Video Game History Foundation Acquires Copies of Computer Entertainer, Makes Them Available for Free

The Video Game History Foundation announced that it had acquired a copy of the full run of one of the earliest video game magazines, called Computer Entertainer. It ran from 1982 to 1990 and was co-edited by two women — Marylou Badeaux and Celeste Dolan — coincidentally making it the first video game magazine run by women.

The announcement was made on Aug. 6, 2025, and was followed by the foundation uploading the copies to its archives. Those interested can now access these for free and have a little peek at how reviews were done back in the 1980s and early 90s. The copies came from one of the editors of the magazine, Badeaux.

The Video Game History Foundation highlighted the importance of Computer Entertainer, saying that it was one of the only console game magazines that survived the 1983-84 industry crash. Due to this, it was one of the only sources of early American reviews of classic games such, as Final Fantasy, Super Mario Bros. and others.

The foundation also talked about the difficulty regarding the scanning process and admitted that their first endeavor with it resulted in poor quality. However, upon acquiring a second copy of the set of magazines, they decided to unbind one of the sets to scan them “at the highest possible quality.”