Is there an answer for Print Magazines?

After last week's closure of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) and the eBay offer for HardCore Gamer, talk has picked up that the print format is dead for magazines.

I do agree that Print Magazines of all forms have significantly suffered in recent years thanks in part to the explosion of web content available at the touch of your fingers, I do disagree that the format is dead. Console specific magazines are still successful thanks in part to their strong bond with the consoles they are about (not to mention that they usually offer bonus disc (eg. OXM) or online offers (OPM offering episodes of Qore)).

The problem is not that information is available online and for free. Take a look at North American magazines like Time, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Macleans, Sports Illustrated and others that still exist and still have the numbers to keep them a float. Yes, all are established and long running magazines, but so was EGM's 20 years.

If they are able to still run a successful magazine, then what is wrong with Videogame magazines? The answer is simple, but it's probably something that most companies like Ziff Davis would never adopt.

What do the magazines I mentioned above have in common...and Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu?

They're all weekly magazines.

In order for a Magazine to succeed in today's market it MUST be a weekly based magazine that can still compete with the internet. While the news that is available in the magazine will be relatively late in comparison to when it arrives on the 'net, people read magazines for the features and extra content put into each article. Your internet news gives you the basics, but when you want to read more about a specific topic, a magazine almost always offers more detail.

Here is an example of what I mean. Taking EGM's issue 233 (October 2008) and comparing it to Famitsu No. 1044 (from December 19th), let's compare the two magazines.

• EGM has 106 pages
• Famitsu has 264 pages

• EGM had roughly 42 pages of adverts (noting that ads were also located on inside covers and back page)
• Famitsu had roughly 42 pages of adverts (again, noting that ads were located on the inside front and back covers)

• EGM costs you 5.99 an issue (7.99 here in )
• Famitsu costs roughly 370 Yen which is about 4 dollars US and

• Both magazines offer the same type of content: previews, reviews, editorials, cheats and hints, essentially giving games plenty to work with.

I know comparing EGM to other North American magazines is a bit unfair. Time, Newsweek and Sports Illiustrated have more than 2 million readers each week, while Macleans (Canada's Neweek) and The New Yorker have between 500,000 and 1 million readers each week. EGM's numbers are still high enough that it could support an increase of issues.

EGM's problem in today's market was stated that even with 500,000 paid subscribers and 100,000 copies sent to stores, the ads were not there. But as shown above, in a 106 page magazine, nearly 40% of the magazine contains ads compared to Famitsu's 15%. So was the problem really about getting advertising dollars? Maybe, but I think it's not exactly the issue.

The problem lies in keeping gamers informed and the information fresh. With a monthly magazine, it becomes too difficult to please most gamers and give them something they don't already know.

Let's take reviews as the example here. If a monthly magazine offers reviews on games it has one of two options 1) review a game approximately 40 days before the game is released and hope that the publisher and/or developer do not delay the game. This problem has occurred a few times (eg. GMR Magazine releasing an early review of Ninja Gaiden only for the game to be delayed and GamePro reviewing Half Life for Dreamcast which was never publicly released). Because of this, most print magazines rely on 2) reviewing a game after it has already hit stores. This is a problem because the game has already been in stores and most consumers have already made their decision if they should buy the game. Since the review and the information given by the magazine doesn't help sales, why would a company offer exclusives or rely on a print magazine.

Now this would be completely different if Print Magazines were released weekly. Famitsu is often able to post their review a week prior or the week of a game's release and often this gives gamers the ability to determine if money should be spent on a game. The game and the content is fresh in the reader's mind and people are willing to spend the money. Also, because monthly magazines need their advertising dollars 1-2 months before the issue hits new-stands, often a game might change from the advertisement or reversely, a good enough ad for the magazine is not available.

I don't have any experience in print media so I am not too familiar with development process of a magazine, but you have to assume the following.

• Printing and publishing takes about 1-3 days
• Shipping to consumers and to stores takes 1-3 days
• Layout Setting takes about 1-2 days
• Submissions must be entered at least a week prior.
• The average article is written in a day
• It takes the average person approximately 0-3 days to develop enough of an opinion for a review
• It takes the average person approximately 1-5 days to gather and write up an Editorial or Preview of a game.

