Martin Verschoor
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 14:19
Filip Dujic
editor Online
Filip Dujic
editor Online
Pick a group of guys off the street, put them in a box, get them to write about games and see what comes out. That idea was forged in Amsterdam in 1993 and has proven to be a success many years later: games magazine Power Unlimited has been around for 30 years. Although it has lost many of its rebellious and chaotic feathers, the leading magazine still breathes one thing: fun.
The idea for a Dutch gaming magazine came from publisher VNU, which realized at the time that games were getting bigger and bigger. Magazines about this were already successful abroad and the Netherlands could not lag behind.
So the plan was born to have a group of young people write stories. “And that was actually a chaotic mess,” recalls editor Jan-Johan Belderok, better known to readers as JJ. “They were really guys from the street, from the Amsterdam hip-hop and rap scene.” Rapper Skate and Kees de Koning, later founder of the successful Dutch hop record label Top Notch, were members of the group.
Very chaotic
“They were often found in the arcade hall, they didn’t like school very much and they played games a lot,” says Belderok. “They started creating that magazine without any experience or structure. I think you saw that too: the layout and writing style you didn’t see anywhere else. It had a very chaotic style, from the start.”
In the 90s and 00s, the magazine was “the source of information about games” for many people, says Martin Verschoor, the current editor-in-chief. “The Internet wasn’t really a thing yet and you had to wait a month to find out which games had been unveiled at E3.”
Belderok, or as he calls himself: “the only dinosaur left”, joined Power Unlimited in 1997. The philosophy is still the same. “It’s all about faces and they will sell the magazine. People grew up with us and we were recognized on the street. We were kind of heroes, a bunch of regular guys who could be your friends.”
“We talked like we would in a pub, gave strange numbers and didn’t stick to the rules. People liked that and kept them reading for a long time, even if they didn’t game much anymore.”
Filip Dujic/NOSThe magazine is always about personalities
The rebelliousness dripped from the pages. An editor – or ‘tester’ as it was then called – thought that was a good idea Beavis and Buttheadgame deserved an even higher grade than a 10. So it got a 13.2. “Why would you stop at a 10 if a game was much more fun?” Belderok laughs. “We got away with that too. People also knew: you didn’t read the PU for well-founded reviews.”
Later, the “legendary” press trips for every reader were added, with parties “that got out of hand”. Those adventures came back to life in the magazine in a juicy way. “We traveled all over the world to play cool games and also to party. It captured the imagination: most people dreamed of that at the time. It was the best life you could lead.”
Much more professional these days
Not only Power Unlimited, but also the games industry itself has changed enormously over the years. From the stereotypical image of nerds with glasses putting together a game in their attic room, to tightly orchestrated billion-dollar companies with sophisticated media strategies.
This is particularly reflected in the press trips, Belderok knows. In the 1990s he was allowed to visit LucasArts, a game studio that Star Warsmade games.
“I was dropped off there with the message: ‘Have fun, we’ll pick you up in a few days.’ I could walk into any room there, talk to the developers and experience the process. We went into the pub with developers who, while drinking some alcohol, told us all kinds of wonderful stories. That was really rock ‘n’ roll.”
Martin VerschoorThis is what the magazine looked like in the 1990s
Today he compares it to football: there are PR people everywhere, you have to submit your questions in advance and all the answers are prepared. “The stakes are simply much greater,” Verschoor adds. “Games are becoming increasingly difficult to make and it costs a lot of money.”
Game makers are committed to making their game a success, but the fact that everything is much more tightly controlled does not bother the current makers of the magazine. Fun is still central.
Feeling of an attic room
“Humor has always been super important,” says Verschoor. “We’re still trying vibe from the past and share it with our readers.” Power Unlimited therefore remains an odd one out.
“We are in Haarlem in our publisher’s building, with neat, tidy tech platforms around us. When you come to our editorial office, people sometimes sit with their feet on the table. When another long-awaited game arrives, pops, nothing is going to happen for the next three hours, because everyone wants to grab that controller to play,” Verschoor laughs. “That’s still that attic room vibe, just like it was 30 years ago.”
Anniversary: from exhibition to USB stick
Power Unlimited is celebrating its 30th anniversary with an exhibition at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum. That exhibition opens today. Furthermore, a special anniversary edition of the magazine is available in stores, there will be a coffee table book about the history of games and readers have recently been able to order a special USB stick containing the digitized versions of all issues of the magazine.
2023-10-07 12:19:37
#years #attic #room #vibe #dominates #game #magazine #Power #Unlimited
