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What will become of gaming magazines?

Gaming journalism in general has a lot of issues.

Yeah, the internet is slowly killing print magazines. As others have pointed out, it's not like EGM was Knitting Monthly - its audience is perfectly willing and able to get information online, and the internet can distribute gaming news much more efficiently. Especially as it becomes easier to access online content away from a computer, reasons for buying a traditional magazine full of previews and reviews are going to evaporate.

That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if online gaming journalism isn't growing as quickly as you'd expect given the shrinkage in print. It's not just that people are abandoning print media for online media, it's that they're also getting more and more information from nonprofessionals. Personally, I don't buy print magazines, and I never go to IGN, 1up, or Gamespot just to see the latest news. I occasionally visit forums like this one. And, while I'll read the occasional review for a game I'm on the fence about, I'll usually just try to get a feel for what other gamers think of a game, and I'll check gamerankings.

Jomo: Do you really think that gaming media is in danger of being marginalized? It seems to me that gaming is now more mainstream than it's ever been. Last generation, it was more mainstream than it had ever been before that. Especially with the Wii, I don't know many people younger than fifty who think that games are just for kids.
 
Gotchaye said:
Gaming journalism in general has a lot of issues.

...

Jomo: Do you really think that gaming media is in danger of being marginalized? It seems to me that gaming is now more mainstream than it's ever been. Last generation, it was more mainstream than it had ever been before that. Especially with the Wii, I don't know many people younger than fifty who think that games are just for kids.
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You could have said the same thing about extreme sports about 3-4 years ago. Now look at it. And I still don't buy the argument that the Wii is a gaming platform - it's a toy. Old people don't buy the thing wanting to "play videogames." They buy it because it's a fun toy. Same reason soccer moms buy it for themselves and their kids - it's a toy. They can say to themselves "Oh, little Jimmy doesn't play videogames. Those all have guns and blood and stuff. No, he just plays those funny little sports things on his Wii and has a good time with that." I don't have the data on this, but I'm willing to bet that 360 and PS3 ownership hits its sweetspot in the 18-25 year old bracket and the Wii skews younger and, oddly, probably older as well. What does that mean? To me it means that the two groups most into "toys" love the Wii - kids and aging adults looking to recapture their youth. The group into actual video games is not that big in comparison.

The only hope is that we, i.e. the masses that are royally pissed about EGM closing, etc., get older faster. That we have kids quicker. That they age faster. Our generation is, I think, the last chance it has. We need to make sure the industry stays healthy enough that it is still mainstream when our kids grow up or that might be it.

Now, I'm not saying there won't be videogames in 5 years. There will be TONS of them. But the chance gaming had to be taken seriously may be gone. Video games will just become a way for companies (manufacturers, publishers, sponsors) to get rich on something "the kids" are into, and the cultural elitists will turn up there noses and say "I told you so" and that will be that. There's a chance it can be so much more than that. It SHOULD BE so much more than that. But the window is shrinking rapidly, IMO.
 
Grecco said:
GamePro GameInformer and Play still survive relatively well. There will always be gaming magazines even if EGM was killed off.
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GameInformer only lasts because it's pushed at every GameStop in the country, and the magazine's entire success, from it's subscription numbers to its exclusive content, is totally reliant upon that fact. Who knows how long GamePro and Play will last.
 
To me game magazines died in the mid 1990s when Video Games & Computer Entertainment turned into the absolutely SHIT Video Games and when Sendai Publishing sold EGM to Ziff Davis.
 
Guybrush Threepwood said:
Oh yeah, Retro Gamer! I bought a couple issues of RG in a Half Price Books a few months ago. Great magazine.

Too bad it's a UK mag so new issues are really expensive in the US :\
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Sub is about the same as Edge ($70), not cheap but worth it for print fetishists like me. Not a huge fan of the writing or layout, but the pics and topics are really great. Very entertaining mag.
 
