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.
are u guys aware that I’m from philippines coz people in the philippines are stupid coz they don’t know whats the difference between a stupid warcraft 3 mod dota which I call poor man’s game and the difference between world of warcraft . People here stupid they brag about their dota skills .how bout they play wow and get their ass kicked
Yay, 2 hours!
Oliver, please calm down and discuss the podcast in the comments, also AFTER listening to it.
Anyway, Paul, get ready to be disappointed by the final dungeon and the final boss in Skyward Sword. And I don’t think that the open world in Arkham City takes anything away from the game. We probably have different tastes, but I love searching for all the Riddler Trophies and sidequests in the city, it makes it come alive.
Best games: Arkham City, Portal 2, Skyward Sword
Most surprisingly fun games: Rayman Origins, Bulletstorm, Bastion
@Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony all pull support from SOPA – sort of: At least we now know that the SOPA bill is only getting weaker, because it is an absolute disaster in its current form.
@QOTW: I think I would prefer playing on a handheld console, because there aren’t many mobile games that I would want to play.
@Full games vs smaller games on handhelds, I agree with Jonah.
The reason why the DS was so successful was that it appealed to people who werent necessarily gamers before. People who got attracted to playing Brain Training and Professor Layton’s games. While the PSP kept on pushing games like God of War Chains of Olympus and what not. And while you can’t say PSP failed in sales, it was pretty well beaten up by DS world wide.
@Game I played the most
Hard one.. Either Darkfall Online, or TES Oblivion (I keep revisiting this game, one of my favourites of all times)
@Game that disappointed me the most
I havent tried that many new games this year, so even though I’m loving it, Ill have to go with TES Skyrim. Don’t get me wrong, it is a brilliant game, but the series have indeed been dumbed down a lot in this one. It lost complexity to get more action. Don’t think Skyrim will be as epic as Oblivion or Morrowind, but it is still a great game.
@SOPA backlash
This is something that concerns me as a web developer. The problem with SOPA is that it was not only created by lobbies to protect their interests but its an overzealous measure that will affect content broadcasting authors more than pirates. You share a movie of yourself singing Sinatra on Youtube and someone will tell you to take it down or you ISP might cut your service.
This cripples what the Internet is all about, sharing content! As for companies that are now withdrawing their support, I am not a customer of neither Sony, MS or Apple, I do have Nintendo consoles and my business with them will be reviewed. All my domains WILL be taken out of Godaddy as they had no excuse to support something like this in the first place, if they understood the media where they work in, they would be expecting this reaction from the comunity. Note that I am not a USA citizen, but what people tend to forget is that the lobbies only need to open a precedent to move to Europe.
As Jordan said: “The Internet would not be able to function under this law” so its clear that people who back it do not understand the Internet or do not understand SOPA.
@QOTW
Mobile device, specifically an Android Tablet.
I guess I need to start doing smaller comments here in order to have them read on the Podcast :p
BTW one thing I’m really excited about, although I’m not sure it is for 2012
The remake of XCom – Enemy Unknown, which was one of the best games I’ve ever played.
@Console/Handhelds: I have an original PSP, regular DS (the red Mario Kart edition) and all three current consoles, but I still prefer to do my gaming on consoles. When I lived in Tokyo and New York, where I did have a 20 – 40 minute commute, depending on the time of day, I played my hand helds a bit more. But, in the end, I got the PSP because it could not only game, but also access the Internet and play movies and music. Since getting Kojima to sign my copy of Peace Walker in summer 2010, I haven’t touched my PSP. And the only time I use my DS is for the Japanese dictionary software I bought in Japan. When I was a kid in the countryside, hand helds were great platforms because they didn’t vie for TV access and let me be more independent, so to speak. Now that I have 20 magazine subscriptions, the Internet (in general) and other consoles, hand helds don’t appeal to me as much, although I do still salivate at their shiny.
@sony microsoft nintendo pulls support on sopa
Basically what they are doing here is protecting their company coz I think most of the gamers out there are downloading stuff on the internet and most of the downloads out there are not obeying sopa .as for me I only download I don’t spend for games
@ wiiu as I said waste of money.im not a sony fan but I do like psps but I still hate the ps3
@ qotw
I would more likely play a handheld console coz there are better games on portable consoles . I’d play on a mobile device if they have a working monster hunter in it
The best game I played in 2011 is minecraft and monster hunter series since these are the only games I even play lol .can u guys tell your computer specs coz I’m really curious about it
guys Can u answer my question.is tf2 a mod for halflife 2 or is it a stand alone or could it be both.
Team Fortress 1 was a mod. Team Fortress 2 is not.