The EGM Compendium’s Archive Code Pages Are Now Live
17 days ago
– Sun, Mar 15, 2026 at 10:09:04 AM
Hello again to all our backers! The printer is at work on the new test print copies of the book. We’ll share more on the full production run as soon as we can.
In the meantime, we’re excited to be delivering even more content to you today, as the EGM Archive pages corresponding to the Archive Codes in The EGM Compendium are now live. If you’ve been reading the book digitally, you can now check out the extra content associated with these codes. If you’re waiting for your physical copy, know that the codes will be functional once it arrives.
We had two main goals for these tie-in pages. The first was to make it easier for readers with a paid EGM Archive membership to access coverage of topics and games in the original magazine issues. But we were also mindful of the fact that not everyone signed up for full Archive access, which prompted our second goal: offering bonus content to expand on the material in the book. We thought of this stuff like DVD special features—fun, optional content for diving a little deeper into topics from the book. You can expect extended interviews, expanded content, added context, and at least one flatulent robot.
To access these pages, all you need to do is enter the codes found throughout the book at EGMCompendium.com—just click the magnifying glass icon on the top navbar, then enter the code into the box.
For the moment, you will need to be logged into your EGM Archive account, but as a reminder, every single backer is eligible for an account at the free tier. (If you haven’t registered your account yet, you can find the code in the Digital Downloads section of your BackerKit survey, which is always accessible by entering your email at egmcompendium.backerkit.com.)
We’ll be back soon with more updates.
The EGM Compendium: Now with Fewer Errors!
29 days ago
– Tue, Mar 03, 2026 at 02:33:19 PM
Hello, and thanks again to the best, most patient backers on Kickstarter!
When we last updated you, we showed off physical copies of The EGM Compendium from the test print, and told you’d we’d be reviewing them closely to ensure that the final book would print at the quality we envisioned. That meant looking over literally every inch of every page under bright direct light to make sure everything looked correct, and noting anything that might be even a little off so we could ensure it would be fixed up for the final print run.
During that process, we did in fact discover some issues that required attention. Most notable and widespread, how we’d built our pages wasn’t quite cooperating with the prepress workflow for handling overprinting. In layman’s terms, sometimes you want the black ink to print on top of the other colors—overprinting—and sometimes you don’t. In our test print copies, blacks were always printing on top of other colors—even when the black was on top of elements that shouldn’t have been visible.
Here an image showing what we mean, from page 274 of the book:
You’ll notice in direct light that the black box on the left seems to have a line through it with a different sheen on the top than the bottom. That’s because the bottom portion is overprinted—black on top of orange.
Now, this is not a huge error—odds are good that many of you might not have noticed it under normal reading conditions. But it was obvious enough to those of us who worked on the book that we opted to fix it while we still had the opportunity to do so. Overprinting impacted many of the recurring design elements throughout the book, which meant updating around three-quarters of the pages for this one issue alone.
We also fixed a number of other minor things we discovered when reviewing the printed book, like graphical elements that were slightly misplaced, text that needed small kerning adjustments, and one screenshot that was just a bit too low resolution. So, we booted up the game and recreated our own version to replace it:
(A fun fact that we now hate: The Animal Crossing stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl has 25 possible configurations, and Dr. Shrunk is only standing there in one of them!)
Again, none of this stuff is major—but with the level of care we’ve tried to put into every aspect of this project, we wanted to make sure we expended every possible effort when it came to translating the book into physical form for you.
To be clear, this process is now entirely done, and the revised files have been delivered to the printer. Given that we’ve got one shot at the full print run, the decision was made to print one more batch of test copies with the final files to verify all our fixes are implemented properly before we give the printer the go-ahead for the full final run.
We expect to verify that these new books look the way we envisioned, and then give the go-ahead to begin printing all 21,000 copies to get them ready to ship out to you. We’ll be back soon to share news of that milestone—and with other updates on some developments related to the new issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine that you made possible.
