How old is Sonic the Hedgehog?

 

    Photo from The Video Game History Foundation.

For over three decades, video game magazines were the way that a gamer received their news about all things gaming; from reviews to inform their purchasing decisions, to news about upcoming releases, interviews with the talented and enigmatic development studios and tips and tricks for how to get through difficult sections of games. The many and varied gaming magazines offered invaluable information and experiences to gamers everywhere. And depending on a specific video game enjoyer's tastes and console(s) of choice, there were loads of specialized magazines for them to choose from for more focused information, as well as even more magazines that were generalized and trying to cover all bases. For those of us who enjoyed gaming magazines, there was a long period of time where we lived in a sort of heaven and we weren't even aware of it - until it was over.

    Photo from CBR.com

From 1985, when the Famicom console released in Japan and largely resurrected the console video game industry, until relatively recently, gaming magazines were everywhere. You could pick up different magazines, both "official" and "unofficial," focused entirely on Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, Sega Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast, at various times in the last few decades - as well as some smaller magazines centered around more relatively niche consoles, like the TurboGrafx-16. Also, there were magazines like Edge, Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro and many others that tried to cover wide swaths of the industry. These slowly started trickling down in number as they were either being bought out by each other or closing up shop, as companies like Sega exited the console industry and the truly remarkable publications began rising to the top. By 2000, dozens of papers had ceased operations, and by 2010, we had culled the number down to the handful of journalistic institutions that had been around for decades. The 2010s were the true death knell of the gaming magazines, as they were rapidly replaced by two things: Website-based news coverage and Internet personalities. 

    IGN's PlayStation podcast, Podcast Beyond!, was a force of nature with a rabid fanbase, of which I was a devoted member.

 In the 2010s, websites like IGN, Kotaku, Polygon and GameSpot ascended into places of major dominance in the gaming press sector. More and more, consumers eschewed the last handful of notable gaming magazines in exchange for the convenience of garnering their information from these sites. This was also an era where some of these websites had notable names and teams that drew attention, like: Colin Moriarty and Greg Miller at IGN, Nick Robinson and Justin and Griffin McElroy from Polygon and other noteworthy personalities with their own cult-like fanbases. This was also the era of podcasts becoming wildly popular, where you could conceivably listen to your favorite personalities speak for hours about topics that interest you. The confluence of widely accessible, high-speed internet, smart phones and these relatively new, attractive sites with interesting people writing and producing content for them was a major blow to the last few gaming magazines. Then came the proper killshot - YouTube.

Not long after modern gaming websites stole the thunder from magazines, YouTube and Internet personalities came along and took that thunder from the very same websites. There has been a relatively rapid move to consumers choosing video content over any other form of media, and YouTube's approach of allowing literally anyone to start a channel and upload their own original content, has been a massive success and an earth-shattering shift in the wider media landscape. Suddenly, the old mainstays of information and entertainment, have been flipped on their heads and an increasing amount of people turn to YouTube and their favorite content creators for information. If you like a specific YouTube content creator and his or her opinion on gaming-related topics, you can subscribe to them and watch their videos and get your fix of news, reviews, opinions and whatever else you might want to watch, all from one perspective and from a voice that aligns with what you prefer. This decentralization of the gaming news sector has killed many of the gaming sites that had previously ended the gaming magazines.

    Photo from TheGamer.com

So, what is there to even talk about, you might be asking? Gaming magazines are dead, most gaming news sites are dead, and YouTube is sitting in the graveyard eyeing a few open plots, waiting on their residents to move in and cede the small, remaining vestiges of gaming coverage over to them. IGN is almost unrecognizable, as they have largely given up any degree of journalism to SEO farming via their infamous "guide and wiki" pages, that are a cluttered mess of unfinished video game walkthroughs and their pages are riddled with invasive ads and ugly design choices. Kotaku and Polygon have become notorious names in the gaming industry for their unhinged political rants and clickbait articles that are meant merely to drive upset readers to their site, where they can profit from ads. One of the last truly notable names in the gaming magazine landscape, Game Informer, was unceremoniously shuttered a few weeks ago, after thirty-three years of incredible journalism and games coverage. The question that I think is on a lot of people's minds is "is there a future for written games coverage at all?"

I personally think there is a great deal of importance in the written word. But, I don't believe that you should tune into these dying or corrupted gaming websites just because we want old-school gaming coverage to remain around. IGN seems to have largely thrown away their earned goodwill from the last decade of second-to-none gaming coverage, and I'd prefer that people allow a site like that to either course correct to be something of actual value to the industry or die off and open up the space for new voices and faces. Kotaku and Polygon are shambling corpses of their former selves, and are absolutely in the process of dying, so I don't think they will remain active beyond a few more years. What I suggest is finding the sources of written gaming coverage that speak to you. Find the voices that resonate with yours and follow them, and support them. There are hungry, impassioned writers out there who grew up with gaming magazines and enjoyed the heyday of the gaming websites, and were inspired to try and enter this field, only to see that it has been largely supplanted by YouTube and unenthusiastic voices. There are smaller sites out there and blogs, just like this one, that need your support. If you like what we have to say, please follow us and spread the word about us.

