Backhand of Justice

I’m not going to make a tired argument that print is dead; everybody knows that print is dead. It’s a long and embarrassing process for the old establishment to go from dying to dead, but we’re past the halfway point.

Instead, I want to argue that print gaming magazines should give up not because they can’t compete with the speed of the internet, but because video is all people care about anymore. It’s no surprise that the video features are put front and center on every website. Giant Bomb has come from nowhere on the back of their videos, and until you embed magazines with video Minority Report style, they’re doomed to failure.

Traditional thinking is that the speed of the internet is what’s killing magazines; news comes out faster than monthly on the internet, and reviews hit when a game is released, not just on the first of every  month.

I’m not going to deny that is part of it, but I believe that videogame journalism has moved away from reviews and the news cycle and more towards features. It’s no coincidence that Edge is one of the only remaining successful magazines (along with Game Informer, given their built in captive audience).

Who you gonna call? The only magazine with a built in subscriber base of 12 million readers, that's who. Lucky Game Informer

Edge doesn’t focus on reviews, they focus on stories. Nobody’s buying Edge for their new hot review of Mass Effect 2. In fact, the amount of traffic on sites gained by reviews has decreased over the past few years relative to historical eye share.

What has gained are videos of the actual games, interviews, and general cult of personality clips. Fans are attracted to certain sites over others because they like the personalities of the contributors, and as such are equally interested in the games as the people themselves.

The Changing Face? What does that even *mean*?

Podcasts that don’t discuss anything new, but give the opportunity to listen to games discussion by personalities fans identify with, have exploded in popularity. Behind the scenes clips of gaming offices that don’t really contribute much information about actual games, are gaining in share.

Fans don’t want to read about games anymore; they want to see them. They don’t care about review scores; they want to make their own decisions. Magazines took the first blow when they lost out on news competitiveness, but that was last decade’s news.

Now they’re taking a second body shot as they can no longer compete in format, not just speed. A culture has arisen around videogames and those who work in the industry and analyze them have risen up to be more than just cogs to fans. A few times a year at PAX, and E3, they are famous. Even the boring analysts: case in point is Michael Pachter’s new ‘Pach Attack’ show.

Magazines have taken a second shot. How much more can they stand? Probably another decade of irrelevance is about all it’s going to take.