Slashdot Mirror
Gaming Mag Circulation Numbers May Not Mean That Much
The regular Game Mag Weasling column at the blog GameSetWatch usually runs down the contents of publications that recently hit the newsstands. This week, blogger Kevin Gifford tackles the thorny subject of falling subscriptions as they apply to game magazines. He references a discussion of falling subscriptions in the magazine publishing industry at large, which notes that a metric just as important as real subscribers is the number of readers-per-copy. Re-reading among friends and the appearance of a magazine in a doctor's office is another important factor to consider in a magazine's success. "Game Informer's [readers-per-copy] audience is 'only' about 68% larger than EGM's, despite having over four times the paid circulation. If you put enough credence to the numbers, it means that GameStop is spending a lot of money printing, mailing, and distributing those two million-odd copies of GI each month, yet not being as efficient in attracting an audience with those printed copies as EGM and GamePro is."
The fact is, its almost pointless to subscribe if you have a broadband internet connection. Most of the info each month is outdated by the time it hits your mailbox or the store. It doesn't help that in an effort to decrease cost, most of the time theres no demo games or "free gifts" to gain by subscribing. The internet has replaced the gaming mag, because of its near instant news source, source for cheats and hints and reviews.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
My GF has a subscription to GameInformer, we keep the magazine in the bathroom, and I still don't read it when I'm tackling a particularly long, boring shift on the throne. The writing is amateurish, too much advertising, and too little content. I do appreciate the ratings, but they only reinforce what i already thought about the game. Also, it's hard for a no-name game to get a high rating, even if it's great. I'm sure some people find the magazine helpful, but I sure as hell don't.
Someone call the RIAA! They are losing profit! They have to charge a subscription fee for each eye that sees the paper!
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
They're terrible
I've been subscribing to gaming magazines for a very long time. One of the first 10 issues of Nintendo Power, i think. I've subscribed to NP, GamePro, GameInformer, Sega Magazine, Next Generation, Playstation Magazine, and others. My subscriptions are currently running out on my gaming magazines. In fact I'm letting all my magazines run out (except for MAKE and Forbes). I'll still get Game Informer (free with Game Stop card, which saves me a fair bit of money for the amount I trade in).
Forbes is very high class, I read quite a bit of the articles in each issue. Same thing with MAKE. The video game magazines have all been "eh". They have been for a very, very long time. But they served a purpose: I could see things about new games. Screenshots, previews, etc. But now (and for years now) I've been able to get reviews online (IGN and Gamestop, just to name two). I can get screenshots and preview movies that way. I find out about things much earlier than the magazines do. That includes reviews and previews. I get more points of view from web sites, and the copy is just as good if not better much of the time (pro sites, not fanboy sites).
I have TV (specifically X-Play, even if it's not what it once was) for reviews as well.
I don't have any need for the game mags. Everything they do someone else does better, often faster, and for free now.
There are a few little exceptions. Next Generation was fantastic. I still wish that magazine hadn't gone down. I remember them having great pieces on the 1st and 2nd generation of 3D systems, differences, how they approach things, etc. They had pieces about how games were developer (this went will, this became a big problem, etc... sort of like some of the stuff on Gamasutra). The Escapist is good, but I'm not interested in reading that much on my screen. If they were print, I'd subscribe.
But I can get fanboy style "Here comes Mortal Kombat 8... looking good so far" stuff from dozens of sites, I don't need GamePro for that. The magazines generally don't have articles worth anything (just game reviews and preview puff pieces). They don't print criticism of games before they are out (where as some of the sites I read will post the "but we are deeply worried about X" stuff). There are some exceptions (Nintendo Power has had an occasionally interesting series of interviews with some interesting gaming people), but those are often available online anyway.
Like many newspapers, they need to step it up if they want to survive. They no longer have a monopoly on the game preview channel... and they are finding they have to compete.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I haven't bought a gaming mag since I let my subscription to Nintendo Power expire back in 1996. Amazingly enough, that's the same year I was finally able to get a 'net connection at home. It's not exactly that simple, though, as I was also sick of the way NP hyped many mediocre games to death while ignoring some true gems. The few times I've flipped through any newer mag since then, I've been put off by the ads, the 'articles' that read like ads and the glowing praise of games that I later found to be utter trash.
While it's certainly not news that many magazines are trash, and that print media is being slowly killed by the internet, it's interesting to consider that the target audience for gaming mags are also people who tend to be more tech savvy than the average joe. If they're wondering about their inability to attract their target audience, I guess they haven't realized how much harder they're going to have to work compared to mags that cover other subjects.