    A handful of gaming magazines I got just a couple of months ago, before Game Informer's untimely demise.

I want to offer a handful of still-operational gaming magazines that I think you should look into, if you enjoy getting your reviews and news from a magazine, like I do.

PC Gamer

 PC Gamer, to my knowledge, is the last traditional gaming magazine available in the United States. It can still be found on magazine racks at your local bookstore, and it looks like a yearly subscription is around $40 USD, which comes out to just a few dollars per issue. PC Gamer has recently garnered a mixed reception from some of their "clickbait"-driven articles on social media. But, their magazine, at least in my opinion, remains a solid piece of video game journalism. They obtain exclusive interviews with major developers and gaming visionaries, and provide invaluable coverage of smaller-scale, indie PC games. And though their site and magazine is named PC Gamer, and it is their focus, a lot of the games they cover are available on consoles as well. Obviously, don't support them if you take issue with them, but if you live in the United States and miss gaming magazines, they're the last of the Old Guard.

Nintendo Force

Nintendo Force is one of the best kept secrets in the gaming industry, in my opinion. It launched as a fan-driven successor to the famed Nintendo Power magazine, and has entirely kept the spirit of Nintendo Power alive and well. Nintendo Force operates via a Patreon subscription and is a bimonthly publication. Because there is an issue only every two months, each one comes chock-full of Nintendo-centric news and reviews, and the writers are very passionate. It has a classic feel, like a gaming magazine from the good old days. I believe each issue comes out to around $6, and the value there is immense, especially at that paltry price point.

Retro Gamer

Retro Gamer is a publication entirely focused on old games, and not just "retro" in the sense of PlayStation and Nintendo - they cover old PC games from the 1980s and games from dead consoles that haven't been around in decades, like the Amiga or the ZX Spectrum. From what I understand, Retro Gamer is based out of the UK. The UK seemingly still has some incredible gaming publications that have withstood the sea change of the gaming media transformation of the last decade or so. Retro Gamer can occasionally be found on my local bookstore's shelves next to PC Gamer.

 

Edge

Edge Magazine is a famed gaming magazine from the UK and is still offering premium written games coverage. I have never managed to find one in the United States, but you can order them, though it is not a cheap subscription to upkeep.

 

Retro PlayStation Magazine (RPM)

 Retro PlayStation Magazine is a quarterly magazine by Sandeep Rai (2 Old 4 Gaming), that he funds via Kickstarter. The magazines are smaller than your average paper, and a bit shorter in length, but given that they are focused solely on retro PlayStation coverage, they are still able to get each issue packed to the gills with rich history, contemporary reviews and fascinating interviews with developers of classic PlayStation games and series. Sandeep sells his past issues on his Etsy page, which I've linked above. I definitely recommend checking these out, they're a lot of fun! P.S., I'll be writing a Ratchet & Clank retrospective for an upcoming issue of RPM, and I'm very excited to share my thoughts and see my name in an actual print magazine.

Video Game History Foundation

This isn't a single magazine subscription, like the previous ones I mentioned. The Video Game History Foundation is an organization that aims to preserve all things gaming-centric, and that includes the premiere way that games were talked about for years - gaming magazines. They received a ton of vintage gaming magazines for their database and ended up with duplicates of many of them. If you subscribe to their subscription service, you are enlisting for a monthly, random, surprise magazine from a few different retired publications. According to their description, it can be magazines from the 1980s-2000s, and primarily from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), GamePro or Nintendo Power, but it is possible to get niche Sega or PlayStation-centric magazines. For someone like me, who loves older games and learning about them, this is a dream subscription.

 

 

Lastly, I just wanted to offer another blog network a shout-out. The SuperPod Network is a wonderful site of passionate voices in the gaming media landscape that we both occupy. They have loads of fascinating, funny, interesting podcasts with great perspectives, as well as a full-scale blog, similar to Netto's Game Room. They are doing great, personality-driven work and deserve your attention. I hope the future of written gaming media lies in sites like ours and theirs, with a dedicated community and unique perspectives that aren't just parroting the same thoughts and opinions we hear on the few remaining larger gaming news sites.

I hope between these remaining gaming magazines that I've shared with you, and small, ardent blogs like Netto's Game Room and the SuperPod Network, that you find solid, valuable gaming coverage in the written word. We're out here, and we're trying.