Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Print Gaming Magazines Doomed?

Posted by Zonk on from the doooom dept.

Joystiq has a pair of interesting posts up looking at the future of print gaming publications. Besides positing on the future of the print media, they discuss subscription and reach rates for some of the major U.S. magazines. From that piece: "Game Informer really is several times larger than their nearest competitor. How did they manage that? And why the heck is the Official U.S. Playstation Magazine passed around so much than all the other publications?" I wonder what the differences are between here and abroad? In the UK, for example, there are a large number of publications, all of which seem to have avid readerships. (Though, with magazines like Edge and PC Gamer UK, it's hard not to see why.)

1 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Surprise? by CoderBob · · Score: 4, Insightful
    People have been saying this for decades. I'm not so sure. There are people (myself included) who have problems reading text on a computer screen. If I do so for too long, I get prodigious headaches- which I don't get from dead-tree products.

    If nothing else, news sources are having to compete to keep readers, but just like audio books haven't destroyed the book market, I don't see people clamoring for the newest Robert Jordan novel in electronic form.

    I wouldn't blame schools- schools don't teach children to use the computer to read things, they teach them to use them for word processing, etc.- and print copies. Libraries, with limited computers in most schools, encourage students to print material for later reference (and to open up workstations). Computers are excellent for interactive things, but if I'm reading a 200 page treatise on something, I'd rather have a paper copy I can mark up, take with me on the bus, or read in bed without needing a notebook.