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Future Publishing Loses $96 Million

Posted by Zonk on from the please-don't-kill-edge-and-next-gen dept.

Gamasutra covers a large reported loss by Future Publishing, the UK games-mag publisher of outlets like Edge, the three official UK magazines, and the U.S. Official Xbox Magazine. Their pre-tax losses totaled $95.6 million, while profits were down $39.8 million to $26.7 million. From the article: "Future CEO Stevie Spring commented, 'It is clear with hindsight that during the past two years, Future over-invested in acquisitions and under-invested in organic development. The consequences of this strategy are clearly evident in today's disappointing results ... We have taken a number of steps to strengthen the business. These actions have created significant cost savings which we are fully re-investing in the business.'" More regrettable signs of a a fading print industry.

2 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Not surprising. by Cambo67 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This decline in computer magazine publishing is not at all surprising. The magazines have such a long lead time that they are pretty much out of date once they hit the newsagent shelves or the subscribers' doormats.

    When Internet access in the UK was through metered 56K modem, reading the latest game news could be quite expensive. Downloading demos, patches, add-ons, drivers, etc, would also give your phone bill a nasty bump.

    Now that most PC gamers have broadband access, they can read the latest news immediately, and download the latest 500Mb+ demos to their heart's content. Who needs magazine coverdisks any more?

    Still, I do miss my monthly browsing of the Amiga magazines in WHSmiths to see which one had the more interesting stuff on the coverdisks - I still have the floppy disk from ST/Amiga Format Issue 1, though I doubt it's readable any more ;-)


    Cambo

  2. Internet + Aging Magazine Readers by bestinshow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Review magazines are pointless when you can read reviews online, with hundreds of game-resolution screenshots, and then there are sites like metacritic and so on that collate reviews so you don't get one crap review. And it is instant.

    Also I don't want to read crap written for teenagers. I didn't want to when I was a teenager, but back then computing magazines were far more grown up.

    Future Publishing started off with Amstrad Action some 21 years ago. It will be a shame to see them die (inevitable within a few years really) but they didn't give us a special last-edition AA, nor a last-edition Commodore Format. They deserve all they're getting.

    The only (computing) magazine I've bought this year has been Retro Gamer. Yeah, you can get that stuff online, but it is nicely presented with adult articles.