Videogame Print is Dead - Finally

The time of giant videogame magazines has passed, and we're all the better for it.

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Kind of biased coming from their direct successor don't you think?

The only thing I miss about news in periodical magazines is that, generally, it implies a greater level of quality control than when you get your news as fast as it can be twittered. I think at least one news story every week that gets copy pastad here is a troll, a hoax or something equally misinformed or fraudulent, & it does get annoying at times. We may have more & better sources of infomation for gaming news, but its still mostly either official press release material, or planted/purposely leaked info from official sources, or mere hearsay/gossip/made up.

I got bored and couldn't finnish reading it, it was just all becoming white noise and none of it made sence...

What's he talking about? There are many gaming magazines that are still going strong inc. Nintendo Power that has been with us for over 20 years. I don't really read magazines of any kind, but if there was one I'd put my trust in, it'd be Nintendo Power.

I find GameInformer is worth while to an older audience. My step-father really prefers to get his news several inches off the bleeding edge. Traditional media is more reliable, and getting his news from a reliable source is important to him. Where blogs might be 30% rumors, 40% corporate spats, and another 30% actual game news; he's actually looking for a 10/5/85% split... and you get that more from a publication over a blog.

Honestly this was very round about. Your title makes it seem as if all print it dead.
I come here for discussions and expectations, I read gameinformer for actual news. Why? Because GameInformer is more about actual news than rumors and whatnot.
Also, try to make a point when you write, I'm not offended, it just seemed as is your point was longwinded, if there was a point.
The internet is great for looking up news (kind of) and for other things, but it will never take over print.

VanityGirl:
Honestly this was very round about.

Yeah, slightly meandering article there. While I see how it was a necessary deviation into the nature of games news as presented in print and online, at the end of it all you haven't really proven anything. Pictures of a discontinued publication doesn't quite count as indisputable proof of your points. Got plenty of good stuff there but it never struck me as a satisfying article.

Maybe the position you've approached it from has somewhat altered your approach? You seem to take for granted the "fact" that gaming publications are vapid products, inconsequential in this new age of high speed information. My main problem was that, despite the abundance of good points it could have been two articles almost.

I'm open to the chance that I've spent too much time in User Reviews recently, and approach every piece of prose with an excessively critical attitude though.

As much as I like the escapist, nothing can beat my memories of lazy summer days spent leafing through the newest issue of EGM. Of course this was only a couple of years, not a decade ago. Given my impressions of the EGM's that I own, I have to say that it wasn't just internet sites and blogs that matured their (and the readers) view of gaming, but also EGM.

I miss the good ol' days, when I was in middle school perusing PC Gamer and there was a dearth of interesting, cutting edge games to look forward to. Even if it was a childishly stale and pandering scene, it was great to be on the receiving end of the pap rather than watching companies feud over titles that get more derivative with each passing year.

Hmm, also don't see the point of this article here - it doesn't manage to confirm to me that videogame print is dead - like others, I do come here for discussion and really only the odd humerous video but to actually get news and such like on videogames, I'm still quite happy to wait util the latest copy of Edge gets pushed through my letterbox.

I find the wait to be worth it.

"The floodgates were opened and now, I find myself beer bonging information on a daily basis."

Hehe, nice metaphor Tom.

aw that sucks , what will i read when on the throne ?

EDGE is still a credible and popular magazine...

While the point of the article boggles me. I do find I see no point in actually buying the mags now when I can just come on here for news

Gamespot is still a catalog for their advertisers.

The old versions of Nintendo Power are still awesome, in my book.

Aah, I remember the swimsuit edition of Playstation Magazine.
Good times...

Gaming news media doesn't have the guts to be actually referred to gaming news. They skipped straight from highly biased PR statements in a glass case to strangely excited blog-like rumour blabbering skipping the adult, objective journalism in between. (Present website notwithstanding. I get all my gaming news from the Escapist.)

And I've never read the real Nintendo Power (I'm not American, and while we have versions of it here I don't know how similar they are) I'm 100% sure that any magazine that covers a single company wouldn't be good at what they should be doing, since they have to pretend their consoles are the best or they'll risk alienating their audience.

I remember Offical Playstation Magazine, I would usally get it for the demos but the news was good too. I guess that it's just one of the examples that the best generation in gaming is behind us

Radeonx:
The old versions of Nintendo Power are still awesome, in my book.

New ones are still pretty good, but the focus has shifted from guides to previews/interviews.

The Random One:
Gaming news media doesn't have the guts to be actually referred to gaming news. They skipped straight from highly biased PR statements in a glass case to strangely excited blog-like rumour blabbering skipping the adult, objective journalism in between. (Present website notwithstanding. I get all my gaming news from the Escapist.)

And I've never read the real Nintendo Power (I'm not American, and while we have versions of it here I don't know how similar they are) I'm 100% sure that any magazine that covers a single company wouldn't be good at what they should be doing, since they have to pretend their consoles are the best or they'll risk alienating their audience.

First of all, stop stealing my name.

Second of all, what would "adult gaming journalism" look like to you? You have to play games in order to be able to talk about them, not to mention the fact that any good game will make you empathize with the protagonist, be it Tetris blocks or companion cube. You can't simply look at a game and call it god or bad without playing it, but playing it will make you biased.