Jomo - Ah, I see what you're saying now. I don't think that people differentiate between 'video games' and 'toys' in the way that you suggest they do. Most people do talk about Wii Sports differently than Halo, but, for them, it's the difference between a good game and a bad game, or between a fun game and a complicated mess.

I agree with you that games likely won't be taken seriously anytime soon, at least if you mean 'serious' in the way that literature is serious. But when was there any hope of that? Games would need to undergo a more drastic transformation than what is being wrought by the Wii in order for that to happen. At least, I don't know that many people (even among big gamers) would defend even the SNES or PS2 generation as worthy of being 'taken seriously'.
 
Rhazer Fusion said:
The internet is the reason for the death of several publications. I must admit, I haven't purchased a magazine in several years because most of the news in the magazine is already antiquated to me.
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agreed.
 
I don't care if magazines don't have up to date news. The best thing about Edge is that the pages aren't all filled with the same old shit other magazines and sites cover.
 
Gotchaye said:
Jomo - Ah, I see what you're saying now. I don't think that people differentiate between 'video games' and 'toys' in the way that you suggest they do. Most people do talk about Wii Sports differently than Halo, but, for them, it's the difference between a good game and a bad game, or between a fun game and a complicated mess.

I agree with you that games likely won't be taken seriously anytime soon, at least if you mean 'serious' in the way that literature is serious. But when was there any hope of that? Games would need to undergo a more drastic transformation than what is being wrought by the Wii in order for that to happen. At least, I don't know that many people (even among big gamers) would defend even the SNES or PS2 generation as worthy of being 'taken seriously'.
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Well, that's probably best left for another thread. I'll just say that what consumers say and what they do are often different, and I think they treat the Wii like a toy even though they might call it a videogame or whathaveyou. And as for the "serious" argument - again, best left for elsewhere - I'll just say that I think there has been hope of that for a while now, though not since the beginning, and games like Braid and others are really raising it as a strong possibility. I think we're on the precipice of something, but we can either be about to jump onto a trampoline or into a pit of spikes. Remains to be seen.
 
TheGreatDave said:
I don't care if magazines don't have up to date news. The best thing about Edge is that the pages aren't all filled with the same old shit other magazines and sites cover.
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Yeah, I'd argue that news only made up a small percentage of EGM content. What we're talking about is analysis, not news. And that's the reason to read a magazine like EGM, because they were good at writing reviews and previews. I'm more interested in reading a well written review, preview or article than reading the first one to see print.

If all you're looking for is data points. Like the scroll at the bottom of CNN, then sure, I can see why you'd never need to crack a magazine again. But if you're looking for anything remotely more than that to dismiss the death of magazines is a mistake.
 
TheGreatDave said:
I don't care if magazines don't have up to date news. The best thing about Edge is that the pages aren't all filled with the same old shit other magazines and sites cover.
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Yeah really. I'm the opposite of most people; I don't really read sites (other than GAF) for anything (although it appears to me that they have many very interesting Top 10 lists, and super-short "controversial" articles, so I guess I'm missing out on a lot), but I love magazines. Part of it of course isn't so much a content thing, but also just a preference for reading longer articles in a nice print format. Part of the reason I never really liked EGM much was because of the degradation to tabloid-quality paper and the 100-page issues that basically precluded the possibility of many long articles.
 
APZonerunner said:
Even EDGE will die eventually. EDGE is a 'statement publication' for Future - it struggles to - or doesn't - make money at all. It exists to make a statement about what gaming mags/press should aspire to be and runs off the money made by Future's other mags like the official Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo magazines.
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so Future must be in good shape then, considering they have all the "official xbox,ps,and nintendo" mags, Edge, and PC gamer they must be doing something right, or are they ready to fold too?
 
There's something to be said for being able to sit back and read through a well designed, high quality magazine. What I want from the Internet is not what I want from a magazine. Online I can make do with GAF thread titles and the occasional bolded paragraph.
 
mr stroke said:
so Future must be in good shape then, considering they have all the "official xbox,ps,and nintendo" mags, Edge, and PC gamer they must be doing something right, or are they ready to fold too?
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Not to mention this tiny mag called Guitar World.
 
