PC Zone closes after 17 years

Spear

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/15/uks-pc-zone-magazine-shutting-down-after-17-years/

Seems the circulation had dropped to just 11,000 a month.

The Cruelty Zoo fun seems so long ago now.

http://www.arbitary.i12.com/crueltyzoodebacle.html

Oafley Jones

Spear wrote: »

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/15/uks-pc-zone-magazine-shutting-down-after-17-years/

Seems the circulation had dropped to just 11,000 a month.

The Cruelty Zoo fun seems so long ago now.

http://www.arbitary.i12.com/crueltyzoodebacle.html

Still have the first issue - along with PCGamer and PCFormat - somewhere at home. The pocket money I spent on those mags was phenomenal when I look back on it. To be honest I'm surprised that the circulation was even that high. It was a decent enough read, Charlie Brooker used write a bit for it, but I always preferred Gamer over it.

Lab_Mouse

use to buy PCZONE regularily when I was working,always thought it was a decent read and the reviews were spot on.Surprised it didnt happen sooner what with free internet mags and sites

Kiith

Thats a shame. I used to love both PcZone and PcGamer. Great magazines in their day. Expensive though. Used to be upwards of €10 per issue.

Creamy Goodness

pczone was the only pc magazine worth buying.

sad to see it go

Gunmonkey

Huh, thats random alright. I bought the latest issue (SWTOR cover) and was quite unimpressed to be honest. The E3 coverage was mediocre at best (no mention of Crysis 2 or Rage at all, 6 pages dedicated to Homefront??) and the rest was just kinda boring. 2 pages on the downfall of game manuals.......

Shoulda bought PCGamer

TomCo

This is terrible!

I have well over a hundred issues, I bought it religiously for years until the page count and quality started to drop and I didn't have the money for it.

I was just thinking of getting a subscription the other day

dreamers75

hard to fork out €12 for a mag that says £3.50 on the front.

Shocked it took so long, once pc format doesnt go before they send my prize i dont care

ShaneU

Prices for gaming magazines here have gone through the roof so I'm not surprised.

gizmo

Aw man, I used to love that magazine. They had some great writers a couple of years back and all. I still have Charlie Brooker's drunken phone calls to the publishers and all, they still make me laugh all these years later.

Ri_Nollaig

shame to see it go.
But does it really come as a surprise?
They where overpriced and very much redundant compared to online reviews/news.

TomCo

gizmo wrote: »

Aw man, I used to love that magazine. They had some great writers a couple of years back and all. I still have Charlie Brooker's drunken phone calls to the publishers and all, they still make me laugh all these years later.

Ha, Issue 62 April 1998; just dug the disc out.

Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s49_v5DVK4I

Gunmonkey

Ri_Nollaig wrote: »

shame to see it go.
But does it really come as a surprise?
They where overpriced and very much redundant compared to online reviews/news.

Some can be, but the can also have great features and really in depth previews. I remember last year, the E3 issue of PCGamer was released about 4 days after the Left 4 Dead 2 unveiling they had a 10 page feature from a visit to Valve and had all the info on what was changing, when every internet site was going "So theres a L4D2 now, lets wait for Valve to give us more news".

ProjectColossus

I haven't bought a mag in a good few years, but PCZone was my usual. First one I bought had Carmageddon on the cover in 1997, May I think. When I stopped buying them, I had found myself mostly paying to read material I had seen online a week or two before.. but now that it's gone, I'll miss it!

Overheal

ShaneU wrote: »

Prices for gaming magazines here have gone through the roof so I'm not surprised.

Which is an odd thing, its the oppossite in the US. Print media prices have crashed through the floor since the recession, the jobhunt boom and the correlative internet mini-boom. you can pick up a year's subscription to Popular Science/Time for $10 now.

SeantheMan

Ahh thats sad to hear

Had been buying it the past few years up until about 3 months ago (PC market went a bit stagnant)


Also used to love "Fight Club" each month on STEAM, and trying to get the photo taken at the end :P

PC Gamer is still good, prob the only one worth getting know, published by the same company I think (Future Publishing) or something.

I'd get Edge too, but its multi-format, so a lot of crap I don't wanna have to read about

Zeouterlimits

Always felt like a tabloidy PC Gaming magazine to me, but still had a place in my heart for it.
Still have that issue with the really early details about Bioshock, before the little sisters were even thought of, when they were more like disgusting legged slug creatures.

EDGE continues to be the best gaming mag, but Game Informer has made great strides since John Davison took over a few months ago.

CombatCow

Fantastic mag, sorry to see if go, even if I havent bought an issue in a few years :pac:

PogMoThoin

Mags like this were great years ago, when there were more articles than adverts. Nowadays these mags are like buying spam, their time has come, outdated by the technology they once told us about

Duggy747

Sad to hear 'em go, I haven't bought a PC mag in years but they were always my choice.

Last one I bought had Project IGI on the front and an exclusive first look at some upcoming game called Halo (everything looked different in it). There was also a small tutorial on how to build your own levels for Unreal Tournament which I used to love doing.

That was back in 2000, I think..............wow, 10 years! That issue still sits on top my magazine box in my parent's house along with early 90's editions of Mean Machines and CVG:pac:

Sierra Oscar

I still have pretty much every PC Zone magazine released since 2001 - 2002! :eek:

Sad to see them go . . . but PC Gamer really put the squeeze on them. Besides the prices were just far too high.