Future Publishing Loses $96 Million

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.

Comments

Nothing personal, just business.

[gt_mattex]

More regrettable signs of a a fading print industry.

I'm not so sure I'm inclined to agree with that. While the print industry may be shrinking I think this has more to do with a less than stellar product and as the story indicates has much to do with poor business decisions.

I read the Official Xbox Magazine from time to time and it's quality in comparison with other publications is severely lacking. Of course that's just my opinion.

Re:Nothing personal, just business.

[twistedsymphony]

I'm a subscriber to the US version of OXM... I can attest to it being crap. To be perfectly honest the ONLY reason I subscribe is for the discs, and the rest of the magazine just collects dust. Basically the mags cost $10 on the newsstand and it's $17 for a year's subscription. They get the occasional disc exclusive that will prompt me to buy the mag and I figure as long as they get at least 2 of those a year It's cheaper to subscribe.

Though they do things a little backwards, you buy it in the store and you get a thin plastic snap case for the disc with a full color double sided insert the magazine pages are relatively thick and it's slightly larger then most other mags on the newsstand. All that goes out the window when you subscribe, you get sub newspaper thickness pages, the magazine dimensions are physically smaller the disc comes in a generic white paper sleeve and they've recently taken to gluing full fold out advertisements ON TOP OF the front cover... I'd like to shoot the marketing guru who came up with that idea, God help me if they ever put that on a publication I actually cared about. There journalists leave me with the impression that they aren't fully cognizant of the games they're playing nor intelligent enough to critically and accurately analize them. Beyond that the journalists talk down to the readers under pretenses that the they're somehow even less intelligent.

I will say that the UK's OXM is an entirely different story. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by them for an article on a project I had done. Being that I'm in the states it's difficult to get a hold of UK publications so they sent me a few copies. I was quite blown away with how well the magazine was done. The reviews in that issue really impressed me, I felt like they were reviewed by my peers as opposed to rabid monkeys. The quality of that magazine was quite impressive with nice thick glossy pages, enlarged physical dimension and a nice plastic case for the accompanying disc. The biggest problem the UK OXM has is that it's quite an expensive magazine... at least by my standards. IIRC a subscription to the UK OXM is close to eight times as high as the US OXM. It's a shame, I'd be more then happy to import that magazine (and for the actual magazine content) if it wasn't so pricey...