future posts

Even with the recent launch of new game print magazines like @Gamer and the revival of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the truth is that the entire print magazine industry is still in dire straits. The latest victim is PC Zone, the first and oldest mag devoted to PC gaming in the US (it's also sold in US bookstores).

According to a blog post on the PC Zone section of the Computer and Video Games web site, the magazine will release its last issue, 225, in the first part of September. The magazine started in 1993 and was bought by its current owners Future Publishing in 2004. Future is still publishing PC Gamer with editions in both the UK and the US.

Just a few months ago it seems like gaming print magazines were on the way out. However this month not one but two classic gaming mags are being resurrected and there's word that another all new game magazine from a well known publisher is in the works.

After a delay of about a month it seems like subscription copies of the first issue of the new Electronic Gaming Monthly are finally reaching subscribers, according to posts made on the Facebook wall of the magazine's editor-in-chief Steve Harris.. The issue is the first for the long running multi-platform game mag since Ziff Davis canceled the publication over a year ago. Also making a return is GameFan. The first issue has been spotted in bookstores and newsstands. The original version started in 1992 but stopped publishing in 2000. The new version has one of its founders, Dave Halverson, as its editor-in-chief and is a split print mag with GameFan on one side and a movie-based magazine on its opposite cover.

And if that not enough news for you, the Facebook page of former Cnet editor and G4TV personality Wil O'Neal reveals that he has been recruited to be the new editor-in-chief for an upcoming, and so far unnamed, multi-platform gaming magazine from Future US, the publisher of, among other magazines, PC Gamer. There's no word on when the new magazine will start publication.

In a word: yes. In a few more words: yes, and the future is already here. In a lot of words:

When people ask "Is (product/service/phenomenon) the future?" they usually mean to imply that there is a boundary to be crossed, past which things will no longer be the same as they once were. A classic example: Is VHS the future? Yes, it certainly turned out to be, because for those of you who may be too young to remember, VHS and Betamax were in a video cassette format war, and VHS came out on top, much in the same way that Blu-ray has ousted HD DVD as the new hi-def disc of choice.

However, in the context of online gaming, there is no either/or choice to make. Rather, what we're seeing is a simple add-on to the games that already exist. So instead, what's being asked here is probably "Will every future game be played online?" And the answer to that is ... maybe. Read on to find out why.

Future Publishing spokesperson Will Guyatt has announced on the company's behalf that the publisher's Next Generation website will be re-branded to Edge, reports GamesIndustry.biz. Future hopes that the respected Edge name will "do what Edge has done for year's in print, but online," says Guyatt.

Next-Gen has already used content from Edge magazine for some time, reprinting content from the magazine that is sometimes available online before its respective issue appears on newsstands. Details regarding possible editorial shuffling due to the re-branding were not mentioned.

Future will be making an official announcement this coming Monday, July 14.