Also, we’re finishing up work on the special Archive pages that will connect additional content with the book, and will share more on those once they’re live for digital readers to access—we anticipate that will be happening sometime next week. We’ve come up with some fun bonus content that goes beyond simple links to the archival material, and we can’t wait to share.
New EPUB Edition, Updates on the Print Edition, Archive, and Much, Much More
2 months ago
– Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 03:13:54 AM
Quick Update: If anyone is having issues getting the EPUB version onto their Kindle, to our knowledge Amazon only allows you to import EPUB files into your library through its Send to Kindle service, accessible at http://amazon.com/sendtokindle. You can simply download the file from BackerKit, upload it here (you may need first to log into the Amazon account associated with your device), and after a brief wait the Compendium should appear in your device's library for download alongside your other books.
Original Post: Welcome to 2026!
First off, we hope all of you had a happy and safe holiday season. We ourselves took the chance to spend some time with our families and friends—and maybe do a bit of gaming here and there—but throughout all of that, we’ve still been hard at work. So, we wanted to bring you an update on the progress we’ve made since we last talked.
Print Edition
Delivering the digital version of The EGM Compendium has been a hugely rewarding experience for everyone on our team. We’ve truly enjoyed hearing the feedback from those of you who’ve started (or finished!) reading it.
But we also know that many of you are eager to get your hands on the print edition, and some of you are waiting to read the book for the first time in that form. Rest assured that we’ve been moving forward on physical production so we can make that happen as soon as possible.
As the final intermediate step before the full print run begins, the printer is currently assembling sample versions of all editions of The EGM Compendium. Each sample is a complete printing of the entire book, a test run we can review to ensure all text on every page is readable and all graphics are clear and match our expectations. We’ll share photos of these physical rewards in an update once they arrive—we expect to be able to do so in next week’s update, as the samples should ship to us quickly once they’re done.
After we give the sign-off on the samples, we’ll begin the full production run. The books will be finished and packed at the printer with your other rewards, then shipped to our fulfillment partner where they’ll be swiftly forwarded along to you. We’ll update you as we reach these milestones as well, so you’ll have a clear expectation of where your order is on its way to you.
Mistaeks Happen
We also know that some readers have spotted and shared a few typos in the initial digital release. (No, the Sega Saturn did not cost over $4,000 at launch in Japan. Thanks, Rhody.) While we obviously worked hard to ensure the initial release was clean—four separate people reviewed each page—with a project of this scope and size and a team as small as ours, it was inevitable some mistakes would slip through. That’s why we really appreciate anyone who’s brought a typo to our attention—we’ve implemented fixes for each and every one, and continued looking through the book ourselves to ensure the full print run is as clean as possible. We can’t promise perfection, but we can safely say we’ll be much closer than we were a few weeks ago.
These revisions will be reflected in the final print edition—we’ve been maintaining an updated set of printer-ready files that will be ready to use the moment we receive and review the samples. They’re also reflected in the Digital Edition of the book—including the version you can read online at https://egmcompendium.com/books/the-egm-compendium/ and the downloadable PDF available on both the site and through your BackerKit digital rewards. (As a reminder, you can always access your BackerKit and your downloads by visiting https://egmcompendium.backerkit.com/ and entering the email address associated with your pledge.) These revisions are also reflected in the new reflowable EPUB edition of the book, out today.
Reflowable EPUB Edition
Starting today, you can download an EPUB version of The EGM Compendium from BackerKit. (In fact, you may have already gotten an email informing you of a new digital reward.)
This version of the book has been reformatted in its entirety to offer the best possible experience on e-readers like the Kindle or Nook. The PDF and print editions of the book emphasize the visual design quite heavily. The EPUB version is, by necessity, a different experience. We’ve still included hundreds of images—some to provide required context, some just for fun—but we were careful not to go overboard, both to keep the file size manageable and to avoid cluttering the reading experience. And the text, of course, is a near-exact match with the print edition.
Why "near-exact"? Well, we went through and modified any references to page numbers to instead be direct links that take you to the referenced content. Though the book isn’t particularly dense with them, we also took advantage of footnotes and other EPUB-native features to ensure this version of The EGM Compendium feels purpose-built for e-readers, rather than something we just tossed out there with the minimum possible effort.
