Let's discuss if print magazines are dead or not. I come from a gaming background, one molded by print publications from the 1980s up to the late 1990s but I understand there are other print publications available. My question is simple. Do you think print publications are dead?
Personally, I think it depends on the category they fit in. Such as gaming publications. For the most part, yes, these are dead. The main reason Game Informer is still around and kicking is because of the fact that Gamestop owns it (not sure why no one has asked the question of "journalistic integrity" yet but they haven't). Game Informer is one of only a couple of publications left from what used to be a huge business. The Internet is mostly blamed for this, as it is often blamed for other things where people running them failed to understand/adapt to new markets and changing tastes in their fan base.
I used to be involved with two magazine preservation projects. The first being Retromags. Retromags ownership and myself had a difference in opinion over "legit" releases of the publications. Retromags ownership, and members, were fine operating as an illegal magazine repository while myself and a couple of others were working diligently to bring official, legal, releases to the site. After butting heads over poor quality releases by various members and the fact that "going legit" simply would not work for Retromags under the ownership managing it, I broke off and formed another preservation site with two friends.
Out of Print Archive was formed with the basis of only offering legal versions of the publications we released. While the number of publications is much smaller, each and every one of them is a legal release. OoPA holds permissions from several United Kingdom publishers to archive their magazines and it is done with the utmost care. Meppi, the main archiver of the content presented, has spent upwards of 40 hours on most of the issues, some have received over 100 hours of dedicated editing work. OoPA can focus on issues like this because there is no concern of them being removed or the site being sued. Retromags does not operate with this certainty so issues are thrown up, often with very little editing work done to the pages.
Those are two locations that fans can get gaming publications (illegal and legal respectively). But what about other publications?
Who remembers reading stuff like Game Pro, Game Informer, EGM, Gamefan, Game Player's (then the three or four themed issues per month they released), PC Gamer, PC Player, PC Accelerator, CGW and Video Games & Computer Entertainment? Those were all in print at one time in the 1990's. There were more in the 1980's. I remember these, still have most of them in a closet and revisit them often.
I have even been th publisher of a couple mags myself.
Consolidation, one publisher buying out another, is often why we see mags disappear and it is sad. The other is simply readers are not there and without readers, advertisers don't show up either. That leads to a dead magazine.
What were your favorite magazines that are not around anymore?
I still prefer the format of a good magazine over simply perusing a news website. A well done magazine curates, designs, and edits the flow in a way that a website can't.
That said, I do tend to buy my magazines digitally now. For the space saving, preservation, and convenience (frequently less expensive too) I'll choose digital distribution of a "print" magazine often. I wonder how many niche magazines are out there that we never see on the stands because they go direct to their fan base?
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I love the feel of a magazine or a book. Digital just doesn't fit the bill for me. Sadly a lot of publications are gone, not even offering a digital version (or charging as much for a digital copy as they do a print making it prohibitive to support for long).
I agree, a print publication can control the layout, have a "soul" almost, something that websites simply fail at miserably. Look back at Gamefan versus EGM in the gaming world and you can immediately tell them apart. Look at their websites (Gamefan is defunct, again) and you would be hard pressed to tell which is which, even after knowing).
Magcloud, the service I used many times, has a lot of magazines available. Not just gaming or electronics related. The problem there is the price - Magcloud charges $0.20 per side of the page so a 40 page mag is at least $8 plus shipping.
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I still purchase nice hardcovers and collected editions because I too love the feel of a hard copy but for magazines (and even comics, which I love) digital started winning the battle when I got a big iPad Pro. The screen was finally something that could display a full page at normal scale with great quality.
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I have been slow to the tablet adoption side of things. I have a Nextbook A8 Aries (nothing to write home about but what can you expect from a $35 tablet today?) but have yet to use it for much else other than writing articles and replying to comments here on Steemit.
iPad Pro is just too rich for my blood right now. They look great but that price.