So they killed EGM dead, no more issues. I imagine they could have cashed in big on a special "FINAL ISSUE!". I woulda bought one just for a retrospective. (Haven't bought a gaming mag in years.)
 
Igo said:
There's a shit load of them over here in the UK. The magazine section you see at a woolworths is massive too. Maybe it's just the US market?
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I think I see what you did there.
If you meant it that is.
:lol

But yeah, go to a non-defunct store in the UK and you'll find plenty of magazines for video games.

mr stroke said:
so Future must be in good shape then, considering they have all the "official xbox,ps,and nintendo" mags, Edge, and PC gamer they must be doing something right, or are they ready to fold too?
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/future-reports-marginal-growth-for-2008
 
Warm Machine said:
Play is probably the best North American mag out there. If you can disregard Dan Halverson's constant mentioning of toilet activities and insanely positive reviews the rest of the magazine is really quite excellent. They are branching out into content and specials that the web doesn't have and their layouts and covers are typically beautiful.
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I don't like Play as much as I used to, but now there really isn't much else to read.

Pay always has ads for a magazine called Geek which covers all kinds of stuff including games. I've never seen one on stands to flip through though.

Anyone out there read it?
 
I hope they all die soon. There's nothing than knowing some mag has got a new exclusive reveal coming a month later, when we could have it now, online.
 
plastic-logic-reader-big.jpg
 
This thread is missing the broader point. It's not just that mags that are dying out - it's pretty much all game-related media. Advertising dollars are drying up, because publishers are realizing that advertising games on game media just doesn't work.

IGN and UGO are surviving by pitching themselves as general media outlets to reach young males. Who knows how much longer Gamespot will be around.
 
i remember being excited that i got a year subscription to EGM. when i got that thing in the mail, i thought it was some kind of sampler or something. you could seriously hurt someone with the size of the old EGM magazines.... now you can barely swat a fly with the thing.
 
Edge is a good read. In-depth industry features, analysis, interviews and discussion which is what gaming in print should be. It doesn't matter if its low circulation, The Economist isn't high circulation either and has some of the best written features on every imaginable topics out there and The Economist has a sustainable subscription and advertisement model, I hope Edge gets there eventually and starts publishing outside the UK.

EGM is not a good read. Unfortunately, There will always be room for more casual advertorial mags like EGM with the lure of sensationalistic headlines and secret reveals arranged by PR departments, But with the vacuum left by the mag folding, someone is going to try and start up a rag in a similar format, which will probably fail again eventually when the advertising market collapses in a future recession.

The future of print magazines is two tiered.
You'll have the cheap local paper print rags that are 90% advertisements and format biased coverage , and an international print mag like Edge or whoever comes along to challenge/replace it.

Both will how low circulation, but only one format will be good.
 
Features and analysis. That is the only way they will survive, and even then online distribution is still a better choice.

Print magazines are essentially worthless in the online era except for waiting-room/shitter reading, and even then just use your iphone.
 
We will have Edge, Game Informer, and the console exclusive magazines and I bet that
is it for the near future. What makes Edge work is that it sells in the way that a novel would sell in that they make a profit on the price of the magazine, the content justifies it, and then they have advertising as a bonus. Game Informers reasons for success are obvious and do not need an explanation. The console exclusive mags will continue to survive because of advertising plus they are relatively cheap marketing tools for the platform holders. Outside of those particular mags, not a lot of hope for the rest unless they can build a new way of selling magazines.
 