With this, it would seem that you could essentially create a magazine from cover to cover in about 2 weeks (so this week we'd be working on our Feb 1st issue).

But what about filling pages? Yes, it can be difficult to fill X amount of pages each month, so it must be just as difficult for a weekly magazine. Yes and no. if you don't have enough content, then of course, you're going to have a hard time filling in pages, but there is always something to write about. As shown above, Famitsu is a weekly magazine and has more than double the amount of pages as EGM and costs less.

EGM would still be around if it made some minor changes:

1) Become a weekly magazine
2) Kept or even reduced the number of pages BUT also reduced the cost.

Other weekly print magazines in contain fewer pages and are more affordable for that weekly purchase. Also, as stated before, developers and publishers would be more willing to pay for more ad space because they'd know that their product would be seen more often weekly rather than monthly. Since eyes would see their game four times as much as they already do, publishers can increase the cost for ad-space and in turn, recoup costs for staff, printing, etc...

The underlying issue in all this is 'are videogames viable' enough for a weekly magazine format? My answer is yes. There is more than enough information available each week that can be thrown into a weekly magazine. Take a look at the amount of posts on gaming news sites like Kotaku and Joystiq. Each day there are more than 20 decent articles published, so the news is there. If Famitsu can offer plenty of pages of reviews, previews, features, guides and even some extra stuff (pictorials of real people and comics) then EGM could have also accomplished the same thing.

Then what about costs and staff. Today's journalist is no longer a 'sit at a desk and work in an office' but rather a freelancer from around the world. Freelancers are cheap and there are a lot of people willing to work freelance if it could eventually lead to something bigger and better. Thanks to the ease of communication, a magazine can be based in a city like , or even a small town like (in ) and have people working around the world. The gaming market has only a small amount of cities where games are heavily produced: , , , and to a lesser extent and . Yes, games are made in other cities but travelling is easy (for example, if you have a writer based in Vancouver, he can drive the three hours south to Seattle to talk to people at Valve and/or Microsoft) or if you work in San Francisco, you can cover all the various companies in the area.

Plus, with Freelancers, reviewers can be located just about any where in the world. You ship the game to them and then have them submit to you electronically their review and you can have the review up in the next issue without any real problems.

We'll never know for sure if EGM had changed their format they would have succeed; there were too many outside issues involved with EGM and Ziff Davis that lead to its demise (we are all aware of the Bankruptcy from 2008). In my opinion, if there is a person or organization looking at creating a Gaming magazine in the same vein of EGM (writing quality), they should seriously consider having their format set-up as a weekly magazine.

After last week's closure of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) and the eBay offer for HardCore Gamer, talk has picked up that the print format is dead for magazines.

I do agree that Print Magazines of all forms have significantly suffered in recent years thanks in part to the explosion of web content available at the touch of your fingers, I do disagree that the format is dead. Console specific magazines are still successful thanks in part to their strong bond with the consoles they are about (not to mention that they usually offer bonus disc (eg. OXM) or online offers (OPM offering episodes of Qore)).

The problem is not that information is available online and for free. Take a look at North American magazines like Time, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Macleans, Sports Illustrated and others that still exist and still have the numbers to keep them a float. Yes, all are established and long running magazines, but so was EGM's 20 years.

If they are able to still run a successful magazine, then what is wrong with Videogame magazines? The answer is simple, but it's probably something that most companies like Ziff Davis would never adopt.

What do the magazines I mentioned above have in common...and Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu?

They're all weekly magazines.

In order for a Magazine to succeed in today's market it MUST be a weekly based magazine that can still compete with the internet. While the news that is available in the magazine will be relatively late in comparison to when it arrives on the 'net, people read magazines for the features and extra content put into each article. Your internet news gives you the basics, but when you want to read more about a specific topic, a magazine almost always offers more detail.

