Video game magazines vs. the internet

[Kev]

To me, EGM reached it's height around the early to mid nineties. After that, the magazine went downhill, with certain eras being better than others. Kinda like SNL. I really enjoyed GameNow, after a while it seemed to be Ziff-Davis' answer to GameFan, a bit more obscure and enthusiastic.

Juvenile though they were, I liked Game Players and not-serious Ultra Game Players. To be honest, I read them almost solely for their slapstick comedic factor. Their actual game coverage was garbage, in my opinion. I really liked ODCM. Early PSM was fun to read, but now I can't stand it.

I really liked Next Gen back when they used the matte-plasticlike paper stock, not the glossy style paper stock; I remember for the price, you got a lot of interesting reading. However, the magazine came across as snobbish to me.

I liked GameFan.

Halverson's post-GameFan stuff is enjoyable to me, despite it's quirks. He's a geek, yeah. I've been disappointed with Nick Rox's input in Play, though. He's always been an f-chan, but whereas I found him entertaining and informative in GF, now he's just, I don't know. Annoying, I guess?

[prosciutto]

I like something to read when I take a shit.

[Revoltor]

I bring my laptop to the shitter all the time.

[Brisco Bold]

I miss Ultra GP.

[Tommy Tallarico]

EGM had wild 8+ page interviews with Jack Tretton and Peter Moore in the last two issues, and someone from Nintendo is in the next one.

Still, those interviews could be printed just as well on the Internet. (And they are because people transcribe them.) There's no reason for the magazine to exist anymore beyond being a convenient, glossy-paper replication of content from the Internet, or a marketing plan to get people to buy membership cards at game stores.

[Lordmrw]

I buy Retrogamer and Play every month. Everything else I stopped giving a damn about a long time ago. I enjoy Retrogamer because alot of the stuff they cover I had no idea existed back; Play because they cover alot of lesser known games that are damn good in depth, Halverson nutfest aside.

[Mikey]

Magazines still have their place. There can be too much waffle on the Internet. I usually stick to old magazines though. Here is a short but enthusiastic C&VG October 1998 scan I took when testing a scanner recently.

[Yoshi]

I bring my laptop to the shitter all the time.

Now we know what inspires your posts.

[FX]

Free subscriptions....I get EGM, Xbox Mag, and PSM in the mail. They are disposed of as soon as I've read them a few times.

[Melf]

EGM had wild 8+ page interviews with Jack Tretton and Peter Moore in the last two issues, and someone from Nintendo is in the next one.

Still, those interviews could be printed just as well on the Internet. (And they are because people transcribe them.)

IBTN. I did my Tom Kalinske and Ken Balthaser interviews by phone and transcribed them, simple as that. The Internet can do almost everything a magazine can do.

That being said, I use the term almost because, in retro gaming at least, magazines are more useful over the long term. If you look for articles and interviews published on websites from the '90s, a lot of them have been taken down or the website hosting them has gone under. If no one archived them, they're gone for good. A magazine is much longer lasting and can be scanned as often as needed.

That's why I trash my GI and EGM after reading them but archive my Retro Gamer, Sega Visions, Mega Play, and GF. I consider them reference material.