New MMO Print Magazine
(Visited 8914 times) Game talk
Mar 182006
Gamasutra says that the folks behind Computer Games are going to launch a new mag aimed at MMO gamers. The article claims it’s the first, but of course they forgot Massive Online Gaming, which unfortunately only ever distributed one issue. (The second issue is, however, partially available via the website).
The challenge here, if course, is making a mag that will have enough content for the devotees of any given game, whilst also catering to the folks who are game-hoppers and more fans of the medium than of any one game. I hope they pull it off.
10 Responses to “New MMO Print Magazine”
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Surely much of the challenge is to make a mag with premium content for a market who are pretty much by definition internet users, and thus have immediate free access to vast ammounts of up to date content about the medium? A print magazine is always going to be at least a month late with news, and its going to be hard to fill it with much that has not already been available online for some time by the time it hits the shelves.
If the magazine focuses on the community aspect of MMO games, then content should flow somewhat easily. If the magazine focuses on game content, there will be difficulties with convincing MMO gamers to subscribe.
By “enough content” I meant content that was fresh — that includes stuff not on the web already. Print mags manage via lots of exclusive editorial content, but even then it’s a bit of a losing battle for many of them right now…
As has been pointed out, since print magazines are always several months out of date, what’s the point in the magazine?
What does interest me about a MMORPG magazine is that it will come with a DVD every month (I assume). On this DVD will be several MMORPGs I can try out without having to spend ages downloading them. This is valuable.
[…] Edit: Apparently Raph remembered the name of the MMO magazine that launched a few years ago. Massive Online Gaming. It ran for a single issue then disappeared into oblivion. Hopefully this next attempt works out much better. […]
There are types of information that don’t necessarily need to be up-to-the-instant, and other sorts of information where a hardcopy (interface) is more valuable than a softcopy.
And honestly, what’s valuable in this day and age isn’t the actual information (property) itself — that’s so easy to copy it can be found somewhere on the web for free. What’s valuable is the editorial labor (service) that saves you from having to spend your time looking all the stuff up yourself. Of course with competition from places like this website, they may be in trouble for that. 😉
I don’t see much of a future for gaming magazines in print format (or magazines in general). As has been mentioned, information is outdated pretty quickly. Also, the online “magazines” can provide not only “editorial” content, but downloads, volumes of screenshots, and other value-add that print folios can’t. Yes, some send a CD-ROM in the mail and most have some screenshots in their coverage. Online can simply have more. And now.
Also, MOG was a very good concept as a magazine. It’s too bad the plug got pulled before it had a chance to see if it would sink or swim on it’s own. I think part of the “vision” lives on at GamersInfo
There was also Sony Worlds (maybe it doesn’t count cause it was published by a game publisher about their own games?) and another recently announced MMO magazine is The MMO Gamer ( http://www.mmo-gamer.com ) which put out that “teaser” a few months ago.
Forgot the source: GamesPress had a newblurb on it back then (about The MMO Gamer)