games-for-windows-magazine posts

Several months ago, Ziff Davis decided to shut down Games For Windows magazine and fold the editorial team into covering PC games for the 1Up.com web site. Now it's looking likely that Ziff Davis could get rid of their only other gaming magazine, the long running Electronic Gaming Monthly, at least in its print version.

This revelation came in a New York Times article this week when Ziff Davis made its decision to shut down another long standing print mag, PC Magazine. Ziff Davis recently came out of bankruptcy and has been cost cutting to stay afloat. In addition to shutting down Games For Windows's print mag and now PC Magazine, it also did not hold its annual consumer electronic show DigitalLife this year. A decision on whether or not to close EGM is expected to be made sometime in 2009. If it is cancelled the EGM editorial staff is expected to stay working on the 1Up.com site. Since the closing of Games For Windows magazine, EGM has incorporated PC gaming coverage into its formerly all console game format.

Last April, Ziff Davis, then in the middle of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, announced that it was shutting down its Games For Windows print magazine. The mag, which had changed its name only 18 months before its shutdown and was previously known as Computer Gaming World for 25 years beforehand, had Jeff Green as its long time editor in chief. At the time of the magazine's cancellation Green minced no words when he said on his blog, "This is tough. This sucks. I'm not going to pretend to be in a good mood." Green and the rest of the Games For Windows staff (minus their art team) moved onto the 1Up.com web site to cover PC gaming.

Now 1Up.com has posted up word that Green has decided to leave Ziff Davis after a total of 17 years to get into game development. Specifically Green will be working for Electronic Arts' Sims brand of games. Ironically Games For Windows' last print issue had Sims 3 as its cover story. There's no word yet on what Green's new specific job will be like.

Three months ago we got the sad news that Games for Windows magazine would be shutting down. The Ziff Davis magazine changed its title back in 2006; it was originally known as Computer Gaming World and ran on that name for 25 years. Now the new issue of Ziff Davis' remaining gaming print magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, has announced that for the first time in its own long running career it will begin to run PC gaming news and previews inside its pages.

The issue states that PC news won't be a huge part of EGM but the August 2008 dated issue does have a look at a number of upcoming PC RTS games (Starcraft 2, Battleforge, and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3). Thus EGM becomes a true multi-platform magazine like Game Informer and GamePro. Will it's PC games coverage be adaquate in the future or will Future Publishing's PC Gamer, the only remaining US PC centric PC game print mag, still rule the roost?

When Ziff Davis Media announced that the 25 year old print magazine Computer Gaming World would be morphing into the new Games For Windows magazine in 2006 (via a license with Microsoft) the publisher assured its readers that it would basically be the same publication but with a new name; all of the same personnel would be retained and that Microsoft would have no editorial control over its content.

After 17 issues under the new name, however, Ziff Davis and Microsoft have jointly decided to end the print edition of Games For Windows magazine and move the mag's editorial staff (but unfortunately not its art and design staff) to work online for Ziff Davis's 1Up.com site to boost its PC games coverage. The magazine's current issue on the newsstands (the April/May issue with The Sims 3 cover story) will be its last. Current subscribers can switch to two of Ziff Davis's other magazines, Electronic Gaming Monthly or PC Mag, to finish out their time.

While 1Up.com's vice-president of content Simon Cox tries to put a positive spin on this news in his blog post on the subject today (claiming this move has nothing to do with Ziff Davis' recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy declaration) there's not much that's positive about the blog post from Games For Windows's now ex-editor-in-chief Jeff Green. He states flat out, "This is tough. This sucks. I'm not going to pretend to be in a good mood." While Green and the three other editorial members of the magazine still have jobs as they work to beef up 1Up.com's PC game coverage it's going to be interesting to see if the staff's work will truly be able to stand out against the ton of PC gaming web sites that are already out there. It also means that Future US's PC Gamer magazine is now the only print mag in the US devoted solely to the PC gaming industry (Beckett's Massively Multiplayer Online Gamer is also PC based but just in one genre).