C4Lukins said:
We will have Edge, Game Informer, and the console exclusive magazines and I bet that
is it for the near future. What makes Edge work is that it sells in the way that a novel would sell in that they make a profit on the price of the magazine, the content justifies it, and then they have advertising as a bonus. Game Informers reasons for success are obvious and do not need an explanation. The console exclusive mags will continue to survive because of advertising plus they are relatively cheap marketing tools for the platform holders. Outside of those particular mags, not a lot of hope for the rest unless they can build a new way of selling magazines.
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like a poster said before me, edge is uk based. i don't why things are so different but we still have no less than three devoted pc gaming magazines here, let alone the shittonne of multiformats/console specific mags.
 
ghst said:
like a poster said before me, edge is uk based. i don't why things are so different but we still have no less than three devoted pc gaming magazines here, let alone the shittonne of multiformats/console specific mags.
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If you go to your local Barnes and Noble here in the states, there are still a dozen plus surviving gaming magazines. But yeah, the UK has figured something out when it comes to print. There are 3 or 4 UK based music magazines that you will find at the local bookstores with a band like the Decemberists or Joanna Newsom on the cover, and the next month those magazines return.
If you compare the popularity of say a GTA4 cover for a major magazine compared to the appeal of Newsom, the UK has figured something out that us staters are missing.
 
It should also be noted how the console manufacturers are sliding into a position to take the gaming media's lunch. You can learn about plenty of new games by just using the Wii, 360 and PS3.
 
Dali said:
Pretty much agree. You have rare cases like EGM's SFIV coverage where the news wasn't months out of date and could only be found from that one particular source, but for the most part, I can get better images of games, videos, and more up-to-date info, free from the internet.
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And that's exactly why Game Informer has been the only US game mag worth a damn since GfW closed
 
The internet took the magazines place. I still get EGM and that is only for the fact they were giving away a year. But that magazine doesn't seem it is going to last a while at this moment.
 
Rhindle said:
This thread is missing the broader point. It's not just that mags that are dying out - it's pretty much all game-related media. Advertising dollars are drying up, because publishers are realizing that advertising games on game media just doesn't work.

IGN and UGO are surviving by pitching themselves as general media outlets to reach young males. Who knows how much longer Gamespot will be around.
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It's not just game-related media. Advertising is down EVERYWHERE. There are no budgets for it. Not on TV. Not on bus stops. Not in newspapers. That's why Gawker media is divesting itself of sites like Defamer and Consumerist. So far, though, they haven't announced that they're selling Kotaku. So your theory doesn't hold entirely.
 
magazines are a lot better to advertise in than an internet web site for particular companies.

it'll never fully go away, if you think it will, you're blind. there are magazines that survive off of less than 10,000 subscriptions.
 
davepoobond said:
it'll never fully go away, if you think it will, you're blind. there are magazines that survive off of less than 10,000 subscriptions.
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That's exactly the key for mags to survive. Hold a small, dedicated staff, and keep a solid subscription base that keeps coming back for more. Reach big and you'll fall hard.
 
We might see more publisherÂ’s embrace the idea of digital magazines like Playstation Qure for PSN/XBL and PC
 
I remember when I used to buy every video game magazine every month in the early to mid 90's.

Nintendo Power, GameFan, Game Players, Video Games, Sega Visions, Megaplay, EGM, EGM2...even GamePro and SWATPro.

I also got Game Informer, which was a throw-in when I went to Funco Land. But it was laughably lame compared to the others.


It's still laughably lame, of course, but it's the best magazine left today. How ironic.
 
I've just stopped my subscription to Edge. Sick to see that half of the issue is about the carriers.

So no gaming magazines anymore.
 
I actually don't mind GI a lot.

Enjoyed it quite a bit more than EGM. Not for content purposes, but it's laid out better, has more content, and they don't act self-righteous like how EGM just couldn't review MGS4 because of the limitations.

I think GI will be fine thanks to Gamestop and the Edge card, and Edge will be fine, just a loss of one magazine (EGM).
 
I used to pick up newstand issues of OPM and EGM every month back in the day, along with misc. issues of GamePro, PSM, Expert Gamer, Tips and Tricks and even ULTRA Gameplayers =P. I got a subscription to Nintendo Power somewhere in there as well.

As soon as the blog-o-sphere and internet media erupted, I stopped. I'm kind of ashamed of stopping and being a part of the market's decline. I hate to see it go since gaming print was a big part of the way I grew up with video games.
 
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