Well we had these things called "magazines" that were printed on something called "paper" that would be sent to you through something called "the mail". The people who wrote for these "magazines" didn't get paid very much, so they tended to be people who really liked to play video games as a way to get paid to do so. And maybe some of them had higher aspirations to get into games design or development.

This love of the hobby tended to show in the production of these "magazines", and you tended to feel as though the people writing and editing them were similar to you. And when people like Jack Thompson attacked video games, the "magazines" gasp defended the hobby instead of shitting all over it.

Of course some "magazines" were in the pockets of the larger publishers, but it was usually pretty obvious which ones those were