Are printed games magazines doomed?

I use my game magazine collection like a time capsule. I can flip it open and see what EGM thought of the Super Nintendo's launch games without any revisionist history that might occur on the web over time as pages are deleted or altered or sites die, etc. That is a major benefit to me. Blogs and such are nice for rapid info and quick news hits but when a print magazine is on its game there's really no beating it in terms of information presentation. And the lucrative casual gamer audience does not hit the sites every day or even every week.

I recently took a journalism class taught by a reporter from the local paper. We had a few guest speakers, and most of them said the same thing as this editorial. They all agreed that newspapers as we know them today won't exist in 10 or 15 years. I think the same can be said for gaming magazines (though probably not all magazines).

There is almost nothing that a printed magazine can offer me that a website can't. The only thing printed media have over internet-based news is credability. And even that is being chisseled away.

Right now, like the poster said, magazines try to focus on exclusive info before anyone else. That a stupid channel to focus on, since it is guarenteed to be temporary.

I think magazines need to focus on their features. If they are original and creative, then they will always be exlusive. For example, Computer Gaming World did a great feature on MMO gold sellers. It was one of the best stories I read all year. (Although I only read it once it was available on 1up.)

I know Game Informer has a section where they print editorials written by industry insiders about the current state of gaming. That's one of my favorite features to read. (Although, the only reason I have subscription is because it's dirt-cheap at Gamestop.)

If magazines want to keep reader's, they'll have to rely on more creative content than a couple of new screenshots when I can see an actual video whenever I want.

BTW, the instant-ness of the internet also leads to more typos, like in the current post("so sometimes so insightful"). ^^

Good insight, SuperPac. But then again, the casual gamer audience doesn't really read game mags either.

When there will be good alternatives for when I'm on the throne, mags and books will be over for me. But for now, I don't think there's anything better for when you're on the toilet.



But, I already know all the news. So mages need more exclusive features and articles.

What I enjoyed most about video game magazines when I was younger were the sections for codes and cheats. Todays games don’t have as many codes and cheats as they use to, not to mention that if they do, you can always find them online.



I think that today’s game magazines are seriously lacking. The other day, I picked up a video game magazine that I had subscribed to and noticed that about every other page had an advertisement on it. Am I really only paying for 50 percent of the content in the magazine? Also, although I had just received the magazine in the mail, the content presented in it had already been outdated by 2 months in relation to information found on the internet. It made me feel like I was simply paying for pretty video game pictures on fancy magazine paper.



With all the information readily available at your fingertips on the internet, I feel that the only justification for video game news magazines are for the free demo discs that occasionally come with them. Without the demo discs, the magazines just seem like coffee table junk.

And now with XBL on the 360, and similar services sure to be announced for the other two next gen systems, we'll no longer have to pay the $9.99 for the magazines with the demo disks.

The only way they will be able to hook us is with exclusive demos like the soon to be released Final Fantasy XI demo for the 360. Other than that, there is nothing you can get from a magazine that you can't get weeks sooner online, and probably with less bias if you shop around.

I think Probot pretty much said it all.

As much as I like Edge, I only read it for the reader letters, editorials and in-depth features of older games. But then, whenever something's really interesting, someone will have scanned the mag and posted it online before I get a chance to get my copy.

And what's with the magazine date issue? Here in Spain, September's issue is the one that comes out on August the 28th, which is dead reasonable. I've never managed to get the right Edge or EGM, because they label them with two months in advance =P

I concur. While magazines are great to look back upon for memories, it cannot compare the substitution of e-paper or digital forms of magazines. Imagine having a e-reader with you and all you needed to do is pay $2 for the magazine and it downloads as a PDF wirelessly to your e-reader. Same thing with websites. The only problem is traditionalists who dont learn to cope with the digital age and end up either behind or making technological advancements retard.



I agree that 10-15 years there may no longer be any newspaper, and magazines though I believe that video games will be far more advanced to even care to read about in those days. Currently X360 and Rev is and will feature downloadable content to their respected hard drives and this may replace subscirptions. However it will not replace generic gaming magazines. Though right now I see no reason for those to exist as services like Joystiq, IGN, Gamespy and so on all give the information that we need and if not you can always google it.



Its just a waste and people will have to adapt to the loss of magazines in their house. Same with future DVD-like media which will be downloadable one day.

Actually, I like the magazines. Not only do they have more personality to me, it's more convenient for looking for some of the not-so-big titles hidden in the magazine. The internet is where I get my news, like the Rev controller, and whatever else I find interest in, but the mags let me see all sorts of interesting games. I would never find Monster Rancher without mags, or Magic Pengal/Graffiti Kingdom (Not that that's a great game, but unique enough to be fun), or the Outlaw series, stuff that don't generate a lot of hype.

yes, because they are just physical documentation of nerdom.

It will be a sad, sad day when the magazines I enjoy are killed and put on the internet. Probably has something to do with my age but if I have to read anything of substance or length, it better be on paper.



I am sure that within a few years, I will join an uprising that will fight for the internet to be destroyed.

NO! PRINT WILL NEVER BE GONE!





As long as the computers stay away from the toilets, the print medium will NEVER vanish. Cant read an RSS feed while on the crapper now can you?!

I love love love Joystiq, and I hope I've read this post's intentions incorrectly.



At first glance, this seems like either a repost from the early days of the dotcom boom or a bit of preening hubris--is Joystiq implying merely that magazines are doomed and that online sites like Gamespot will take over? Or is Joystiq saying that Blogs will take over? If the former, then there's nothing revelatory in this post that hasn't been done to death during the Slate/Salon/TheWELL/et al discussion that happened, oh, about 10 years ago. Yes, probably print will decline as online takes over--and yes, people will read realtime sites like Gamespot more and more. Not exactly earth shattering.



