hen I rediscovered the magic of console gaming during my junior year at college, there was no shortage of magazines dedicated to the pastime. Incite combined Maxim's "T&A" content with decent editorial and, ironically, the best stable of female writers in the business; Next-Gen was America's answer to Edge and focused on the industry rather than the games themselves; and then there were all the rest — EGM, Game Informer, GamePro and the like. It was a crowded field, but one that seemed to sustain itself. At least for a while…
Just last month, independent gaming fanzine Play folded.I still remember the day Next-Gen ceased publication — somehow, the complementary subscription to PSM that I received in its place didn't compare. With each passing year, more and more of the multi-platform gaming magazines ceased to be. Today, what are we left with? GamePro has fought the good fight, but few readers below the age of twelve will feel they're part of that magazine's target demographic. Game Informer (and the just-announced @Gamer) are well and good, but one has to doubt the sincerity of their editorial content seeing as how they're directly funded by national retail chains. Play just folded; a subscription to Edge sets an American back over $100; what's a gamer to do?
The popular argument is a simple one: print is dead. Admittedly, commercial websites and blogs have taken over as the go-to source for gaming news. After all, why pay for news that's "late" when you can read the latest headlines for free on sites like Kotaku and 1up? The answer is just as simple as the argument: editorial. No one wants to sit in front of their computer monitor and read a 5000 word article on, say, the state of gaming journalism (good news: this is only word 296). Longer print articles are excusable (and welcome) due to the nature of the medium — it's portable, sharable and cheap. But alas, cheap isn't the same as free, and therein lies the rub.
I've seen some downright inspiring Flash-based websites that simulate the look and feel of the print medium on your computer's screen. E-readers like the Kindle and iPad also hold promise, as they could potentially lower the cost of publication whilst keeping print portable and accessible. Of course, we could be missing the boat entirely — perhaps video podcasts and television are the future of gaming journalism. Only time will tell. Until that time comes, though, I'll continue to search for a decent magazine to keep in the bathroom.
Print isn't dead; but periodicals will see a mass extinction as the interval between publications shrinks to minutes or seconds. This can't — and for the sake of technological progress, shouldn't — be reversed.
But since the new medium is based on expediency, and video game journalism serves a particularly restless market, those five-page spreads that approached art will be rare, perhaps recreated by the sites dedicated to simulation.