Here is an example of what I mean. Taking EGM's issue 233 (October 2008) and comparing it to Famitsu No. 1044 (from December 19th), let's compare the two magazines.

• EGM has 106 pages
• Famitsu has 264 pages

• EGM had roughly 42 pages of adverts (noting that ads were also located on inside covers and back page)
• Famitsu had roughly 42 pages of adverts (again, noting that ads were located on the inside front and back covers)

• EGM costs you 5.99 an issue (7.99 here in )
• Famitsu costs roughly 370 Yen which is about 4 dollars US and

• Both magazines offer the same type of content: previews, reviews, editorials, cheats and hints, essentially giving games plenty to work with.

I know comparing EGM to other North American magazines is a bit unfair. Time, Newsweek and Sports Illiustrated have more than 2 million readers each week, while Macleans (Canada's Neweek) and The New Yorker have between 500,000 and 1 million readers each week. EGM's numbers are still high enough that it could support an increase of issues.

EGM's problem in today's market was stated that even with 500,000 paid subscribers and 100,000 copies sent to stores, the ads were not there. But as shown above, in a 106 page magazine, nearly 40% of the magazine contains ads compared to Famitsu's 15%. So was the problem really about getting advertising dollars? Maybe, but I think it's not exactly the issue.

The problem lies in keeping gamers informed and the information fresh. With a monthly magazine, it becomes too difficult to please most gamers and give them something they don't already know.

Let's take reviews as the example here. If a monthly magazine offers reviews on games it has one of two options 1) review a game approximately 40 days before the game is released and hope that the publisher and/or developer do not delay the game. This problem has occurred a few times (eg. GMR Magazine releasing an early review of Ninja Gaiden only for the game to be delayed and GamePro reviewing Half Life for Dreamcast which was never publicly released). Because of this, most print magazines rely on 2) reviewing a game after it has already hit stores. This is a problem because the game has already been in stores and most consumers have already made their decision if they should buy the game. Since the review and the information given by the magazine doesn't help sales, why would a company offer exclusives or rely on a print magazine.

Now this would be completely different if Print Magazines were released weekly. Famitsu is often able to post their review a week prior or the week of a game's release and often this gives gamers the ability to determine if money should be spent on a game. The game and the content is fresh in the reader's mind and people are willing to spend the money. Also, because monthly magazines need their advertising dollars 1-2 months before the issue hits new-stands, often a game might change from the advertisement or reversely, a good enough ad for the magazine is not available.

I don't have any experience in print media so I am not too familiar with development process of a magazine, but you have to assume the following.

• Printing and publishing takes about 1-3 days
• Shipping to consumers and to stores takes 1-3 days
• Layout Setting takes about 1-2 days
• Submissions must be entered at least a week prior.
• The average article is written in a day
• It takes the average person approximately 0-3 days to develop enough of an opinion for a review
• It takes the average person approximately 1-5 days to gather and write up an Editorial or Preview of a game.

With this, it would seem that you could essentially create a magazine from cover to cover in about 2 weeks (so this week we'd be working on our Feb 1st issue).

But what about filling pages? Yes, it can be difficult to fill X amount of pages each month, so it must be just as difficult for a weekly magazine. Yes and no. if you don't have enough content, then of course, you're going to have a hard time filling in pages, but there is always something to write about. As shown above, Famitsu is a weekly magazine and has more than double the amount of pages as EGM and costs less.

EGM would still be around if it made some minor changes:

1) Become a weekly magazine
2) Kept or even reduced the number of pages BUT also reduced the cost.

Other weekly print magazines in contain fewer pages and are more affordable for that weekly purchase. Also, as stated before, developers and publishers would be more willing to pay for more ad space because they'd know that their product would be seen more often weekly rather than monthly. Since eyes would see their game four times as much as they already do, publishers can increase the cost for ad-space and in turn, recoup costs for staff, printing, etc...

The underlying issue in all this is 'are videogames viable' enough for a weekly magazine format? My answer is yes. There is more than enough information available each week that can be thrown into a weekly magazine. Take a look at the amount of posts on gaming news sites like Kotaku and Joystiq. Each day there are more than 20 decent articles published, so the news is there. If Famitsu can offer plenty of pages of reviews, previews, features, guides and even some extra stuff (pictorials of real people and comics) then EGM could have also accomplished the same thing.

