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...

Not surprising.

[Cambo67]

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

Internet + Aging Magazine Readers

[bestinshow]

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.

Accounting Math

[TubeSteak]

For those of you confused about how a company can make a profit while reporting losses, the losses came from other things like a charge on assets, not a loss based on poor sales.

And this is using Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP), not Hollywood/Government style accounting.