I've been looking and it would appear the pre-2000ish era of these magazines is just completely lost to time. No way to buy back issues legitimately noplace they're archived for preservation like CGW, not availabe anywhere except for a stray issue or two on archive.org or issues being scalped at outrageous prices on ebay. Is there anywhere these magazines are preserved?
Try the obvious such as eBay, local classifieds, etc. Mainstream mags such as PC Gamer, PSM, etc should be obtainable in some areas, the rest will indeed be pretty scarce these days.
Properly scanning an issue usually requires you to cut away the bind first - I think that is why there is not that many of these scans online, especially of any rare issues.
Yes, I have a collection of old comics I'd like to scan but haven't because I don't see a way of doing it without damaging them.
Is this too much voodoo?
IIRC Future Publishing had requested PCGamer to not be scanned years ago. Hadn't stopped dumping of their cover cds though 😉
Strategy Plus on the other hand is a whole lack of awareness (especially after the constant rebrandings and PCGamer's reputation on the later internet as the only computer gaming magazine) and apathy (from mergings, like Interactive Entertainment in 96). Some of the cover CDs trickled online but not much (and from the 97-98 era mainly)
Here's a link to a lot of PC vintage magazines, most of the download links are still active, and they have a lot of issues scanned.
https://www.oldpcgaming.net/vintage-gaming-magazines/
Using the Wayback Machine, here's a lot of PC Gamer magazine scans that are still downloadable, but download very slow due to being archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20150909075435/ht … bm-pc/pc-gamer/