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It is pricey, I originally got it more for the creation side of things and it is really the drawing capabilities that justify the price tag. The joy of consuming content on it was an added bonus. It really was the first time I enjoyed ebooks and digital publications, even though I'd previously had a smaller iPad.
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That is awesome, I was thinking you bought it mainly to read comics. I was thinking, your money but damn. lol
I know a lot of artists that swear by the iPad line of tablets, at least the bigger ones. If I had that type of talent I probably would have one too.
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MagCloud looks nice, but yeah, I feel like there's gotta be a better print on demand price out there. I'll have to dig through a bunch of links I have for comics printing that I haven't looked at in years.
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PSM was one I bought religiously for years. The artwork, the layouts, the style, and the staff were all phenomenal. The real advantage Official PlayStation Magazine had over them was the monthly demo disc, so often it became a case of buying PSM for the unbiased coverage, but also picking up OPM to play something for myself. Man, those were the days of having so much free time that doing so was even an option.
"Hey, @modernzorker, the 90's called...", etc...
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Free time is certainly a commodity that we miss as we get older. Too bad no one has figured out how to bottle it and resell it.
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Nintendo Power
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100% upvote for remembering one I forgot. Thank you.
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I grew up on gaming magazines, once per month, 80 pages of gaming news, previews, reviews, we even had a demo CD with a bunch of goodies. All that before internet became popular and gaming sites took it all. Sites like IGN, Game Spot, Game Spy(now dead), Escapist and many others became my main source of gaming news while gaming magazines slowly died.
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I remember standing at the newsstand and trying to decide if that PC Gamer with the demo disc was worth the extra $3 to $4 they wanted for it. Debating hard if I really wanted to play that demo of Thief or Command & Conquer or whatever else was on that disc. Many times I did that over the years. More often then not, that demo disc won out.
Then Sony pioneered it for consoles with their Official Playstation Monthly magazine with demo disc. I remember checking out a lot of games via those demo discs. Reminds me of Compute!'s Gazette that featured a demo floppy, or was it a "magazine" floppy which featured the type-in programs from that issue already ready to go. Ah, good times.
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The PC Gamer with the demo disc was always worth the extra money if you had a crappy dial-up connection and your choice was spending $3 to preview Diablo or trying to convince your mom to let you tie up the only phone line in the house for 8 zarking hours so you could download a 50 megabyte demo. That, of course, assumes there was no interruption in service for those eight consecutive hours too...
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I was buying so many mags back then that I had to weigh what demos were on that disc before justifying buying it. I could have subscribed but it almost felt faster to drive to town, buy the magazines from multiple locations, drive home, repeat weekly all month long than simply subscribing to each (our mail man sucked and often "lost" issues of previous subscriptions I had).
Dial-up Internet was not even an option for me - long distance charges and such were cost prohibitive.
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Unless it's something special and dear to my heart I will not buy a print magazine. But I am constantly downsizing and don't have the room to keep them.
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I have been there many times. Then I find myself a year or two later watching Ebay auctions for issues I missed, or wanted back, or never had and I end up with a closet full of gaming magazines again.
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Lol just make sure you have one hobby, otherwise you'll become a Horder.
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Is "gaming" as a whole a single hobby?
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No! Because you will collect games, systems, books, magazines, toys action figures. Can't do gaming as a whole lol if you collecting.
But gaming in general as a hobby? Sure why not lol
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I am screwed. lol Call me a hoarder. I cannot pass up a good deal on a game or gaming merchandise - even if I don't have the system to play it.
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Omg..... If I had of known I would have given you my old stuff. Lol
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They are becoming more a niche than a dead form
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Good point. I guess I should have mentioned newsstand editions in my initial article. We don't see nearly as many on the newsstands as we used to.
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diehard gamefan, nintendo power. :)
Sadly, that era is over, and the era of the internet as we know it is over soon too, and decentralization will become the new standard. Thankfully, we're all a part of that already. :) -Joe
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