I’ve always thought that gaming journalism wasn’t doing enough to serve the already dominant 16-25 male demographic. How can we do more to attract this underappreciated audience?
Why not revive the failed PC Accelerator magazine, the lad-mag for nerds that stuck Stevie Case in sexy schoolteacher poses in 2000?
Because if there’s one thing this business has a desperate thirst for, it’s more frat boy humor.
EDIT: This issue in question is apparently a one-off, not a revival. Norman Chan, on the PCGamer homepage, writes:
[T]his magazine is our report on gaming’s current cultural climate. This includes exposes on internet memes, game cakes, conventions, competitive gaming leagues, and as you can deduce from the cover, girls.
Chan does promise another issue if this one is well received, though.
Oh, good. For a minute there I thought my hobby might be reaching a certain level of societal acceptance, and I wouldn’t be branded some kind of perpetually adolescent man-child. Phew. Dodged a bullet there!
It’s kind of sad that CGM is gone but this is back…but at least it’s another PC mag, right?
Oh, and look — Greg Vederman’s got a column in it. Surprise, surprise.
UGH
:-(
To quote from any number of popular JRPGs: “…”
Killjoys! :P
:)
Good fucking God.
Coming on the demise of CGM, this is truly saddening. Granted, on some level any coverage is good coverage, but of all the magazines to rear their ugly heads…
Hey, I treasured that Stevie Case cover!! What do I care about societal acceptance? Ain’t gonna happen; it’s gaming. We’re playing games and not doing manly adult stuff like watching sports and whathaveyou.
Hello. Your post wins. That is all. :)
This magazine failed the first time around, and that was in the heyday of the American “lad mag”. The market has changed a lot since then. FHM shut down their US version this year. Maxim/Blender/Stuff got bought recently, and October will be Stuff’s last issue.
These kind of magazines (like Playboy was originally) are about advertising a carefree, swingin’ single guy lifestyle: gadgets, beer, Xbox games, fancy sneakers, cologne. Teen boys coming up don’t read magazines, and men my age are not as interested in the lifestyle those advertisers are selling. They’re buying plasma tvs, Audi station wagons, fancy scotch, and Bugaboo Frog strollers (hopefully with cupholders for Dad’s scotch).
PC gamers, especially, tend to be older…so I don’t see the audience for this being big enough to sustain a separate magazine.
http://www.nypress.com/15/23/news&columns/feature.cfm is an interesting article by the former editor of Maxim — halfway in, he talks about the economic realities of selling a “men’s magazine” in the US. Ugh. Not a business I’d want to be in.
Thanks for the article link, Sparky.
This sort of publication is triply hurt by the internet. First, gaming media is all over the place. Second, swinger poseurs are all over the place. Third, gaming media written by swinger poseurs is all over the place.
Kieron Gillen defends the magazine over here. He argues that the original PCXL was well written (something I barely remember and is no indication of what the new magazine will read like) and, most importantly, was honest and upfront about its titillation.
I obviously disagree.