Legions of other newsletters and hobbyist publications sprang up in Dragon's wake, just as new video game magazines exploded around the publication of Nintendo Power. In video game terms, TSR in 1976 was like the Nintendo of a decade later, riding a wave of popularity no one could have predicted, with a legion of fans desperate to get their hands on more information, more history, more rules, more suggestions, more ideas, and more fun. While it looks laughably basic these forty years hence, the industry was expanding faster than anyone could keep up. No longer content to be simply a house organ like The Strategic Review, The Dragon was the first publication of the newly-formed TSR Periodicals.
The price jumped from $1 to $1.50, but that extra fifty cents bought you eight additional pages of material, including a short piece by established fantasy author Fritz Leiber. The first issue of "The Dragon" debuted in June of 1976, with a simple illustration of (what else?) a dragon on the cover. Instead of being comprised solely of in-house work by Gary Gygax or other staff members, Strategic Review was now publishing campaign helpers, fiction, optional rules, reviews, and historical pieces written by people not employed by TSR, Inc. By the seventh issue, it had grown to a 24-page behemoth with a color cover and $1 price tag. Quite the opposite in fact-Strategic Review was too successful. But The Strategic Review wasn't a failure. Marketing, amirite? In any case, the newsletter lasted seven issues, concluding in April of '76. So, yes, TSR published "TSR", much like Nintendo published Nintendo DS games with titles that included, or could be abbreviated to, "DS". Bet you wish you had a time machine.ĭragon began its hatchling life in the Spring of 1975 as a small, black-and-white, six-page newsletter called "The Strategic Review" published by Tactical Studies Rules, or TSR. How could it get any better than this? How about Wizards of the Coast putting together a complete digital archive of the first 25 years of Dragon Magazine complete with every comic, letter, article, ad, and cover? Two hundred and fifty issues stuffed on five CD-ROMs, and sold for $50? I couldn't say "HELL YEAH!" fast enough.Ĭover price: $0.50 Cost today: $75.
Sony's making all kinds of waves with their pre-release hype for the PlayStation 2. The Sega Dreamcast is blowing everyone away with its power and potential. Developers are maxing out the PS1's specs to create classics like Syphon Filter, Final Fantasy VIII, and Silent Hill. If I had to pinpoint my personal choice for 'best year to be alive as a gamer', I'd have no difficulty coming up with 1999 as my answer. This, my fellow gamers, is the story of the Dragon Magazine Archive and how it changed the lives of two publishing companies forever.
Dragon magazine archive download software#
Following up on my series on absurdly difficult adventures articles, I'm sticking with the D&D theme and presenting this look at how a concern over copyright led one of the most awesome pieces of software ever to arrive on store shelves to vanish just as quickly into the ether and become an instant collector's item. The Dragon Magazine Archive is not a game, it's something better-knowledge.
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