Gaming Magazines

RachPie

Just wondering if any of you have read Click magazine, if so, what did you think of it? Just trying to get feedback for a project. Cheers!

ObeyGiant

RachPie wrote: »

Just wondering if any of you have read Click magazine, if so, what did you think of it? Just trying to get feedback for a project. Cheers!

Frankly, I think Click is one of the worst magazines I've ever read - there's nothing compelling about it, no reason for me to ever pick it up. It's barely more than a collection of press releases sellotaped together. The editorial is amateurish and the copy-editing is terrible. For example, the latest issue advertises an interview with David O'Meara, CEO of "Havoc" (although the article itself spells the company correctly). It's a simple, sloppy mistake that sums up the entire magazine.

super_furry

Actually got the first one, but it was very short on content with screenshots and game images taking up most of the pages and the small pieces that were there were fluff that read like press releases.

RachPie

Thanks - am reading the latest issue, but wanted to see what other gamers thought of it (even though it's not just a gaming mag...). Do you think it's about time someone came up with an Irish magazine that's soely geared towards gaming?

PogMoThoin

RachPie wrote: »

Do you think it's about time someone came up with an Irish magazine that's soely geared towards gaming?

No, We have boards.ie, why buy a mag? Most mags offer completely biased reviews, money talks. Every game thats released gets talked about here and disected for the good and the bad, no mag can better that

RachPie

Great point Pog :P

ObeyGiant

PogMoThoin wrote: »

No, We have boards.ie, why buy a mag? Most mags offer completely biased reviews, money talks. Every game thats released gets talked about here and disected for the good and the bad, no mag can better that

Well, to be fair, I would prefer to read a well-written article in a magazine than a badly-written one on a website. For example, I understand that Eurogamer has more news than magazines like Edge and GamesTM, and its reviews go up quicker, but I'd still prefer to read those magazines because I think the quality of the writing on Eurogamer absolutely stinks. And while I'm sure there's a lot of quality in some of the posts on boards.ie, its signal-to-noise ratio means that a lot of the quality just gets buried under the "yore ma" posts. So I guess that would be the answer to RachPie's question - it depends on the quality of the magazine. I think that there could be a market for a magazine geared towards Irish gamers, but it would have to be something genuinely worth reading.

RachPie

Thanks ObeyGiant - I'm thinking along the same lines too. I'm a journalism student and an avid gamer, so I'm just thinking ahead:)

super_furry

I'm not sure the market is here. Every gaming magazine launched here has failed, although again, every gaming magazine launched here has been terrible.

Jazzy

nope. nein. nada. print journalism for games is dead. the ones that are still around now are generally good and established but there is no more space for a new magazine. as rupert murdoch said years ago, the future of journalism is online

PogMoThoin

I realise the opinions of boards.ie reviewers may be utter shíte. The thing about the internet is that every anonymous assholes got an opinion, but collectively they can be worth more than any review. I doubt its actually possible to have an unbiased mag. Most of these surive through through advertising and bought reviews and exclusives. Might start off that way, but they soon end up heading where the money is, when its so easy to give a better review for rewards.

Krieg

I first read click 3 months ago and thought it was brilliant. But the last issue I found quite bland and has put me off.

RachPie

Okay so - an online Irish gaming mag? Just because they failed before, doesn't mean to say that they will do so again. Find the right people, who love games and know what they're talking about and maybe they can make it a success.

PogMoThoin

RachPie wrote: »

Okay so - an online Irish gaming mag? Just because they failed before, doesn't mean to say that they will do so again. Find the right people, who love games and know what they're talking about and maybe they can make it a success.

And not get bought out, We cant get honest politicians, never mind honest gamers

RachPie

What we need is cut - throat honesty. Sometimes it's the only way forward.

SeantheMan

Why does there need to be a magazine "specifically" geared toward Irish game consumers ?? ...how would it be different from the UK perspective.

I personally Enjoy both PCZone and PCGamer , and for multi consoles I'd go with EDGE magazine.....some of the staff writers in them mags are Irish anyways.

Most of the time I'll come to boards anyways and read what people think about a game.
I'm not a fan of Eurogamer at all, most ppl are divided with them here it seems.
Kotaku is a decent source, and gametrailers is the way for videos and such, so between them both they pretty much cover every aspect needed.

