When I was a little boy gamer I would spend a bit of my allowance on Electronic Gaming Monthly a great little gaming magazine. Unfortunately, young gamers will never understand what the industry was like twenty years ago. In a time before the Internet, the only place to get gaming news for a young kid was a glossy magazine. Today, EGM closes its doors and we’re losing a historic piece of gaming history.
Granted, there were other glossy magazines prized by young boys too, but we were old enough to purchase Electronic Gaming Monthly, now known as EGM by the hip and cool. Although EGM was founded in 1989, many adults between the age of 29 and 35 probably spent their youth flipping through the pages reading the reviews and editorials.
The days of the magazine are drawing to an end for many industries, with video game websites covering everything from truly hardcore to highly niche, we all demand our information as soon as possible. If a company like Ziff Davis is selling its properties, we want to know the minute it is announced, when 1UP is purchased by UGO we want to know the minute the ink dries. Why? Because we can.
January 2009 marks the last issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. After Hearst Corporation (owner of UGO) purchased 1UP from Ziff Davis it was announced that EGM would be seeing its last issue. Sure, there was a chance this would occur without the acquisition as well but the sadness wouldn’t be any different. We’re sure the staff will find a great home writing for another publication or in the online world, but it is sad just the same.
Along with the sad news of EGM closing, we’ve heard a number of folks at 1UP have also been effected by Hearst Corporations purchase of 1UP which has many people out of a job during tough economic times. There has been rumor the 1UP podcasts being ditched as well, but we have heard nothing official yet (please comment with official stories if you hear).
Of course, 1UP is “officially” rejoicing at the news but we know this is part of the “smoke and mirrors” that is an acquisition. A few, now former, 1UP folks have been using twitter and game forums to voice their own “opinions” of the purchase.
This is a rough economic time for many people, printed magazines, online publications and others. The only shining light is knowing many of these individuals will find new places to call home or start brand new online publications to compete against their old company. Talent will not go restricted, they will no doubt group together to form new aged publications to show off why the big boys are flailing in the dark.
We wish them all well in their efforts to find success.
@GameStop developing console and PC game streaming
This is quite funny, since I remember Derrick and Jennifer talking about GameStop as the iconic brick-and-mortar type of shop, not willing to buckle up on the pressure put by digital distribution channels.
The big problem I see is the fact that now there are quite a lot of digital distribution channels: Steam, Origin, Desura, not to mention the console based ones. It got crowded, and getting a slice of the pie is (now) very difficult.
Now, in terms of streaming, the only competition is OnLive. They will need to do something differently, however, if they want to become top dog. I’m curious as to what will that be.
@Is the Xbox 720 chip set
Well, the technology is already there. Call it Sandy bridge or ‘fusion’, CPU+GPU+memory controller are here to stay.
The hardware technology was already tested (well, Intel had some issues with Sandy bridge …) and deemed suitable for marketing.
SoC means ‘System on a Chip’, meaning everything (CPU, RAM, ports etc) is on the same chip.
Jordan, I see the 720 as just a hardware upgrade of the 360. It will be (just like 360) still based on PC-like hardware, so I say the 360 games will be perfectly compatible with the 720. This means the 720 already has a good library.
The way I see it, Microsoft decided to steamroll the competition.
@industry is failing female gamers
I say put your money where your mouth is. Instead of complaining about the fact that the market represented by female gamers is not being properly exploited, I say take the opportunity and make a game that will bring you the moneyz 😛
My sister also loved UT. She also played Quake 3 and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, but her arena of choice remained UT. Another game she liked a lot was the first Unreal game.
Back to the UT/Quake3/MOHAA, she also played them in multi player.
@QOTW
I take pretty much the same approach as Jordan. I don’t look at bullet points.
But, be it FPS or RTS, I want a nice, plausible story.