Then what about costs and staff. Today's journalist is no longer a 'sit at a desk and work in an office' but rather a freelancer from around the world. Freelancers are cheap and there are a lot of people willing to work freelance if it could eventually lead to something bigger and better. Thanks to the ease of communication, a magazine can be based in a city like , or even a small town like (in ) and have people working around the world. The gaming market has only a small amount of cities where games are heavily produced: , , , and to a lesser extent and . Yes, games are made in other cities but travelling is easy (for example, if you have a writer based in Vancouver, he can drive the three hours south to Seattle to talk to people at Valve and/or Microsoft) or if you work in San Francisco, you can cover all the various companies in the area.

Plus, with Freelancers, reviewers can be located just about any where in the world. You ship the game to them and then have them submit to you electronically their review and you can have the review up in the next issue without any real problems.

We'll never know for sure if EGM had changed their format they would have succeed; there were too many outside issues involved with EGM and Ziff Davis that lead to its demise (we are all aware of the Bankruptcy from 2008). In my opinion, if there is a person or organization looking at creating a Gaming magazine in the same vein of EGM (writing quality), they should seriously consider having their format set-up as a weekly magazine.

tl;dr
Wish I had my own magazine.

Information currently moves too fast for most print-oriented publications to be viable, especially with the rise of Internet connecttivity on cell phones. There is a certain art that comes with magazine production, but we live in an age of raw information consumption. Those two simply come into conflict with one another, regardless whether free or paid. However EGM did very little to adapt.

In fact EGM probably created more problems for itself by removing key features from its monthly publication. For example, termination of the 4 editor review system. Something that was an important attraction for me that set it apart from other magazines. EGM was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They were a print magazine in an era of networking, joined at the hip with a website doing the same thing. Not only did 1UP do the same thing, but many articles from EGM were also published on 1UP. Many editors from EGM regularly contributed to 1UP. It was part of the 1UP family and quite heavily integreated with. So aside magazine enthusiasts, who's going to pay for something that can be had for free from the same group at a quicker pace? Had EGM not been affiliated with the 1UP network they probably could have turned themselves into a digital magazione website and been better for it. This is something that should have happened long ago.

Many aspects of EGM could have been adapted to work in an online daily format. Features that are exclusive or unique to EGM could be rolled out in segments over the entire month, ensuring users revisit at those given times to see the most recent part. 1UP has used that tactic many times, most recently with Mirror's Edge in November 2008. Monday-Friday, everyday, a new part of said feature was unlocked. Maybe this method didn't work for everyone, but it sure got me returning to the site each day. I like to think it increased traffic, which should have generated more interest in advertising. Throw in a weekly live show, after hours game parties for new or pre-releases, tournament broadcasts, podcasts, and developer/industry member blogs. Hell they could have even began the first Monday of every month with a letter from the editor and closed it off on the last Friday with a conclusion, also written by the editor.

My point is the possibilities for EGM to convert from print to online was/is there. Who knows, maybe someone will buy the EGM name with the intent of doing just that. However most important of all was the people who generated its content and how they made it unique and special. The sad part is many of those people weren't onboard when the ship sank. So if EGM continued would it have really been the great EGM or just in name? Who knows. One thing is for sure, because of EGM's affiliation with 1UP it was impossible for it to convert without it being a redundant money pit.

I would really like to see a monthly compact magazine come about, compact enough so that peeps can stick in their back pocket with ease.  Such a magazine could become popular among younger people. I would also like to see one that actually takes advantage of the internet, so the two can be read in tandem. The magazine could give you access to features showcased on a website. 

I  liked reading EGM, and UK based MeanMachines and CVG when growing up. MeanMachines in particular had really great writing and some real characters on the team. It's sad to see them all gone now. The only magazines I read now are EDGE and Games TM. I look at Famitsu and a few other Japanese magazines also.