How did you find out about games pre-internet?

[mαrkαsscoρ]

This doesn't necessarily have to mean before the internet became a household thing, more so before you had access to the internet yourself if you're on the younger side.
Anyways, before nowadays when we know when everything is coming out months beforehand, how did you learn when an upcoming game was going to be released? Magazines? Word of mouth? Or in my case, you just didn't. Before I was able to use the internet in the late 2000s, there was basically no way for me to know when a certain game was coming out unless there was a commercial on it. Best instance is w/ Twilight Princess when I just randomly saw it behind a glass case at Sears one day, and was just completely taken back that there was a new Zelda game that I guess had came out.
Although thinking on it a bit more, my brother did have a magazine subscription and would only sometimes tell me when something was coming out. I remember this mostly w/ GTA San Andreas that he showed me the magazine ad for it. Unfortunately I can't remember which one it was.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

The same way as you! Either from TV commercials, or in my case sometimes my older cousins would tell me about a new game. But most of the time it'd be by walking into Walmart, or Sears, or an electronics store and glancing at games only to lose my mind that there was a new game in a series I enjoyed. This happened for me with a lot of Gamecube games - Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker being the most memorable.

 

[Jimmu]

I was introduced to gaming when my uncle got me a SNES for my birthday. From then until I had internet access I would only really get them at the shops or hear about them from friends. Didn't really purchase any magazines or see much about them on TV, so that's all I really had. This is a large part of the reason I got into Zelda quite late.

 

[Spirit]

Usually magazines or in those large houses that exchange cash for goods.

 

[Jirohnagi]

Blockbusters usually, that or "friends"

 

[Zachie]

K-Zone magazine, or word of mouth. I actually found out about Kingdom Hearts 2 before Kingdom Hearts XD

 

[Princess Niki]

mostly friends or cousins cuz I wasn't allowed to own any console before the internet came out honestly and Pokemon was an anime so that's the exception.

When it came to computer games I just got what looked fun at the store.

 

[Vanessa28]

Through magazines, commercials and of course my sister. She's a fanatic gamer so she brought the news about new games to us. And of course going to the store downtown helped a lot too.

 

[Azure Sage]

I think from commercials maybe? I know I got into Monster Hunter because I saw a commercial for Freedom Unite back in the day. The same could have been true for Pokemon Pearl, but I got into Pokemon originally because my friends liked it. I got into Zelda because I happened to see Phantom Hourglass in a Best Buy one day and my mom let me buy it because I thought it looked cool. I honestly can't remember much else. The internet makes it so easy now that I forget how it was before I got active with it.

 

[Fierce_Deity]

First it was going to the local arcades or hearing about a new one from friends. My town had arcade downtown, plus Walmart had some and the local theater. After i got an nes it was just checking Walmart and toys r us frequently either going in or looking through their circular. I don’t recall hearing much from news unless it was an upcoming console. Sometimes a commercial may pop on. Then I began subscribing to Gamepro, Nintendo Power, and EGM. Until the internet that was pretty much it for me.