FunFactor cover art

FunFactor

FunFactor

By: Ty Schalter & Aidan Moher
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 Ty Schalter (VICE, FiveThirtyEight) and Aidan Moher (WIRED, Vulture) review what rocked and what sucked about the classic video game magazines that inspired them to become professional journalists, authors, and critics—and what they can tell us about today's digital media and games.

New episodes drop every other Tuesday!Ty Schalter & Aidan Moher Art Literary History & Criticism Politics & Government Science Fiction
Episodes
  • Game Players 83 - Resident Evil [S1E15]

    Game Players 83 - Resident Evil [S1E15]
    Oct 7 2025
    ISSUE LINK: https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/game-players-1993/game-players-issue-83/

    Here come the RPGs...sort of. Aidan and Ty revisit Game Players yet again, as the drumbeat for more RPGs gets louder across 1996 and 1997. The splashy cover art of Beyond the Beyond's Finn helped rook a young Ty into buying one of the most disappointing and frustrating games he's ever played.

    But the review is actually for the seminal Resident Evil, with the GP crew doing its level best to review a genre-shattering, brilliantly innovative game with a couple of truly nasty flaws.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • Game Informer 47 - Carnage Heart [S1E14]

    Game Informer 47 - Carnage Heart [S1E14]
    Sep 23 2025
    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-47-march-1997

    ANDY MCNAMARA ON MY PERFECT CONSOLE: https://shows.acast.com/my-perfect-console/episodes/andy-macnamara-former-editor-in-chief-game-informer

    MATT MILLER ANNOUNCING GI'S RETURN: https://gameinformer.com/letter-from-the-editor/2025/03/25/game-informer-is-back

    We've been grinding XP and saving up MP for this one: Our first issue of Game Informer--
    though in 1997, the mag is years from its dominant Aughties peak, and decades from its shocking 2024 closure and its thrilling 2025 revival.

    Ty comes clean about his lack of history with the magazine, Aidan discusses having written for it; they both talk about how the PS1 library was chock full of brilliant, groundbreaking, unconventional, and nevertheless first-party (or AA/AAA-level funded) experiments of the kind that are so hard to get greenlit these days.

    And then...Carnage Heart.

    It was Ty's bizarre obsession, Aidan had never heard of it, and it was (and is) one of the most unusual, tough-to-talk-about games of all time.

    How did the GI staff handle it? Listen to find out!
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    Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.
    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 51 mins
  • PC Gamer Vol. 4, Issue 3 - Diablo [S1E13]

    PC Gamer Vol. 4, Issue 3 - Diablo [S1E13]
    Sep 9 2025
    ISSUE LINK: Video Game History Foundation Library | Collection: PC GAMER (US)

    More info on "Free Speech and Magic Money," Jillan E. Foley, PhD's forthcoming book from Harvard University Press: Book – Jillian E. Foley

    We enter the dangerously Adult world of PC gaming: Mail-order explicit games, game-deletion utilities to keep people from finding out you play explicit games, politicians fear-mongering about games being a "dirty, dangerous" gateway to Hell--and a very thorough and excellent review of Diablo!

    You know, a game about going to actual Hell!

    For one of our most-requested mags, PC Gamer, Aidan and Ty get personal about their history with PC gaming, the thrill of the illicit, and late-stage AOL's idealized business model.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 43 mins
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