The Electronic Gaming Monthly Compendium

It’s no April Fool—The EGM Digital Archive will begin opening its doors this week
about 1 year ago – Tue, Apr 01, 2025 at 03:06:16 PM

A few weeks back, we brought you a quick look at the EGM Digital Archive, the companion website that lets you browse through the history of Electronic Gaming Monthly’s print run on a level never before seen.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we will begin the launch of the Digital Archive beta this Friday, April 4th.

With any website launch such as this, simply opening up the floodgates for everyone to come in at once can make it harder for anyone to get in. So, come Friday, we’ll be sending out invite codes and login instructions via BackerKit to anyone who backed at the I Am Sushi-X or Editor’s Choice tiers. Those backers will have the weekend to get a slightly early look at the site, while also giving us the chance to make sure everything is going the way we’re hoping it does.

Then, on Monday, April 7th, we’ll begin sending out invites to all remaining backers, at a bit of a staggered pace to (again) make sure we don’t have everyone attempting to create accounts all at the same time.

One important note: We will distribute the codes for the Archive through BackerKit, so please ensure that you’ve completed the survey. If you need to check on the status of your survey or generate a new link to get in, you can enter the email associated with your Kickstarter account at EGMCompendium.BackerKit.com. If you cannot access your survey, please review our previous update to troubleshoot.

The email you receive will contain a unique invite code, which is a one-time use code needed for account creation. While you aren’t required to use the same email address that you have attached to BackerKit, doing so will let us help you more quickly should there be any issues with your account.

Depending on your backer level, your personal invite code will grant you one of two account types: Backer or Paid Member. No matter what tier you backed The EGM Compendium, you will gain full access to the EGM Reviews database, where you can sort through and see the final scores for every scored review that appeared in the pages of EGM.

For those who backed to be a Paid Member of the EGM Digital Archive, you’ll then also get access to read the full library of digital issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly, use our dynamic search engine to easily filter through all of the great content that awaits inside each edition, or make use of our Indexes to better discover the games, franchises, companies, developers, personalities, and more.

For anyone with a standard Backer account, we’ll also have an option to pay a one-time fee of $10 to upgrade your Digital Archive account and become a Paid Member. You’ll be able to access this upgrade option directly from your account page on the Archive.

As we prepare to launch the Digital Archive beta, we want to emphasize that this is a beginning, not an end. There’s still a lot that will be added to the site, and given how massive of an effort putting together what’s already there has been, there will still be more polish, as well as additional content we want to catalog or expand metadata on.

We think that the site is already an exceptionally powerful and fun tool to use, so we want to start letting you use it—and we welcome your feedback as we prepare to work toward the next stage of the site’s evolution. While we’re still a few months away from getting The EGM Compendium to everyone, we hope you find the Digital Archive to be a satisfying appetizer to the main course to come!

So, for now, sit tight for a few more days, and you should be hearing from us again very soon as we finally unlock the doors to the EGM Digital Archive.

The EGM Digital Archive is almost here—along with a quick project update and some questions answered!
about 1 year ago – Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 04:50:33 PM

Hi everyone! We’ve got a quick update on the project, along with answers to some recurring questions we’re getting that we’d like to put into one convenient place.

Apple IDs

We are still waiting for responses from approximately 200 backers who used Apple IDs to set up their Kickstarter accounts. Obviously, we don’t want you to have to alter the way you have your accounts set up, but we also can’t get the backer survey to you unless we have a valid email address that is not an Apple relay email.

So, this is a quick request to any of you who have not yet received your backer survey, and who use an Apple ID as your account email on Kickstarter: Please reach out to us either by sending a direct message via Kickstarter or by sending an email to [email protected]. You can also use both of those methods to send any other questions you may have about this in case you’re not sure if it applies to you or not.

Additionally, we still have about 1400 other backers who have not sent in their surveys yet.  There’s still a bit more time to do this, but for those who are entitled to have their name in the book, time is running out! If you have the survey but haven’t gotten around to filling it out, now is the perfect time to do so. If you still haven’t received it or can’t find it, do not hesitate to reach out so we can escalate your request and have it either re-sent to you or send you a link where you can access it. We just want to make sure everyone gets their information into us on time!

