I was surprised to get mine in the mail the other day because I have barely had time to look at Pinside much less do much of anything lately, but flipping through it, I have to say it looks very nice. It was a good thing they decided to "pay out" some of the remaining people because I can all but guarantee I would not have subscribed otherwise, and now I'm thinking that I might... That being said...

I don't think this had anything to do with GR going away when it did. When GR died, we were in a totally different time. Stern was making very few machines and was dwindling in size (NBA, BBH, IM, all from this time). The arcade video world was cratering and games like Ms. Pac-Man that always held their value in the past could be had for like $300. There wasn't tons of content to be had that was brand "new", and while repair and history articles are great, there is only so big of a market for that.

Kevin attempted to expand the market by including other gameroom-related things like slot machines and home consoles. I personally could not care less about any slot related articles, but I found the home console stuff interesting as for me it crossed over.

As a whole though, the hobby was at a rough time, and it went under.

Now, GameRoom Magazine can be whatever it wants to be - it's not like Stern is pumping out less than 3000 machines a year, pinball has gained SO much more traction. Arcade video games, while not having taken off in price have stabilized, and there is becoming a market for making restoration parts for those. There is SO much more to talk about in the "home gameroom" world than there was.

I need to actually read through this one to see what I think about renewing, but if there is a time for a physical GameRoom type magazine to return, now is that time and I wish them all the luck in the world.