*In an equally telling event, AP was loudly attacked by software houses and ELSPA before it even existed: the announcement that AP would carry a complete game from the inaugural Top 100 on each ish's coverdisk sparked a panic that overpriced rubbish would consequently be impossible to sell.

Waving the example of the 8-bit covertape wars (which at that point were running up to eight games on each mag's coil of gleaming brown screech-stretch) game and mag publishers stitched up a deal under ELSPA's approving eye that 16-bit mags would not put complete games on their coverdisks, full stop, just playable demos at most. (Also that the 8-bits were limited to two games per tape, creating a bothersome responsibility of finding games to put on that were in fact good.) (Actually, that was full stop comma full stop then.)

The ban was agreed to come into effect after AP's second ish, which meant Bombuzal and Kid Gloves scuttled in just ahead of the doors and everyone played them for free and said, "Well, they're no Monster Business, are they?"

The prohibition was surprisingly solid, with software houses fearful that if they sold games for coverdisks they'd immediately destroy the entire 16-bit industry and everyone would die in a ditch, and mag publishers refraining from packing their disks with games because (SUB: FILL IN HERE); the ban lasted right up until everyone else was dead and our besuited paymasters decided to do it anyway starting with AP62.

Excellently, the obvious intention that this would clutch the dwindling readership with seizy resilience was scuppered by the facts the budget was 47p and the coverdisk bods bought games they personally liked which, in the fine traditional AP way, meant everybody else on the crust of the planet savagely hated them if they'd heard of the titles in the first place.

It's undoubtedly the software houses' and mag publishers' calm, sensible policy of a closed shop for coverdisk games that led to the Amiga's glorious twenty-year reign of inspiring tremendousness. (Plus the fact they completely forgot PD games, leading directly to AP giving you, our readers, top homegrown titles like Gravity Force 2 and Super Foul Egg so you didn't have to go out and buy overpriced rubbish.) Thanks, software houses and mag publishers. Thublishers.