Back in the mid 70's, there was no dedicated video games press. The closest thing to that was trade periodical Play Meter, launched in 1974, which covered arcade games, but very much from a business angle. The first consumer gaming magazine wouldn't appear for another seven years, when, in November of 1981, British publishing company EMAP launched Computer and Video Games magazine. Just a couple of weeks later, the first US games magazine appeared in the form of Electronic Games magazine. Founded by the late Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz, both these pioneering journalists had covered games for Video magazine, but this was the first time a magazine completely dedicated to gaming had been seen in the states. In Europe, CVG covered all aspects of video gaming, and also included type-in BASIC listings – simple games that users could input themselves, should they be so inspired. These listings were often long, complex, and sometimes even buggy (wait ‘til next month for the fixes!), and the fruits of the painstaking labor required to enter these reams of BASIC text were often barely worth it. Still, these listings did help hopeful young programmers learn the basics of programming, so they were of use for sure. In the states, EG focused purely on commercial products and avoided any aspects of DIY gaming. Where CVG and EG shared common ground, though, was in their style of writing. Since this was the very dawn of games writing, there was no precedent in terms of tone and style of games coverage. The writers of the era were all trained journalists, and even though they were often games enthusiasts, you can nevertheless see a more classical reporting style coming through in what they wrote in those early days. It was more restrained and less hyperbolic than the style of games journalism that would emerge only a few years later.