinclair User talks about an October release. But Your Sinclair gives a full release date. The firsts reviews were published in October 1988.
- Less accurate
- Cybernoid. Release date. March 1988. C&VG and The Games Machine talk about an early March release. Sinclair User agree with a March release. However Your Sinclair talks about an end of March release. The advertising campaign took place between April and June for the 8-bits and the firsts reviews were published in April 1988.
- Evening Star. Release date. September 1987. There's not so much information about this one, but it seems credible. Your Sinclair talks about a September release and Hewson itself on this advert confirms a September release. That advert was first published in November 1988, so if the release date for Evening Star had been sooner or later, it would have been changed.
- Exolon. Release date. Late July 1987. Crash first published that the game would be published the end of August 1987, the same as Your Sinclair. But Sinclair User published an end of July release date. The advertising campaign took place in August/September 1987. The firsts reviews were published in August. IMHO Exolon was released at the end of July as Sinclair User announced, with the main magazines publishing the firsts reviews on their August issues (out at the beginning of the month) it seems very unlikely the game was published at the end of August.
- Heatwave. Release date. August 1989. C&VG and Crash talked about an August release date.
- Ranarama. Release date. March 1987. C&VG, Crash, Sinclair User agreed about a March release. The advertising campaign started in April as well, and the first reviews were published in March.
- Zynaps. Release date. Late June 1987. On their May 1987 issue, C&VG talked about a June release. On June C&VG did a preview announcing a June release. Crash also did a preview on their June issue as well as Sinclair User, Your Sinclair and ZX Computing. Popular Computing Weekly listed Zynaps as a "New Release" on their 19-25 June issue. The advertising campaign started in July 1987 and the first reviews also appeared in July.
✓ Reviewed
