Video (magazine)

The August 1979 legal filing by Reese Publishing Company against Hampton International Communications came at a time when competition between Video and rival publications Video Review, Video Buyer's Review, and Home Video over the emerging home video market had reached a flash point. It was precipitated directly by Hampton's hiring of Video's recently terminated advertising director, David Berns, and the subsequent announcement of its intention to publish a buyer's guide titled "1980 Official Video Buyer's Guide". In its filing, Reese alleged injury to its "Video Buyer's Guide" trademark and requested preliminary injunctive and monetary relief in anticipation of Hampton's publication of this similarly titled guide. On September 10, 1979, in a ruling for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Judge George C. Pratt delivered a memorandum opinion holding "Video Buyer's Guide" to be a generic trademark, denying Reese's motion for injunctive relief, and dismissing the complaint against Hampton. Vindicated, Hampton released its buyer's guide shortly afterward under the title "Hampton's Official 1980 Video Buyer's Guide".[2]

Appealing the decision before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in early 1980, Reese asserted that the lower court had abused its discretion in finding the trademark to be generic, that it had failed to provide Reese an adequate opportunity to present all evidence, that state claims were not adjudicated, and that other bases for enjoining Hampton's use of the mark had been ignored. The three-judge panel considered the mark's position relative to the spectrum of distinctiveness recently expounded in the 1976 decision of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Hunting World, Inc., and noted particularly the similarities between Reese's claims and those of CES (who in 1975 had sought unsuccessfully to protect their trademark for the term "Consumer Electronics") in CES Publishing Corp. v. St. Regis Publications, Inc. In a published opinion, Judge Wilfred Feinberg affirmed the lower court decision and dismissed the case.[2]

Best-known version of the logo of the "Arcade Alley" column

"Arcade Alley – A Critical Look at Video Cartridge Games & Programs" was a regular column in Video magazine, appearing quarterly in 1979 and monthly beginning in 1980, and ran until issue August 1984 (Volume VIII, Number 5). It was created by Bill Kunkel, Arnie Katz, and Joyce Worley, three New York-based friends with a common background in comics, professional wrestling, freelance journalism, and fanzine culture.[12] Through professional connections, they became acquainted with Video's director of public relations, Bruce Apar, in the late 1970s and pitched to him the idea of a regular video game review column for Video[12] which, under the oversight of editor Deeny Kaplan, had been publishing a series of articles called "VideoTest Reports" that sporadically covered video game topics and reviewed collections of games. Apar was enthusiastic about the idea and approached Reese's publisher, Jay Rosenfield. He initially expressed concerns over whether there was enough interest in the new "sport" of "electronic gamesmanship" to justify a regular column on the topic. Despite these concerns, Rosenfield green-lighted the column which was inaugurated under the ambivalent philosophy of "we have nothing to lose", and the column proved to be a success among readers.[13]

Working in direct consultation with game designers, Kunkel, Katz, and Worley are credited with popularizing video games for commercial markets[5][13] and normalizing the pastime of gaming in its earliest years.[14] During their time writing "Arcade Alley", both Kunkel and Katz contributed other articles to Video as well. Kunkel wrote one-off features and pieces on the then-new ESPN cable channel[15] and the interactive gaming programs of the QUBE cable channel,[1] and Katz wrote "Televiews"—a television-specific column for Video. Katz additionally wrote for and served as associate editor for the trade journal, Chain Store Age,[4] so for contractual reasons[16] and to avoid tarnishing his name as a serious tech journalist, writing credits for Arcade Alley were given to Kunkel and Katz under the pseudonym Frank T. Laney II.[nb 3][18] Aiming to review three games per column, Kunkel and Katz often found that their biggest difficulty was the size of the market which often failed to produce enough new titles to review and forced the reviewers to accept any and all games for review. In an interview with Gamasutra, Katz recalled that "we had to review every single game that Atari made because that was all there were".[4] The depth of coverage given to the few titles available was notable for its time, and aspects interesting to the reader such as "easter eggs"—a term for hidden messages and inside jokes left by game programmers—were emphasized.[19]

Bruce Apar became editor-in-chief in 1980 and "Arcade Alley" grew from a quarterly to a monthly column in parallel with the expansion of Video's publishing frequency. This year also marked the launch of the Arkie Awards—a yearly award naming a Game of the Year for both home console and PC platforms, and honoring video games from the previous year for excellence in categories such as Innovation, Gameplay (Competition, Solitaire-play, etc.), Audio-visual effects, and Genre (Science fiction, Sports, Adventure, etc.).[13] Due to overwhelming reader support for the column,[20] Kunkel, Katz, and Worley pitched the publication of the United States' first dedicated video game magazine to Jay Rosenfield and in October 1981 Electronic Games was launched.[21] Electronic Games was tested as a one-off issue, but proved popular enough that it became a regular bi-monthly and then a monthly magazine.[11] Despite this outlet, however, the three founders of Arcade Alley continued working for Video, jointly hosting the Arkie Awards between the two Reese publications. By 1982 Video was considered the "number one magazine in the industry",[22] and Katz dropped his pseudonym to write under his real name.[18]