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Former game columnist, Brent Gustafson, was kind enough to shine some light on the practice of video game companies loaning out copies of their newest titles to have them professionally reviewed.

If you have ever been curious about how “prototypes” leak out onto eBay or wanted to learn more about game journalism back in the early 1990′s, read on.

I have always been curious about game prototypes. I read that you were a video game reviewer. Would you mind shining some light on the reviewing process? How long before the game’s release were you typically given these prototypes/review copies? Did the company ever ask for them back?

Hey Mike, yes I was a video game columnist in the early 90′s (1990-1995). Myself and a co-columnist wrote reviews for Gannett News. Most of my game collection from that time are review copies of games. That said, not all of them are prototypes.

This makeshift Acclaim label is rubber cemented onto the prototype cartridge.

The Trog game is the only proto that I own that I know is one because I have a letter from Acclaim stating as much. Also, as you can tell it even looks like a prototype. That said, is it different from the actual game? I do not know. I haven’t dumped the roms to find out, but would like to some day. I’m as curious as you are.

"The letter from Acclaim stating it's a proto..."

"...as well as the final "proof" of the instruction manual."

I have a lot more games that have “Return to Company X” written on them (you can see the Turrican one in my Flickr stream). They have full box art and labels so in my estimation they’re the finished game, but again I don’t know if there’s a difference, I haven’t dumped them.

Sometimes we would get games very early (up to 2 months from launch, as was the case with the SNES launch, we were one of the first people in the US to play it). Other times they would send games the same time they were released to the public. It really depended on the game company in question. Some companies were much better with this than others.

Many times the company did ask for them back, and many times we’d cheerfully ignore this. Companies like Accolade kept sending review copies so we just kept the games. Companies like Nintendo we didn’t mess around with and send stuff back (the SNES launch above for example). Other companies never were willing to send us anything regardless (SNK).

“Many times the company did ask for them back, and many times we’d cheerfully ignore this… Companies like Nintendo we didn’t mess around with…”

This is all fascinating. I had no doubt that your Trog is, indeed, a real prototype, but that letter you have is the most incredible confirmation of its authenticity. I have never seen anything quite like it before. I’m sure most of these letters were discarded right away, so you definitely have a special piece of gaming history, especially now that Acclaim is no longer around.

I can tell you that there’s at least one other known Trog NES prototype out there, owned by a big-time collector who also used to be a game journalist. His name is Jason Wilson.

You mentioned Nintendo. Could you tell me what their review copies looked like? Did they contain final art or white labels? How long were you able to play them before Nintendo asked for them back? I’m assuming they also sent out letters?

Heh, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of Jason Wilson. I have several friends still in the game industry who know him and have mentioned him before. I didn’t know he had a Trog proto though.

I’m familiar with the dumping process. I’ve been part of the ROM and Emu scene for the better part of 15 years (ROM emulation was my thesis in college actually). Preservation is also a big deal to me, as I worked in New Media at a large contemporary art museum for almost a decade as well.

All of the rest of the games I have from my column days were released publicly. Sure I have lots of rare stuff, but not another proto like Trog.

The Nintendo stuff that we got was always release versions with full artwork. Even the launch stuff we got from them had the release labeling. How long we got to keep stuff depended on whether someone else needed it. In the case of the SNES we got to keep it for 2 weeks. I know this because I still have the letter they sent.

In fact I looked through a few of my old scans and found a couple more letters from companies. One from Konami and one from Hill and Knowlton (Nintendo’s PR firm). Here’s the two scans (sensitive info whited out):

Konami gives Brent one month to evaluate "Catlevania" II: Belmont's Revenge.

Nintendo's PR firm, Hill and Knowlton, uses humor to hammer the point across.

I have other things from this time as well, lots of swag, promo stuff, fliers from CES (remember this was pre-E3), strategy guides for games so we could beat them faster and release our reviews quicker, etc. I suppose you could say it’s this stuff that is in some ways more valuable than the games I have, since much of it is so rare.

PS – that Hill and Knowlton letter caused a lot of heat on wikipedia over the release date of the SNES. Many websites reported Aug 13 as the release date, but as you can see from the letter, it couldn’t have been as H&K say it wasn’t yet released. Wikipedia wouldn’t accept the letter because it wasn’t cited in a book or on a website even though it came directly from Nintendo’s PR firm. Only problem is, every website that used Aug 13 as the date just copied the date from each other. Kinda funny.

Thanks for your insights, Brent!