PC Gamer?

TheCowOfNow

TheCowOfNow

Assault then RUN AWAY!
Joined
Nov 12, 2002
Messages
4,363
What happened to these guys?

My friend moved into an apt recently and was packing his stuff up when i noticed that he had like all the issues from 2004 to date and i noticed how much thinner these magazines have gotten over the years. Its really sad. They used to be like over 100 pages, mostly adds but still, they barely hit 80 anymore. and most of the decent entertaining writers have left. they have had like 5 different editors in the last year too. ugh

i wonder how much longer they last.
 
Que the: PC Gaming is dying, and the world is ending.

Honestly, I think they are loosing business due to some of these other Magazine companies that started putting PC games into their articles. Also, there are a lot of online review sites now too that you can view for free.
 
The need to kill innocent trees to write articles is outdated. Everyone gets their gaming news and reviews on the internet.
 
Yeah, the combination of increased broadband penetration and the dwindling number of gamers actually going out and doing their grocery shopping instead of buying everything online has pretty much put printed gaming magazines in a choke hold. It's a digital form of entertainment, it only makes sense for relevant coverage to be digital too.
 
I'm not renewing my sub with them this year. The new staff they have frankly sucks, the mag does not even resemble the PC Gamer I used to love.
 
TheCowOfNow said:
What happened to these guys?
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Pretty much the same thing that's happened to every other print publication in the world over the last decade. Advertising dollars are moving online and print publications can't keep up. Staff gets cut. Pages get cut. Whole publications get cut. PCG has been one of the fortunate ones so far. The majority of gaming magazines have already been shut down.
 
Physical magazines are out of date before they are published.

You can get much more up to date information from the web, for free. From sites like HardOCP, these forums, Shack news feed on HardOCP front page, Gamespot, etc.
 
Agreed - why would anyone read a paper magazine about PC issues when you can find tons more info online for free.
 
It's the same with Maximum PC magazine. I was a loyal subscriber since it was called "Boot" in the 90s. I would read that thing from cover to cover the second it came in the mailbox. Now, the magazine is paltry. The articles are old news by the time it hits and the reviews are lacking. The internet is the only decent place to get PC and PC games news and reviews.
 
I used to LOVE Boot magazine...Maximum PC is a shadow of its former self. The two mags I get now are Game Informer and CPU
 
Yes, don't now if you heard about this but PRINT MEDIA IS DYING FASTER THAN PC GAMING!;)
 
Yeah Pc Accelerator was great. They had some great fake ads. I remember one that was for a MAC gaming magazine and on it front it had something along the lines of "10 crappy PC games are coming to MAC!"
 
PC Gamer was good until a year ago. I know some of you use net books on the crapper but I like a paper magazine.
 
I remember the first PC Gamer that I picked up that had the CD with the Daggerfall demo on it.

What a huge mag, it was like 200 pages.
 
I'm not sure about other people, but I sometimes like having a physical magazine that I can read when I'm in the car, on the bus, etc. where I don't have access to a computer or the internet. Sometimes, I'll notice something in the magazine that might seem interesting to me, but that I otherwise may not have seen if I were reading things online.
 
I lost interest in PC gamer when Greg "the Vede" left as editor and chief.
 
I never was that interested in PC Gamer. I always preferred Computer Gaming World. I was a subscriber for years and was very upset when that mag went online only as the stupid web site 1up.com.

My fondest memory is from CDROM Today (the predecessor to Boot and Max PC, which is no longer mentioned for some reason). The demo disk had Diablo on it, and I remember installing and playing it and thinking that it was the greatest computer game ever. That was what started my love of PC Games and PC game mags. It's too bad they are dying.

PC games aren't dying. The real problem is that WoW is sucking up gaming dollars and time that should be spent on more deserving games. It would be a boon to the whole rest of the industry if that game died tomorrow.
 
It's pretty simple really - any information you find in those magazines will already have been released online, thus by the time you get the magazine everything in it is old news. The internet has already killed off the need for many publications, and is in the process of killing off print/newspapers etc.

To the guys who want a newspaper to read while on the toilet or whatever, there is already E-Paper technology being developed, kind of like a large piece of paper but its actually a digital screen.

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The last game review I read was in PC Gamer. Haven't read a single one since.

PC Gamer was really just an enjoyable mag to read. It wasn't that it was particularly informative, but it was entertaining. When my sub ran out, I didn't renew only because I didn't feel like spending the money, and I don't really regret that decision. I realized that I don't really need game reviews to make informed buying decisions, since a lot of the hype seems to create an interest for me.

I do remember the good old days, though. Reading about Quake 2, Quake 3, Unreal...sure was a lot of fun.
 
Seems like the quality of the magazine started going downhill at around the same time PC games started coming in those little tiny boxes without manuals but still cost 50 bucks. Doesn't feel like coincidence to me.
 
Drexion said:
To the guys who want a newspaper to read while on the toilet or whatever, there is already E-Paper technology being developed, kind of like a large piece of paper but its actually a digital screen.
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Can it do color like a magazine? Where is the power source going to go? How much will it cost? When will it be available? And, am I still going to need to pay to view some of the content? Those are just a few of my concerns, and possibly one reason why a physical magazine is sometimes more useful. When magazine subscriptions are under $6 a year (like this one, http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1432499), even having a few different subscriptions to read in various places, I'd imagine, is cheaper than E-Paper, and there is no major loss if you happen to lose it or anything. Sure, there's much more content there, but there are still some people who don't necessarily need that.
 
BladeVenom said:
The need to kill innocent trees to write articles is outdated. Everyone gets their gaming news and reviews on the internet.
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Yah, and the whole argument of having magazines for the bathroom even is done, so you can just bring the laptop in the bathroom and browse the internet with wifi.
 
