Dr. Wylie’s Revenge
The mystery of gaming magazines
By David Wylie - June 23rd, 2008
Video game magazines: What doth life?
Somewhere in that space between sleep and wakefulness my brain ponders the deeper questions of life: why am I here, what is my purpose, and who the heck buys video game magazines anymore?
I mean, come on. We have the Internet.
Nintendo Power magazine used to be the must-buy, must-own magazine for pre-pubescent boys who had to have the latest NES walkthrough and most recent Yoshi poster. Admit it, you too begged your parents to buy you a subscription. I know I did. It was the one piece of mail I looked forward to, except around my birthday when I knew I’d get a cheque or two in the mailbox.
But times have changed.
Whenever I walk through a bookstore I’m drawn to the magazine rack like a motorist on the 401 is drawn to rubberneck at a crash scene. I’ll scan the month’s offerings – EGM, Nintendo Power, Xbox Magazine – and wonder if they ever sell a copy. They must, I reason. Otherwise, they wouldn’t publish them. Yet . . . who buys this stuff when you can read the articles online and find the walk-throughs and cheats with a simple Google search?
There is evidence that some of these magazines are feeling the bite of the Internet and trying to adjust accordingly. Some magazines are putting together feature issues each month – among this month’s weak attempts are the history of Grand Theft Auto and a Nintendo Power filled with nothing but posters. Other magazines are including discs.
Let’s focus on those discs for a paragraph. Publishers include some videos, demos and screenshots on a disc and put it in a bag with the magazine. However, the trailers on the disc are never exclusive; they’re on the Internet, along with the screenshots. The demos can be downloaded for free through the consoles’ respective stores. And the magazines that include these discs are usually marked up to $12.99.
I almost got sucked into buying one of these magazines because it had advertised the Halo theme as an “exclusive” Guitar Hero song on the disc. I decided to hold off and sleep on it before dropping $13 of my hard-earned dollars on a magazine. That night I checked the Guitar Hero 3 online store and found the Halo theme was downloadable for free. Exclusive track, my arse.
It’s time for the game magazine publishers to step up and lead the way to the future of publishing.
Next week, I’ll have some suggestions on how publishers can win back those of us who used to love video game magazines, but have fallen by the wayside.
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I still pick up the odd magazine when I can, some EGM here a Game Informer there. There great for reading when you’re on the can or maybe on the train or something…It’s good to get away from the computer screen every now and then :p
If I owned a Wii, I would probably pick up a Nintendo Power just for nostalgia’s sake. And I see EGM getting some great gaming scoops fairly often, but it’s only a day or two before one of the fansites picks up the story and posts it on the web.
I have almost every issue of Nintendo Power. When we run out of fossil fuels, we’re using Nintendo Power to run this site and eat.
I still pick up a mag here or there. They’re invaluable at times when my travels have me stalled in an airport for hours at a time. There is the whole “exclusive world premiere” card that some of the bigger ones throw out from time to time.
The recent example of GamePro’s Halo Wars exlusive expose` (yes I am sort of a Halo freak…) this month sold them a copy to me.
I bought that nintendo power poster mag. It has sweet megaman stuff in it!