egmi-the-digital-magazine posts

The relaunch of Electronic Gaming Monthly in both print and online versions is now in full swing. The first print magazine issue has been on newsstands for a few weeks now and the EGM[i] online interactive magazine has posted its third issue this week. Today it was officially announced that both the print and online editions of EGM would be getting a new Editor-in-Chief in Billy Berghammer.

Berghammer has a ton of previous game journalism experience that included some time as the Managing Editor of Game Informer's web site and later for an all too brief stint as Editorial Director of Gaming for G4TV.com.

While it released its 2009 "lost issue" online earlier this year in this same format, the newly revived Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine has now launched its first all new interactive version, called EGM[i], on the EGMNow.com web site. Much of the content is free to read for anyone but some of it is strictly for EGM subscribers.

Overall the interactive features are very well handled with clear menu and user interfaces pointing you to move your cursor that uncover extra content in the articles. One of them is a new interview with Ultima creator Richard Garriott where he talks about his new gaming ventures. All in all EGM[i] looks extremely promising and might be a sign of how the future of print magazines will evolve on the internet.

It's the issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly that took over a year to finally be shown to the public but this week the EGMNow.com web site finally released the first 44 "pages" of the "lost issue" of the gaming magazine. The 237th issue, which was completely completed before its former owners Ziff Davis pulled the plug on the long running print magazine back in December 2008, is now available via EGM's new interactive digital format with lots of animations and pop-up text in the articles (you have to register for free to see the issue).

And what about EGM issue 238, which was supposed to bring back the print issue of the magazine? Previously the plan was to release the issue to newsstand by this month but it doesn't look like it will make that deadline. The EGM interactive issue states in its news crawl down the bottom that the issue will appear on newsstands "soon". And a new version of EGMNow.com is supposed to relaunch in June. Big Download has emailed and called representatives of EGM to get a definitive update on their print issue release plans but we have not received any word from them on exact dates.

Update: A Help page on the EGMNow.com web site states, "The relaunch issue of EGM is now at the printer and will be shipped to subscribers in the first half of April." This would seem to confirm that the magazine will head to newsstands about a month later than originally announced.

The relaunch of the print issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly is still in the future but so is EGMi, the electronic version of the print mag. Now a new YouTube video shows off more of what EGMi will look like in terms of its interface, animations and the way it offers info that's different that a normal gaming web site.

The video demo is certainly very colorful and interactive and those new elements could make it more interesting to use than a standard gaming web site. But all the flash and sound will mean nothing if there isn't some good content to back it up. At the moment it looks like the new EGM will have that kind of content as it brings in in writers and editors from the old version of EGM along with some new folks. The first print issue was supposed be the the April 2010 dated version to be released later this month. At the moment there's no word on if that's still the plan going forward.

We've been wondering how the upcoming relaunch of Electronic Gaming Monthly will be pulling off their big plans for an interactive electronic version of their print mag. In a new update to the sparse EGM web site this week, founder Steve Harris finally gives a demo of how EGM[I] will work by using a cover of the magazine's "lost issue" (the issue that was completed by the previous EGM team before its owner Ziff Davis pulled the plug).

The demo uses a new technology created by a company called ScreenPaper. The demo itself isn't all that interactive but it does show at least what the visual look of the e-magazine will be like, complete with sound effects. Harris says, "Within weeks you'll be able to read, watch, and listen to pages that are vibrant and legible, without the need to zoom in and out " EGM's first print and e-issue should be released sometime in March with an April 2010 date.