Before you start reading, I would like to let you know that this blog contains:
- A semi-epic but not really account of a bowel movement I once made that may or may not have changed my life for the better.
- Pretentious ridiculousness you may or may not agree with.
- A call to arms for the salvation of print media which may or may not be overly idealistic.
If this does not sound appealing to you, you should either close out of this page or proceed to the comments section and troll away. Now that I've gotten that over with, let's proceed to the interesting stuff.
Let me start off with a story.
Once upon a time, I was at my friend Tony's house. Our group of friends were doing the usual stuff, watching ridiculous anime I had bought on VHS from Half-Price Books, Taco Bell was probably being eaten, one or more of us was probably not sober, etc, etc. Well, I had to take a shit really bad. My stomach was burning, I couldn't walk, things were uncomfortable. Needless to say, despite the fact that I don't like taking shits anywhere besides my bathroom at home for some reason, I wound up sitting on the toilet in the guest bathroom after a few minutes of flatulence and agonizing abdominble pain. 30 minutes and one nearly clogged toilet later, I was done. The problem was, while I was shitting, I was focused on nothing but the waste being expelled from my colon and pattern on the linoleum floor (it was very minimalist and had a sort of floral hint, in case you were wondering).
Since this incident, I have taken to having some sort of reading material on me at all times. Recent issues of Mojo, Retro Gamer, Houston Press, etc, back issues of old gaming mags, anything half-way interesting, really, just so I don't have to focus on the act of shitting while using the facilities.
You might see where I'm going with this. You might also say that I am making a really weak arguement and just wanted to type a paragraph about a really insignificant 30 minute bowel movement I had about a year ago.
With the recent closure of EGM, many newspapers, magazines, etc, people around the globe are claiming that print media is on its last legs. Online media is the next cool thing, they say, and print media will successfully die out in a few years.
All you have to do is walk into a waiting room of any kind, or go into an airport, or go into a coffee shop, or go into a restroom, or go into anywhere someone has to spend long periods of time doing nothing to see that print media's not dying anytime soon. If anything, it's evolving.
Videogame magazines need to focus on things other than current gaming news and such. If anything, I can see some sort of popular gaming magazine popping up in the future that treats the subject of gaming like music: in-depth features on hits and obscure titles from both the past and the present, gradeless reviews that let consumers know about the actual content of the game instead of saying "the graphics are purdy" or "the controls are wonky" or "the frame-rate takes a hit when there's a million zombies on the screen". Interviews with developers that probe deeper than the standard "tell me about your new game" stuff. Lifestyle features that actually focus on things that gamers are into and not on things some guy in a boardroom thinks gamers are into (i.e. the standard "girls, cars, clothes", etc, there are other magazines for those). Things that make more sense in the print medium and will make compelling reading a year after the magazine has hit newstands. Things that won't be outdated as soon as the magazine gets to someone's mailbox.
We can't just wait for this glorious future to just magically appear before our eyes though. We, the unwashed masses, must take things into our own hands: fanzines need to make a comeback too. Making your own website is nice and all, but, really, a website is nothing compared to something physical you can take into a bathroom. I mean, really, you can take your laptop into the bathroom I GUESS but is it worth the trouble? It is not, unless you really really hate reading off of ink and paper for some fucked up reason.
I'm going to wrap this up real quick before it gets too tl,dr.
Print media is not dead, especially when videogame magazines are concerned. In order for videogame magazines to be profitable, each issue needs to be as compelling a year from its release as it is when it hits newstands. To get people to take notice, independent fanzines must be started with compelling content (possibly outweighing their production value) that rivals, if not betters the content found in mainstream gaming magazines.
I'm willing to take action. Are you?
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