As far as Nintendo Power goes, it's nice to see people not look at Nintendo and concentrate on Wii Fit/Sports. Games like Drilldozer, Deadly Creatures, and De Blob, which didn't really get much coverage elsewhere, are discussed thoroughly. You're not going to see them criticizing Nintendo for bad decisions, but the magazine focuses almost solely on the games, for better of for worse. As far as the reviews go, they have been consistent with most reviews. They're probably a little fairer when it comes to reviewing the big titles, as well. You won't see many 10/10 scores, (in fact, I think there's been only one or two since the gamecube came out) but crappy games get crappy score, and problems aren't glossed over. I actually would prefer it if other review sotes/publications would use their methodbecause you'd have seen Halo 2 and three get something like a 8/10 instead of the glowing reviews everyone but Yahtzee gave it.

I have a hard time relinquishing my fond old memories of excitement whenever PC Gamer would arrive, circa 1998, back when it was a 400-page opus every month. I'd call that a good thing lost.

It could be debateable that what you speak of has been occuring in most forms of print news/journalism, regardless of topic. Plenty of evidence that newspapers and magazines from many differant locales and genre are struggling to compete with the interwebs, if not going out of business. Oh, except probably gossip magazines and the like. But they hardly fit into the mould of "news/journalism". :p

My own personal opinion on whether its is "better" or not? I'd say quality surely takes a nose dive when you can edit things on the fly, post first and edit later (if at all). Generally this is why I was drawn to the escapist, magazine style writing in a convienient, daily updated package. Plus you can't backchat the writers as easily when its written on paper. ;)

Do these guys not realize that quite a few of their articles are taken from, quoting, or about things that were already in a gaming magazine before they posted the article? Like the thing about the Suda51 guy hoping for Travis to be in Smash someday. That was in the recent Nintendo Power, as they stated in the article.

I guess that the specter of "Gerstmann-gate" has still not left us, as it rears its evil head in this article. I am all for tough gaming criticism, and I am of the opinion that we do not see enough of it. EDGE is one of the few remaining magazines in print or online for whom 5/10 truly is an average score (at least now that EGM is gone), and I certainly buy it off the news stand. That being said, I maintain that Gerstmann's review seemed highly unprofessional, even in the critical wasteland of Gamespot. It seems to be a moralistic issue that gaming journalists bring up, yet when it comes time to write a review, few people seem to take the risks that he did with his controversial statements.

From Dan Hsu, former EGM Editor:

It's not about freedom of information. EGM's a business, and it depends on people buying the issue -- not only for those cover-price dollars at newsstand, but for circulation for ad revenue. We try to do stuff the Internet does not have, but the Internet goes ahead and ruins it. It's a no-win situation, and our business has suffered for it. And then I had frustrations competing with Game Informer's business model. Those guys are smart. With their GameStop connection, we just had a lot of trouble staying competitive in the circulation department.

Video game Print still exists though despite the internet being a massive spoiler.

I still subscribe to GI. The reviews aren't the greatest, but I still love their info-sections. It also helps me keep up to date on 'games I may have missed'.

As a person who uses public transport to travel home from work, I regularly buy 3 gaming magazines: PC Powerplay, Edge and Hyper. Sure I could just web browse on my Iphone, but I like having a physical magazine to read and carry around.

D'oh. Double post.

What the hell was he blabbering on about? I sense that he's happy that we get up-to-date information and a 'hub' were our little geeky hobby has established a presence we can all meet, share info and blabber easily (as I am now). But, where was he showing the impotence of magazines?

I live in China and I subscribe to Edge (a UK mag, if you don't know), all in all I pay roughly 6GBP per issue to have it sent here. Though it's expensive, I like the coherent presentation of a magazine, not to mention; what else should I do when I'm taking dump?!

only reasons i used to buy game magazines was for the cheats.

EGM gone is NOT a good thing. And I LIKE knowing whats coming out. Kinda helps me buy games beyond the ones everyone talks about since I do not just like popular games.

576Kbyte and Gamestar was my monthly fix for gaming news and reviews for ages. I stopped buying paper magazines around the time I got an internet connection, and not because I like sporadic heresay more than quality-filtered news. My reasons were entirely selfish: magazines cost money (a lot of money compared to my allowance at that time), and internet didn't (since my parents payed for that). Sometimes I still do buy Gamestar, the only quality paper gaming magazine still alive in Hungary, but only for the full-games or other software they give. I rarely read the magazine itself anymore.

I remember as a child reading various gaming magazines, but I never touched the news section. Didn't interest me as a child. Still doesn't really, I'm not that interested in quotes saying that games may come out, and don't like to base games on what is heard.

I agree with you to an extent. Whilst PR could give out a better overview of videogames, a lot of what is supposedly news can be just rumors like you said.

What I think though is that every form of news has had to adapt for the availability of the internet, not just gaming. Nowadays, BBC news pages are made almost by the hour on various subjects. As the technological stance suddenly becomes worldwide and news is available to be created, adapted and edited in a manner of minutes instead of having to wait for a week, things like the news need to adapt with it, and become more regular. The only difference between videogames and other forms of entertainment is that videogames decided to adapt all of a sudden and therefore needed news and therefore, decided to make news out of (Like you said) quotes, photoshop, unconfirmed screenshots and rumors.

Whether or not it is better or worse though, for now that is open to opinion. It will take a few years before we can see if it was worth it, if videogame news doesn't just stay theories and actually become something more.