With that out of the way we’d like to give you some updates on The EGM Compendium book and Digital Archive:

Book Update

We received dummy mock-ups of the book last week and they were, in a word, “stunning!” We’re really excited to get the printed dummy books which are coming next week and are the next step in the process. They let us confirm the quality of printing on a chunk of the book pages that we provided to the printer. This is the normal process on any printed item. As we noted in our update in January, we are currently on schedule to get the full book to the printer in June, and should have the final printed copies off the press 2-3 weeks after that date.

We have internally discussed releasing the digital version of the book (which will obviously be done in advance of the printed version) earlier so everyone can see it—however, some argue that it will take the wind out of the sails of the book’s big reveal. We’re open to hearing from our backers what you think the best approach should be, and welcome your input. Let us know want you’d like to see happen in the comments!

EGM Digital Archive

On the Digital Archive front, we’ve please to say that we have the site up and running across desktop, tablets, and mobile, and are going through the final internal tests. While the experience is best on desktop—as many archives of media or information are—it is still a nice experience on mobile and tablets as well, and it was important to us to go the extra mile to make it work for all readers. We are planning to roll out the Beta version of the Digital Archive in the next couple weeks to our backers. The version you get will include all 264* issues of the original Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, and enable you to do detailed searches of content based on the game titles, platforms, publishers, writers, and more! You’ll also be able to view and read all 5,703 reviews that appeared in the magazine and sort the reviews by score, title, and reviewer (among other things).

* So that we don't spoil the fun of you receiving your print copy, EGM #237—aka the infamous "Lost Issue"—won't be up just yet.

Literally thousands of hours have gone into indexing the issues so you can easily find anything you’d like to read from the magazine’s entire 25-year run. We do want to be clear, however: While we’ve come a long way in achieving that goal, there are still some instances in which you might find the searchable metadata is not yet fully fleshed out. We’ll be filling any of those holes after launch, but we felt like the site was at a point where it’s time to get it in your hands so you can start enjoying it. As well, issue downloads won’t be available at launch, as there’s a couple of things left to finish up before we turn those on, and upgrades to the Digital Archive that came through stretch goals—such as the inclusion of EGM2, or the option to read text versions of articles—is also still to come.

To give you a sneak peek at the Digital Archive, here’s a short video where I run through many of its major features in action, so that you can get a feel for how it all works and what you’ll be able to access later this month.

Some Additions to the FAQ

While we have addressed a lot of the most pertinent questions in the FAQ (which you can read here), we are continuing to get some recurring questions that we’d like to highlight in this update, and which we will further emphasize in the FAQ going forward.  Some of the main points include:

I just backed the project and haven’t received my survey yet. What gives?
Late pledges will receive their backer survey as long as they’re not using an Apple ID on their Kickstarter account (in that case, as noted above, you’ll need to send us a valid direct email to get the survey to you) within 3-5 days after backing. This is something that’s out of our control, as it takes a short period of time for Kickstarter to forward the information for your order over to BackerKit, and for them to then generate and email the survey. If you back the project and don’t see the survey after a week, however, please message us and we’ll get it squared away.

When is the book shipping?
As we noted in our update back in January (and reiterated in this update above), The EGM Compendium book is now on track to release in July.  We are taking the extra time to add some additional features, boost up the page count, and give you even more insight into the history of gaming as chronicled in the pages of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

When are the other rewards shipping?
We are currently planning to ship all of the printed items—all editions of the book, Lost Issue, EGM #265, and poster—together in July. The enamel pins and rolled posters will be sent separately at around the same time. The reason for this is that we intend to mail the printed materials out as fourth class postage using the USPS. Fourth class is a special postage designation that allows us to send printed materials like books and magazines at a special rate and allows us to provide tracking for each shipment so that all of you can follow exactly where your shipment is from the moment it leaves our hands until it gets into yours.  Unfortunately, this kind of shipping can’t be used if things other than books and magazines are included (like enamel pins) so it ends up being easier for us to ship these things separately to the group that is entitled to receive them.

And Finally…

Last but not least, a quick shout-out to all of you, our backers, who have willed this project into existence with a huge outpouring of support that has catapulted The EGM Compendium into the fifth-most funded book (in any category!) of all time on Kickstarter! To say we continue to be blown away by the response is an understatement, and we can never say “Thank You” too much.  So, thank you again.

Feel free to reach out to us at any time if you have any questions, either by dropping a comment or sending a message via Kickstarter.  

The BackerKit Survey Is Out—Here’s What to Do if You Didn’t Get One
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 14, 2025 at 10:20:33 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Use your Apple ID with Kickstarter? Read this to make sure you get the survey!
about 1 year ago – Mon, Feb 10, 2025 at 03:53:09 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Everything You Need to Know About the Upcoming BackerKit Survey
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 07, 2025 at 04:22:19 PM

Hello again to our wonderful EGM Compendium community!