We hope anyone reading the book in this format enjoys it just as much as the PDF version. (But hey, we’d recommend flipping through the PDF or print version too—some of those visuals are neat!)
The Digital Archive
While much of our focus in the past few months has been on The EGM Compendium itself, that doesn’t mean we’ve been ignoring the EGM Digital Archive.
In fact, some of the work that we’ve done on the book has translated into improvements on the site as well. As one example, a handful of the issue covers on the Digital Archive were subscriber versions, which had an empty white box that covered up part of the cover to accommodate the printing of a mailing address. As a part of sourcing better versions of such covers for the book, we’ve now replaced those covers on the website as well.
Along with that, we’ve now answered one of the biggest questions that had been lingering about the Digital Archive: Where was the download for EGM #109? As that issue’s scan had numerous quality issues, we hadn’t wanted to put up a download for it just yet. Now, however, if you head over to the site, you’ll find that we’ve given EGM #109 a fantastic new scan, both for the digital version you can read directly from the site and for the PDF download that is now available. At the same time, we’ve also been fixing various problems with some of the other issues as well. There are still some we need to address, but work continues on that as we try to make the archive we’ve built for the history of EGM even better.
Roadmap for Other Rewards
Obviously, our print production team will continue to move forward to get your physical rewards out to you, but with that process now underway, Josh and Mollie are freed up to turn their attention to other outstanding rewards and bonuses. Here’s a quick look at what we’ll be working on, in the tentative order we’ll be working on it (though many of these efforts will be underway simultaneously).
Compendium Hub Pages on the Archive
We’ll be working on building out the Hub Pages on the Archive, accessible via the codes in the book. This expanded content will allow you to quickly jump to relevant material in the magazine archive (for anyone with a full, paid Archive membership), and in many cases offer additional material like extended interviews and expanded content (for all backers). Expect these to begin going up in the next couple of weeks.
EGM #265
Planning and tentative layout work is already underway for the all-new issue of EGM that we unlocked as our final original stretch goal. We’ll now be ramping up our efforts on this, concurrent with our work on the other projects on this list. (In fact, we’ve already assigned out—and received back—a couple of articles from EGM alumni.) We’ll share more behind-the-scenes details as the issue comes together.
(If you applied to review in the issue as part of the Review Crew Survivor stretch goal, don’t worry—we haven’t reviewed those messages yet and will be in touch shortly to let you know if you’ve been selected.)
EGM2 Archive + Specials Archive
After all the Hub pages are live, we’ll begin to index issues of EGM2 and get them live on the Digital Archive site to read and navigate exactly like EGM issues. Our current plan is to put issues live as they’re completed (or in small batches at regular intervals) rather than waiting to complete all indexing, so we can minimize the wait time.
We plan to dig into the Specials after EGM2, as these will need to be handled on a case-by-case basis and will take a little more legwork to get live. But we’ve already begun to procure copies of some specials that have never been digitized anywhere before, so that we can preserve them for you on the Archive.
Podcasts
If you’ve already started reading the Compendium’s oral history sections, you know we spoke to dozens of former EGM editors to get their memories for the book, and we tried to fit as much of those stories onto the page as possible. But even still, so much more had to be left on the cutting room floor. As we announced late last year, we’ll be editing the interview audio into podcasts and making them available to backers. Our plan is to release these as they’re finished and begin producing them once the most time-consuming work on EGM #265 is finished.
Digital Archive Full Text Conversion
This is the longest-term item on the list: Our stretch goal to convert articles on the Digital Archive into HTML, so you can toggle between reading it in the original layout and in a more browser-friendly text format. We’ve begun exploring OCR tools that will help us speed up and streamline the process, but even then, we expect this to be an ongoing effort that will take some time. It’ll likely be the last item on this list to finish.
As you can see, we’ve got a lot of exciting things lined up for 2026, even beyond the delivery of your physical copy of The EGM Compendium. And we’ll continue working hard to get it out to you.
Thanks again to each and every one of you for your support and patience.
