News Games magazines on the way out?

No, That's what PSP's are for.

Nothing better than reading one of your articles while I'm otherwise engaged, Joe.

 

the market for them will keep shrinking, they most likely wont go completly extinct though...

personally I havent bought any print magazine in years, why should I? the same stuff can be had online (often even on the website of the mag it self).
Besides, by the time they come out the info is long outdated because I read about it weeks ago on the web.
On top of that, they have just as many ads as websites that are free.

 

I still like to read an EGM or GameInformer once in a while but the information is almost always outdated. There is no incentive to pay for a subscription when so many sites offer "exclusive" and sometimes shady methods of breaking news on industry trends. I want to place the blame on sites like NeoGAF and blogs like Kotaku/Joystiq who hides behind their journalistic privelage while breaking news meant to have an embargo (or not meant to be known yet while deals are worked on it's coverage by mags IE: Home).

As juicy as a hot GTAIV exclusive might be, I guarantee you someone will "leak" it to a blog and then it's all over the net. Hell I knew just about all there was to know about Resistance 2 before GameInformer's "exclusive" on it went to press. Same with SSBB, and GTAIV with their respective magazines that covered it. Also with websites like Gamespot and IGN (not everyone's favorites but still) you can get videos of gameplay, which says alot more than touched up screenshots in a mag and for free I might add.

 

we can blame Bit-Tech for the death of PC Magazines =p

no really I got my recent Maximum PC mag and they were talking about stuff I read here a month ago lol so ya magazines will have to go digital but on the plus side they will make more money and have less overhead granted a lot more people will be fired but it will be better for the environment ^_^

 

I dont buy mags or even look at them in a store because the info is outdated by the time I see the mag.

 

£6 for a mag with a coverdisc takes the mickey tbh. I do occasionally buy the odd mag, usually for a train journey but thats about it.

as for custompc it often seems to me when i read it that they are basically summarising content theyve read online and not bothered to actually think for themselves about what they are writing...

 

Prices rise because of inflation, let's be fair. Let's face it, nothing ever goes down in price. unless it's tesco vs asda baked bean wars...

anyhoo, as much as i like bit tech, i still find the maturity and quality of the articles here unable to much up to truly great publications, like edge or custom PC. And the fact that bit-tech can supply me with only a few articles a day doesn't quite match up to the comfort of having a decent wedge of paper between my fingers and thumbs. Oh, and magazines (good ones like edge/custom pc) are beautiful things to look at.

Granted there is a load of crap out there, but some of it is worth the premium. At the end of it, i still don't think that the authority of the web is quite there yet. There's a lot of second rate websites, more so than magazines, and it's that quality which i crave.

i think that saying magazines are going to die is like saying CDs, newspapers or books will die because of the net. not true. Simply a matter of a limited market share being spread very thin across multiple mediums.

 

its evolution.... and if games magazines were covered by the RIAA or any other form of mafia system then there would be lawsuits against almost everyone..... but that would be insane.

 

There will be a market for bespoke, exclusive content that is written by trusted industry types in print form for some time to come, I think. Newspapers are still very much with us, and we've had second by second news on radio, tv and now the net for a very long time. So long as they are done well, they can survive but the golden age of the free and easy ride is surely over.

However, I do think that many magazines will have to close, simply because there will be less readers and more pick up and have a glance readers, promoting a cheaper, thinner but good quality publication containing exclusive content by trusted names. When you're on the train or dashing around, nobody wants to pull out a lap top however thin it is, and pay to go wi fi at McDonalds. Yuk.

 

Changing times, that's all, evolve or die.

As Joe says, a mag is written anything up to 6 weeks before release so the information is already out of date by the time it goes to print, plus on the net you can actually discuss with the journo the content of the article in semi real time. How can a magazine compete.


Similar to hazza the last mag I bought was at the airport on the way to a flight.

 

There are a lot of flights, trains and buses every day and millions of people on them. Most of those have more money than I do, and some even have alittle more money than sense

Mags will continue sure enough...just cut down, only the very best and they won't be able to charge silly prices for them. Not for news, but for views, opinions and articles containing trusted, tried views.

 

i haven't read a PC magazine for a decade.

 

I used to read Maximum PC and CPU (Computer Power User) pretty regularly, but once I went to linux they bacame less and less relevant to me. Also, it was like $15 to get the two mags, and it took me all of half an hour to devour them. Not worth it from a value standpoint.

 

I recently cancelled my subscription to PCZONE, partially because I have too much else to read every month/week, and partly because of the writing which, although better than most, is still a little lacking in sophistication for my taste (this is also reflected in how they actually review games, but I think that's a problem with almost all gaming mags).

EDGE, on the other hand, is brilliant. High production values and high quality writing and analysis. I have a subscription. I haven't looked at Games TM yet basically because it just looks like it's trying to be the same thing as EDGE, which is great - let's have more magazines like this! - but I already have EDGE

I still look at the internet (obviously, I'm here on this site). But for me, there's nothing like a printed version of anything. If I find a particularly good article on the net I'd much rather print it out and go sit down on a comfy sofa with a good coffee to read it.

 

I used to buy Edge religiously. I had issue 1 to 120, or thereabouts. I also bought PC Gamer for a couple of years or so and loved the amount of demos on the disk. I effectively gave up buying mags when I got broadband.

On the very odd occasion though, I pick up a GamesTM mag - almost all others these days are just trying too hard.

 

I havent bought a games mag in over 5 years, you could go as far to say that in my case, they shot themselves in the foot. I saw an ad in an issue of Games Master for the gamesradar website, and read that website on a daily basis, then bought the next issue of games master and found i was reading the same news and similar content to what i'd read on gamesradar a couple of weeks back. from gamesradar, i found more and more gaming websites and have had no need to buy a mag since.