I use to subscribe to PC Gamer for a few years, roughly between 98-01. Back then I didn't have an internet connection, so it was one of my main sources of gaming info/demos. Aside from that I relied on the occasional elec play episode, and word of mouth passed down from friends. It was actually kind of exciting to get the latest demos, since most of the time you never heard of these games in advance. It's not quite the same now, you know a game is coming down the pipes in 2 yrs, you've seen countless screenshots and gameplay videos, and you're sick and tired of it before it even goes gold.

A few other gaming moments I remember:
Getting a ride to the library every few weeks, having an hour or so to use the internet. I'd visit Games Domain and search for cheats from a list of games I wrote down earlier.

Going to school with 15 floppy disks, downloading large game demos and spanning them across the series of disks.

Edit: What I would like to see is a PC game magazine that focuses less on repetitive info that I read a month earlier online, and more on gaming history, innovations, hardware, and interesting articles. There's no point in previews and bias reviews.
 
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yee245 said:
I'm not sure about other people, but I sometimes like having a physical magazine that I can read when I'm in the car, on the bus, etc. where I don't have access to a computer or the internet. Sometimes, I'll notice something in the magazine that might seem interesting to me, but that I otherwise may not have seen if I were reading things online.
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This be me, I still rather read a magazine or newspaper while having lunch (or on the crapper, etc) then lug around a laptop.
 
It's the same story with comic books... Who the fuck would pay 6 dollar to read comic book that 1/10 the amount it was years ago. :mad:
 
not to mention if you dont have a subscription to the mag its crazy expensive to buy at the store. that doesnt help circulation either.
 
To the guys who want a newspaper to read while on the toilet or whatever, there is already E-Paper technology being developed, kind of like a large piece of paper but its actually a digital screen.
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The true test will be how it doubles for TP when there is an emergency "evacuation".
 
I killed my subs to Maxi-pad PC and PC Gamer this year, and swear to never buy either again. The PC gaming market has slowed down... they spend every issue hyping up the same dozen games these days, and the hardware reviews are old upon release (as mentioned many times already). Not to mention, half the pages in either one are just adverts now. I dont feel like killing trees just to see adverts for crappy gaming products that I will never buy, or I own already by the time I see the advert. I will admit, once and a while, I read an article that is good... not trying to be 'cutting edge', but informative... like how to slipstream a windows installation or something. But thats something like 3 pages of useful information every 6 months.
 
Soyo13 said:
It's the same story with comic books... Who the fuck would pay 6 dollar to read comic book that 1/10 the amount it was years ago. :mad:
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$6 bucks?....I remember when they were 10 cents......crap I'm getting old :(
 
I used to have a PCG magazine subscription back in the early 2000's, It was pretty good, however, I think that some non-print sources like RockPaperShotgun have made much better contributions.
 
BLASPHEMY! How can any of you talk negatively about my beloved PC Gamer. ;)

Seriously, I still love my magazines. PC Gamer and Maximum PC do in fact provide info on stuff I don't see on the web. Plus after playing whatever game my opinions usually line up with PC Gamers reviews. So for the most part I highly regard their review scores/opinions.

When to read them you ask?

- Sitting on the bowl of course
- When you get stuck in traffic that's not moving
- If you have kids and your in the car waiting for them to come from whatever event they are attending
- When you want to sit with a loved who is watching tv but your not "really" into what they are watching
- Laying in bed before you go to sleep
- Sitting on vacation

PC Gamer is the last PC gaming magazine. It only costs $20 to subscribe through Amazon and Maximum PC $12. It's not going to break the bank.

The only negatives I can say about the mag is it has shrunk over the years but most mags have taken a beaten. That and the copies they sell on the magazine racks. They come with CDs which increase the price to $8ish. I've written to PC Gamer a couple times throughout the years stating if they want to increase readership GET RID OF THE DAMN CD!" Even in the magazines heyday I wouldn't pay that much off the stand and I'm a hardcore PC gamer. Drop the cd and sell it for $4.
 
Wow.... I so miss the girls, games and alcohol, what more do you need magazine! I still have like 20-30 issues of them.
 
samduhman said:
When to read them you ask?

- Sitting on the bowl of course
- When you get stuck in traffic that's not moving
- If you have kids and your in the car waiting for them to come from whatever event they are attending
- When you want to sit with a loved who is watching tv but your not "really" into what they are watching
- Laying in bed before you go to sleep
- Sitting on vacation
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Thats why I purchased a laptop & netbook... for sitting on the bowl, in traffic, waiting on someone, sitting in a room 'watching' crap on TV, laying in bed, and on the beach or stuck in an airplane on vacation.

You are right... SOMETIMES there is something useful that you dont find somewhere else... reviews and suggestions for utilities that we dont think of otherwise. But what I did is rip out those pages and toss the rest. For the past 36 issues, I only have about 20 pages that I actually tore out and found worth saving, and of those there are a good dozen that no longer apply... things like 'how to make vista better' (just go back to XP!!) or good drive imaging software.

For $20-30 a year, you are right... its not much. But I no longer even look forward to getting them. I just look through them when I have a moment, fearing I am wasting more time than the rag is worth... reading 'breaking news' from a month or two ago is just a waste of my time. But when I cleared out my collection (I had boxes dating back to 2000), I thought about how much of a waste of paper it was. Thats what made my mind up. I think they should move to an online publication with advertising to cover costs, and perhaps an online subscription access system for the content... that is if they can keep the news more up to date and current. Spare the wasted paper!!! Its mostly ads anyways.
 
I paid 5.99 for my subscription for this year. Even if its not as good as it used to be, its definitely worth 50 cents per mag. Makes great shitter read material
 
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