Sad to see pcformat magazine is no longer with us! Got home to my subscriber issue this evening and it is no more. No more Ask Luis! Very sad.
Was a really good pc mag I learnt my pc baby steps from in late 90s but I stopped buying mags when I got broadband, spent about £30 a month on mags before broadband. Addblocker could cause the death of sites like this too.
It's a shame for sure, I used to enjoy reading it on the journey to and from work Though with reviews and information readily available online (which has been the case for years) - it's not the first and certainly won't be the last publication to bite the bullet.
Seems a sudden decision too - apart from a couple of editorials the rest of the magazine doesn't acknowledge it. Would have been nice if they'd had a chance at a retrospective issue.
That's really unbelievable, pc format is a bedrock institution and an important part of the PC industry.
True - it's been around 24 years! I've had a letter offering to switch my subscription to PCGamer but I'm not convinced - I may be better getting a new subscription with some sort of free gift rather than switch over or just not bother at all. If they started including "Ask Luis" in PCGamer I'd be in!
Wow I'm surprised a magazine can survive with 18k copies sold. It seems quite few. I guess the adds are worth a bit more. But still...
I'm as big a fan of digital media as anyone on here but I'm hoping CPC keeps going - flicking through a magazine is different from browsing web pages - especially on a train! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wrFfsxonTE
There's a lot to be said about professional writing and editing. But if I'm not reading a magazine end to end its not worth the price of entry. Perhaps in this digital age we could have a pick and mix from all of the publications. Choose your articles from a list of abstracts by a number of different publications then download your customized magazine. So I could grab articles on eclectic topics that would never be in the same publication, but all of which interest me and that I would actually read in its entirety. Its basically the internet but with the polish of an actual team of editors and writers, tied to the monthly deadline rather than the internet's get as much out as fast as possible deadline. Also paper is for suxxors What we really need is e-ink readers that can handle weird magazine layouts. The vast majority of them are still geared towards novels.
I read some of the mainstream magazines for free on my Tablets through my Library subscription and via the Zinio App. I assume a payment is made to the publisher either based on the number of downloads or a fixed fee. At the moment I have regular downloads of: PC Pro PC Advisor Computer Shopper Micro Mart Web User PC Format (to May 2015) Top Gear Auto Express Classics Monthly and can also access the back catalogue for up to about 18 months for some of them. I have access to loads of other mags on loads of different topics. It's worth checking, if you have a Library subscription, whether yours has access. I'd never read PC Format until I'd seen it in the app.
Just ran to the shelf in my own Newsagents to see that it is the final issue! Very sad news to hear, but not unexpected with the national decline in magazine sales (not just PCF, but in general). I own a convenience store and I stock many computer titles, mainly so I can read them. PC Format has been on my shelf ever since I took over 12 years ago, I cancelled my subscription after I purchased the shop as I could 'read it for free'. But in honestly I haven't read an issue in well over 5 years. I switched to the likes of Custom PC sometime ago as I felt PCF just focused too much on games and not hardware that it once did. As another has stated, I used to love the magazine many moons ago due to it having the bundled CD/DVD. Now 'everyone' has broadband bundled DVD's have near all but vanished. I loved going thru the CD looking at what I could use ony PC's back in the day. In fact I think I still have a bundle of CD's and Mags in a closet at the old mans house, will have to go and have a look. As for the price tag, £5.99 feck me that's a lot for what I think is now a small magazine, when you compare it to some of the other titles that are twice as thick. Will be very sad to see it go As for reading magazine's online/pc/tablet, it's still not the same as picking up a mag and flicking thru it, normally back to front!
This thread inadvertently led to this one. I'm sure I had a few letters in PCF in the early days too. Sad times indeed, even though I haven't read a print mag for several years now.
I remember PCFormat first launching. Not entirely sad to see it go, as grew beyond the point of such magazines offering me much of help or interest that I either got on the Internet or via other magazines more focused on my interests (more towards Linux these days).
Just in case people wanted to read it: http://magzus.com/read/pc_format_november_310_2015_uk/ Forgot all about it until I sent the last copy back to my Magazine Wholesale last week.
PC Pro still going afaik. CPC certainly is - page 10 is the best *cough*. There's several US-based pure-PC mags still. I still enjoy the magazine model of browsing through, but it has to serve a niche. CPC needs its own forum though, it needs discussion.