I still receive PC Gamer even though for the last 6+ months they have been saying that this is the last issue I'm going to get. In fact, last month I received two copies.
I personally got fed up with how into Vista they are. No less than 4 months had an article on helping people Install Vista. They also kept saying nothing but positive things about it. How you needed to go to Vista to play the latest games, etc.
I run Ubuntu. I'm going to be buying a new computer to play 2 games Enemy Territory Quake Wars and Unreal Tournament 3. Neither of which needs Vista or PC Gamer for that matter. I have seen there articles decline sharply in quality in the last few months.
The quality of writing in these magazines has definitely falling as of late, as well as many of the hype ridden games recieving reviews that sound like sales pitches. I believe this has to do with the $$$ coming more from publishers now and less from subscribers, which is sad. One magazine that stands outside this phenomenom is Edge magazine, I try to pick this up everytime I get the chance, not only for the articles but also for the excellent graphic design present in each issue. Unfortunately it is printed out of country and I either have to import it, or walk down to Barnes & Noble and pay top dollar for an outdated issue.
Schrödinger's download is slow.
I'm shocked. I mean, who'd think that people who computer games use the internet?
seriously though GI can be an enjoyable read once you get past all the obvious gamestop hype machine marketing they cram in there; but is there anyone who actually subscribes to this mag as opposed to getting it included with a gamestop discount card?
I get OXM most months as I have a 360. I find that games mags like that are rather similar to pron. That is lots of pretty pictures and very little writing. You wait a month for it to come out and most of the news you got from IGN weeks ago. You read a couple of articles, the reviews that interest you and that's it. About a good afternoons reading if you are lucky.
I could start reading Edge instead but that goes too far in the opposite direction. Lots of in depth articles about games/platforms that I don't care about. Very little that I do care about.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Usually the print mags will have an exclusive article or two that isn't anywhere online, though if it is significant news it will be on every gaming website within seconds of arriving.
having worked quite extensively in publications, i can tell you that these passalong numbers are all fabricated. magazines are audited, so they can't lie about how many copies the print and sell, but they can and do lie about the rest. for example, if i print 100,000 copies, i'm going to say that 4 people read every issue, making my effective circulation 400,000- and charge ad rates based on that figure, not the 100,000 i actually print. basically, everybody in publishing lies like crazy about circulation whenever they can. look for numbers that are audited, because you can trust those a little more, but don't believe everything publishers tell you.
I used to be a very loyal reader to PC Gamer and Maximum PC for years but I have let my subscriptions expire. I just can't justify the magazines now because the Internet just does it better. I'm surprised there hasn't been a much wider bleeding in the market because of it. I'm honestly surprised magazines are still around at all. I guess they'll always have a place in the waiting room's of doctors and such and that is what is keeping them alive.
I let my subscription run out... the magazine has just become retarded. Mainly Advertisements and AOL disks. Subscribers DONT get the Monthly Promo DVD (newsstand only; WTF?). Mainstream media is crap, as we all know. And Videogame magazines have been coming into the mainstream every year.
Saying subscriber numbers "don't mean much" is just the mainstream media telling you how its own irrelevance is not important and to keep reading. Yeah right...
Gaming magazines consist EXCLUSIVELY of two parts: Advertisements, and articles they are paid for (i.e. hidden ads).
While the internet isnt any better, at least there are usually the user comments/reviews that give hints if something is fishy (like the 9.8 game having 5.5 user average...).
I have been reading computer mags, and game mags, for 20 years now.
The quality was never really good, but with the competition against the internet things became a lot more ugly.
The mags NEED exclusives to compete, and they will whore themselves out to get those exclusive demos, previews, reviews, ect. (the fact that there are a lot of strings attached, in the line of "give us 5 pages of previews" or "no result less than 85%" is hidden from thr reader).
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
The last GI I received had stuff that already happened (a few weeks prior even) when I received it in the mail.
The October issue (that came late-mid September)had a Heavenly Sword review that was in the future tense, along with some blurbs about cool stuff coming being things that had passed. The fact that it was the only god review of Heavenly Sword I read. The review was like "better than sex" and considering it is only fairly good (if that), and shorter the credibility of the magazine is bad by game reviewer standards.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The magazines must have DRM! Anyone caught reading a magazine purchased by another must be criminally prosecuted. Don't worry, we have sensors in place to track down multiple readers within 1000 miles of said offense--that includes reading the headlines on the cover!
