were lovely people,” but, says Carter, CTW was suffering from a sense of inertia at being unchallenged in the market for so long. In addition, despite some involvement in the incumbent UK industry event ECTS (European Computer Trade Show), there seemed to be little interest from CTW’s owners in broadening the brand. “We didn’t even have a full- colour magazine” says Carter, who jumped at the chance to join Dinsey when he made his plans known. “I was ambitious. I knew that he was ambitious, and we knew there were things we could do outside of putting together a weekly magazine - as difficult as that would be.”
“We had a tiny little stand in piss alley and we walked in going ‘Oh my god. What have we done”
Things were more promising on the business side.
TEAM BUILDING Less than a month after leaving CTW, Dinsey, Carter and Moreham moved into MCV’s first office in Arlesey, Bedfordshire; which Dinsey later referred to, with some justification, as the ‘Bedfordshire shithole’. “We were in a really dreadful temporary office in the
back of nowhere which looked over a toxic waste dump,” recalls Carter. ”It was just a horrific, awful place.” It was there, with no network (files were shared via
floppy discs), two phone lines, and under a leaking roof, that the first MCV team was assembled. Dinsey and Carter resumed their prior CTW roles as editor and deputy editor respectively, with another from the diminished weekly, Dave Roberts, joining as the star writer who would help drum up business on the side. The editorial team was completed by the arrival of Owain Bennallack from Edge Online and newcomer George Kotsiofides, who on the basis of his prior experience managing a games shop, was hired to give MCV some retail credence. The magazine also lost its first staff member early
on, a designer whose efforts were deemed so unworthy that MCV’s ad-courting dummy issue had to be put together without one. Unsurprisingly it wasn’t well received, but with the first proper issue due to be launched at ECTS in less than three weeks, the only choice was to press on.
Dinsey recalls being dropped off with Alex Moreham by helicopter after sealing a £50,000 advertising deal from a Staffordshire-based company; MCV’s first. It was only as the the chopper hovered out of sight that the team felt able to jump up and cheer with relief and delight. “Moments like that stay with you” he says.
SHOWDOWN AT OLYMPIA Having secured the services of a competent designer, the first issue of Market for Computer & Video Games went to press on September 3rd 1998 (the same date that CTW launched in 1984), arriving with the thousands on its growing circulation list the following day – which, thanks to PR agency Bastion, was on course to outnumber CTWs by two-to-one. In addition, the magazine would be available to everyone
Which stealth classic was
released on the same day that the first issue of MCV appeared? Answers on a
postcard, please.
FIRST WE TAKE CTW,
THEN THE WORLD After Develop in 1999, new and newly acquired titles joined the Intent Media stable, the main ones being ToyNews early in 2001, PC Retail in 2003, Mobile Entertainment in 2005, BikeBiz in 2006, Licensing. Biz in 2009 and Music Week in 2011, across which many staff would migrate. There were also attempts to extend the MCV brand to other territories, with website launches in the US and Asia, but only the original magazine was to find success.
September 2023 MCV/DEVELOP | 17
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