RachPie

Cheers! Just an idea.

ObeyGiant

SeantheMan wrote: »

Why does there need to be a magazine "specifically" geared toward Irish game consumers ?? ...how would it be different from the UK perspective.

Well, I personally don't think there "needs" to be a magazine with an Irish perspective, just that it would be nice. I mean, at one stage, Ireland had the largest household PS2 penetration outside of Japan, yet there didn't seem to be much out there to indicate any sort of wider support of this in magazines.

I just think that there's a space for an Irish voice in the print world, something that reflects an Irish sensibility in its writing. I know it's not quite the same, but think about Consolevania/Videogaiden - they brought a distinctly Scottish voice to videogames coverage and those shows were terrific.

I think Jazzy is probably right. Or at least close - while print is dwindling, I don't think it's dying, and I certainly don't think it means the death of the magazine. Take a look at what GamesTM is doing with its iPhone app. You get the exact same content, in pretty much the same layout, you just choose the format you read it. If I was launching a magazine now, I'd definitely wait until the iPad launches and see what kind of effect that has on the market.

landsleaving

ObeyGiant wrote: »

Well, I personally don't think there "needs" to be a magazine with an Irish perspective, just that it would be nice. I mean, at one stage, Ireland had the largest household PS2 penetration outside of Japan, yet there didn't seem to be much out there to indicate any sort of wider support of this in magazines.

I'd wager this is mostly down to parents buying them for kids and people playing singstar, as opposed to a massive knowlesgable user base. It's the same with the wii now, the games made for the more active gamer don't sell very well. The PS2 had a bigger hardcore user base for sure, but the majority of people just bought one because games hit the mainstream hard at the time and they wanted fifa/movie tie ins/singstar/kiddie games.

The market simply isn't big enough for a specialist print magazine in general, let alone a games one. It would have far stronger British competition, who have a larger market and an established marketshare here, and realisitcally wouldn't get finance from advertising as the market is small and so couldn't hire many writers and good ones would inevitably leave for bigger paychecks elsewhere.

A website would be feasible, but would still need to hire writers, designers etc, and be marketed, so it would have to be more than just Irish to survive. We're a small country, so despite having a fair few gamers who'd be interested, myself included, there just isn't enough people in business terms.

Oh and click is a nice idea, but it's a poor magazine. Using several media is the only way to sell enough copies, but it dilutes the product far too much. Pity

TheDoc

Take aim magazine is starting to put video games into its mag.

Its an irish publication for airsoft that is distrubuted through ireland,uk, europe and america.

I do guest writing for it every issue, and last issue they went into gaming to just expand a bit more.

So its have a nice mix of gaming reviews and airsoft stuff and have to say as skeptical as I was about it, it turned out ok.

Its basic at the moment with just some reviews and theory/debate columns, but its not that bad a read in all honesty.

The airsoft content is usually decent anyways, so I'm interested to see how they push forward with gaming.

landsleaving

Just wondering Doc, why the decision to throw games into an airsoft mag? Were there movie/music reviews already as well? Seems pretty random to just throw in a game section with a totally unrelated topic.

Kinetic^

ObeyGiant wrote: »

Well, to be fair, I would prefer to read a well-written article in a magazine than a badly-written one on a website.

Um, what about a badly written article in a magazine that you've paid for rather then a badly written one on a website? I know I'd be happier reading the free article online.

The last piece of gaming journalism I was remotely interested in was the podcast from Citizen Gaming which was originally a bunch of Irish lads from Waterford. I haven't listened to it in a while but they did fairly honest reviews whenever I tuned in.

After that I wouldn't bother reading a games review, particularly in a magazine. I prefer to get feedback from gamers I know. The other thing to realise is that your target market is not going to be here on Boards as we'd generally be older 16+. You're looking for the 10-15/16 market who will generally pester their parents into buying them something shiny when they don't know any better.

Kinetic^

landsleaving wrote: »

Just wondering Doc, why the decision to throw games into an airsoft mag? Were there movie/music reviews already as well? Seems pretty random to just throw in a game section with a totally unrelated topic.

Totally unrelated? Airsoft....FPS....airsoft.....FPS.......

landsleaving

good point