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Gaming magazines in the past often simply provided information. Information about what certain games are like, previews of games in development, general advancements and goings-on in the game industry/world. The internet however is a far greater medium for communicating information, I can look a screenshot or download a game the same day it released, instead of waiting a month for someone to write an article, print it in a magazine and for it to arrive at my door.
Gaming magazines need to adapt so they provide more than simply reams of information about games. Games are moving ever towards the point (very slowly, and to a point thats a long way away) where they will be considered art, gaming is far bigger business than in the past and people other than gamers are standing up and taking it a bit more seriously (probably mostly because of the money involved). I read a book about the development of video games a while ago, one great quote was from someone saying that computing power in the 1980's was driven by the demands of the defence industry, today advancements in computing power is driven by video games.
Gaming has changed a lot in the last 20 yeas, printed game journalism however is still stuck trying to provide something the internet is far better at. Instead why not give me interesting, intellectual, though provoking articles on games, the industry, and game culture. Theres plenty of blog/sites out there doing a fair amount of this, but not all concentrated in one place. Gaming magazines will slowly die as gaming websites become bigger and better, unless they adapt and provide a different kind of service/journalism.
I used to subscribe to several magazines in 90's where they would actually include pages and pages of code, some of them describing how certain functions worked. Most of the times, they would include 10 pages long code using Basic or C to create a very simple game.
The fact that you could get a magazine and actually make a game really hooked me in, although all I did was just cut&pasting the code already given. It didn't matter whether I understood what I was typing or not. Those parts came later.
There were also a lot of how-to's on game tuning and even pc assmebly. I have seen some here and there but as far as gaming is concerned, we can no longer just type on a text editor and create bang out a game. Most of the games, except for few indie ones, we need several people working on it. Of course, all of these are more for developers and I am sure there are several game magazines catered towards such audience. (umm...any recommendations?)
I think the matter of the fact is that game industry has matured. It used to be that game players were actually semi-amaturerish developers themselves and they were not only interested in shiny graphics but also what drove them. There were lots to talk about.
Now that we have totally separated developers from gamers, the magazines can't be anything more than advertisements which TV--as game commercials are now on prime time tv slot--and internet do more than justice.
Besides, I hear publishing industry over all is taking a hit so...
Last videogames magazine subscription I had was to Electronic Games back in the 80s. I buy a newsstand VG mag once in a while but they just never match up to the granddaddy.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
People pay money for those things? I'd always assumed they were advertising throwaways, and that if you bought games, you started getting game mags.
"Gaming Mag Circulation Numbers May Not Mean That Much"
Was anyone under the impression they did?
I stopped reading PSM because I don't like the new editor in chief
You don't need cellular broadband if you have something like an RSS reader that downloads the stories. Or wget, if you want to roll your own archive of a website. Anybody on /. ought to be able to cache up 20 minutes of stuff to read.
(As a public transit user myself, I realize that during some times of day getting a laptop out isn't feasible. But when it is...)
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
As nice as print media is, it's usually not nice enough to compete with the free game news you can get on the internet.
I never bought those magazines for the print articles. I got them for the cds full of games (9 out of ten would be worthless, and now I get better from the internet). Of all the print media to be surprised by this, gaming and tech media should be the last. Yeah, my local paper didn't see craigslist coming, but who is going to want a CD of crap?
And that's why we see all the major tech companies embracing the internet, with interactive websites and discussion boards. I don't know who these magazines are for.
My recommendation to the parent is to get more generalized magazines like Scientific American that can be read without making you want to run to your computer and check some game out. It's more up to date, too, since you can only isolate so many quarks or listen to so many quasars in a month.
about the only magazine i would trust as far as i can throw one of it's journalists would have to be Edge magazine - about the only printed magazine that actually has content in it that isn't a desperate hype for whatever is coming out next month followed by a 97% review for said game in the following issue...
they've only ever awarded less than a dozen games a "perfect" ten out of ten score, and they actually have some pretty thought provoking and intelligent journalism about *games* rather than *products*
i buy the very occasional copy even though i haven't bought a console sinec the NES and i haven't upgraded my pc in about 5 years, just to keep an eye on what's going on in the games world (i work as a games tester)
they also have about the only decent printed recruitment advert section of any magazine i've ever seen, as well as interviews with developers, middleware companies etc who have something to say rather than something to sell.
(plus from a design point of view it's a pretty sweet looking mag - i'm only a graphics whore in print)