We’re preparing to send out our BackerKit survey, with the first batch of emails expected to go out Wednesday, February 12th. In case this is your first time backing a project on Kickstarter or using BackerKit for a campaign, we wanted to run down exactly what you can expect, and hopefully answer any big questions you may have.

Let’s start with timing. As I said above, we expect to start sending out surveys this coming Wednesday, with a randomly assigned 5% of backers at each pledge level getting them first, per BackerKit policy. This "Smoke Test" is to verify we have everything set up properly. If there’s any kind of issue, it’s better to catch it when only a handful of people are responding, rather than having to fix problems with thousands of you at once!

After we’ve confirmed all is good with the initial batch, we’ll send out surveys to the remainder of the backers, which we expect to happen on Thursday, February 13th. So if you don’t get the survey on Wednesday, don’t fret. It’s coming, and it’s coming soon. We’ll post a quick note here when the survey has gone out to all current backers.

What if you’re a late backer showing up to the campaign after the survey has already gone out? Don’t worry. BackerKit automatically imports new Kickstarter Late Pledges every few days, and sends out surveys to anyone who hasn’t yet received one. So if you back the campaign after the survey goes out, you’ll get yours via email within a few days.

We’ve mentioned this a few times in previous updates, but just to reiterate: The BackerKit survey will automatically go to the email associated with the Kickstarter account you used to back the campaign—the same one where you should be receiving this update right now.

If for whatever reason you haven’t receive the survey by Monday, February 17th, when you (and we) expect you will, please leave a comment here or reach out and we’ll investigate to make sure you get it. (And please double-check that it’s not in your spam folder first!)

As for what to expect from the actual survey, it’s quite simple on your end.

First, you’ll confirm your general location—your country and state or province, as necessary.

Then, if applicable to your pledge tier, you’ll get a few short questions to answer based upon the tier you supported. This includes things like what name you’d like to appear in the book (plus a backup name if you’re worried about someone sharing your first choice), and a contact email if one is required for your rewards.

Next, if you purchased any add-ons through Kickstarter, you’ll see a list allowing you to confirm they look correct. On the next screen, you’ll have a chance to modify your order by including other add-ons that weren’t part of your original pledge. Some of these will be familiar from the Kickstarter campaign, but we’ve added a few new ones in response to backer feedback, too. For example, you can now add a print copy of EGM #237 ("The Lost Issue") if you didn’t pledge for one initially (or, if you did, you can add a second copy if you’d like one to read and one to collect). You can also pledge for an extra print copy of the upcoming, all-new EGM #265 (or a first copy, if the rest of your order is digital).

Backers in the Special Collector's Edition, Quartermanniac, and Special Collector's Edition II Turbo tiers who want to upgrade their EGM Covers Poster to a larger 27"x39" size, shipped separately from the rest of their order rolled in a tube, can now optionally choose that as an add-on, too.

And finally, if there’s enough interest, we’ll be offering some new wearable EGM merch, so keep an eye out for that on the add-on page as well.

If your add-on selections require any additional information like a name in the book or contact email, you’ll fill out a few more basic questions to provide those details.

Next, you’ll enter your shipping address. For those backers who may be moving between now and when the book delivers, don’t worry. You’ll be able to return to BackerKit and update your address (as well as other aspects of your order) until we lock everything closer to the ship date (and we’ll give you some advance notice before that happens).

As the final step, if you have any outstanding balance as a result of new add-ons, you’ll need to provide your credit card information to BackerKit. Please note, however, that you will not be charged until we collect funds, closer to shipping.

And if you don’t have any outstanding balance, all you need to do is click to confirm, and you’re all set!

Finally, we wanted to offer one additional note to avoid confusion: The BackerKit survey will not include any of the questions related to backer voting for features and other content in The EGM Compendium or EGM #265. We didn’t want filling out the BackerKit Survey to be a long or complicated process, and we want to keep that fulfillment data separate from the voting data.

We’re in the process of setting up the voting on Google Forms now, and we’ll be sending out links to you via a Kickstarter update separately within the next few weeks.

We’re excited to start the BackerKit process with you and take this important next step in getting The EGM Compendium into your hands! Thanks again to all who have shown their support to EGM and the campaign—it is appreciated!