If the latter, then it seems like a smug statement to make. Blogs, at least most blogs, incluidng those in the Weblog/Gawker families serve more as aggregators than content producers--with the exception of self-produced reviews. Where would the actual rumours, previews, long reviews, testing, etc. content come from if not from "traditional" non-blog information sources, even if they're online? And until blogs, which, let's face it, are a webpage with timestamped blurbs and links, offer a higher level of content generation, writing quality, and critical reflection (yes, I know, videogame magazines kiss the asses of videogame makers... ahem, see the fawning, fanboy coverage of the XBOX 360 in blogs everywhere and the random "whoops, we messed up and posted something silly and now we'll retract it" posts that happen seemingly weekly on my favourite blogs)... Until these things are fixed and blogs take more ownership of posting--it's hard to see how blogs will take over. But it's hard to do that, when the first great thing about blogs is the personal feeling you get when it sounds like your best, informed friend giving commentary on something from the outside. I guess what I'm saying is, you can't be snarky outsider and be on the inside at the same time.



I'm probably going to be flamed for this, oh well--but let it be said that I do love Joystiq, read it hourly, minutely, secondly, and I just want to see my favourite game blog/site/whatever take on the big boys in a steady, credible fashion. So here's to hoping it's late and I'm tired and have a bigger point about blogs that I've now stuffed into a tangential post.



Jimmy

You guys obviously didn't see the stuffed-to-the-gills Sodaku table at the local bookstore the other day.

They still make video game magazines in print form?

I haven't seriously read a game magazine since they canned Next Generation. Most of the other stuff was fodder for young boys. I used to love getting GameFan and thumbing through the pages for the latest screenshots.

As for the guy who likes to thumb back at old mags... Man that's some dedication. Anyone who cares that much about games should be making them. I hope you are either in the industry or working to get there.

Anyone remember the issue of GameFan where they mistakenly sent out pages full of jibberish space-filler, and some of the jibberish was, shall we say, racially insensitive?

The main reasons I find for print mags is the "exclusive" features they offer.



OPM and the Xbox variant have demo discs that just arent possible to get any other way.(they need to exploit this tho, the content has been going down lately)



EGM has Seanbaby, and a staff that wont tolerate their advertisers strong-arm tactics (see last months article Shoe wrote) nuff said.



As for the reviews/previews, Vlad hit the nail on the head, their old, and only serve as a single voice while online sites have instant user feedback and quicker response (Ive found Tycho at Penny-Arcade a good judge of games lately tho)



Of all these all but the demos could be replaced by online alternatives but in doing that you seem to lose some of the credibility. When you pick up a magazine you know that it went through a series of editors, QA, and fact checking (hopefully). While online anybody could be writing and not care at all about the facts. So all in all we have some time left to enjoy our inked friends.



PC magazines are the dodo of the industry tho, they serve little or no purpose other than to use their mags as 80% advertising space. (I was a PC Gamer subscriber for 15 years and they really disappointed me).

10&11. Good points, but improving display technology will eventually diminish the role paper plays in our lives. Current displays can't emulate the qualities that make paper so irreplacable today- you can't roll or crumple them up, they emit rather than absorb light, they're not disposable- but fortunes are being invested today in changing all that. It's pretty likely that by the time everyone else is ready to ditch their magazines (and newspapers and books), you'll be ready too.

IMO, there is big difference between printed newspaper vs printed magazine, and the main difference is price. The thing the piss me off most about magazines are they are freaking expensive and half of the magazine is fill with ads. So in turn I am buying a very expensive out-dated printed information with half of it being ads.



Game magazines "NEED" and "CAN" to do something about it. Get exclusives interviews, demo disk (but with out raping the reader with a $14.99 price). The industry need to realize customer base will only get smaller.

considering that joystiq is a games (therefore, technology) website, the viewpoint supporting online will be highly emphasized--and that of their readership. Take this as a caveat for the internet, where specific societies meet and praise themselves believing their words are dogma. Print offers generalized opinions from a generalized readership and still some experienced analysis. The internet, as convenient as it is, still has an obligation to presentation as much as it does to hard objective facts. that's why no one would be happy just reading plain *.txt on the internet. Hard print will always be the standard as it bears hundreds of pages of detailed analysis with no colours or pictures. Boring for our "presentation first" society.

Print magazines are just going to fall to technology like ever other facet of business. This is a global economy now, major changes are taking place, especially in the speed of which the consumer wants their product. This is an on-demand society, and a monthly magazine just won't cut it anymore.



For a print magazine to be relevant, it would need to change to a daily newspaper format, delivered to your doorstep every morning and have an online supplement for subscribers. Basically, follow the Wall Street Journal method. Why would I want to pick up EGM to read about something I saw a month ago?



Even product differentiation is difficult. The only real advantage the magazines would have is to offer exclusive demos, but even publications like PC Gamer are losing out to places like FilePlant on that front. For a console game magazine to continue to be viable, they need to include a demo of an as of yet unreleased title in every issue.

Sigh ... personally, I just can't believe there's so many uninsightful people. Please ask yourselves, what business is it that these people are actually in? Will that change because the medium has? Yes, a little. So what does this mean? Hint - think website, every publication has one.



Will the same people enjoy similiar positions, and salaries? The adaptable will, the others are dinos. Welcome to change. Why can't all you peeps just get with it?

A simple question: Did the intarweb replace books?