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GMR and XBN magazines are no more
- Thread starter Kumiko Nikaido
- Start date
FortNinety
Member
At this point I'm convinced that most of the haters here have never even picked up an issue of either publication.
Well look at that! I got laid off, and I -still- have to go to work today!
But seriously, thanks for all the compliments about XBN. The TeamXbox forums haven't nearly been so kind. I guess I'll blog about my thoughts today, and over the next few weeks as GMR and XBN are finally dead and buried.
That said, it isn't as if we've died or anything. We're still lurking on GAF, and um, preparing our resumes.
p.s. - Mercenaries is fun. A lot of fun.
But seriously, thanks for all the compliments about XBN. The TeamXbox forums haven't nearly been so kind. I guess I'll blog about my thoughts today, and over the next few weeks as GMR and XBN are finally dead and buried.
That said, it isn't as if we've died or anything. We're still lurking on GAF, and um, preparing our resumes.
p.s. - Mercenaries is fun. A lot of fun.
JackFrost2012
Banned
chespace said:
quick now: more fun than Sam & Max 2? ANSWER THE QUESTION.
mosaic said:
Frank, it's still too early to tell if Ziff can actually do anything for those who were let go. Nobody's been given any reshuffling news, probably because there isn't any headcount elsewhere. We all have generous severance packages, but you know, better to prepare for the worst than to just kick back and think I'm golden for whatever reason.
radios shipping overview
Member
Damn, after reading Jeremy Parish's blog comments about GMR, I feel really bad for never having picked it up. I remember the initial announcement painting it as something aimed at casual buyers who only look two to three months in the future for releases, and now Parish describes it as having import and retro coverage? Grr. That spurred me to nab a 12-backissue auction on eBay, and now I'm looking to fill in the gaps. Do you guys offer any back issues, or am I stuck going through old EB stock and second-hand sources?
Anyway, sad to hear about both cancellations. XBN was one of my favorite mags. I wish you all the best of luck.
Anyway, sad to hear about both cancellations. XBN was one of my favorite mags. I wish you all the best of luck.
radios shipping overview
Member
fennec fox
ferrets ferrets ferrets ferrets FERRETS!!!
The weblog is at http://toastyfrog.1up.com/
ZD does offer back issues, but (and I mean this in the kindest way to the fine employees at ZD circulation) they're kind of a ripoff. Stick to Ebay.
ZD does offer back issues, but (and I mean this in the kindest way to the fine employees at ZD circulation) they're kind of a ripoff. Stick to Ebay.
Wow.
I'm really sorry to hear that. Never had a sub. to GMR, but XBN was a fantastic magazine. I had a lot of respect for everyone there since they weren't biased towards hype or moneyhats. I wish everyone the best, I can't believe they would have this news right before Christmas.
I'm really sorry to hear that. Never had a sub. to GMR, but XBN was a fantastic magazine. I had a lot of respect for everyone there since they weren't biased towards hype or moneyhats. I wish everyone the best, I can't believe they would have this news right before Christmas.
Wow, Slashdot is absolutely brimming with hatred for the dearly departed mags.
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/12/14/157209.shtml?tid=188&tid=10
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/12/14/157209.shtml?tid=188&tid=10
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
D2M15 said:
Don't take it personally, I'm just allergic to Spectrum nostalgia. Yet I have a mighty stack of GamesTM at my desk to make me a hypocrite.
GMR was great because it took advantage of its unusual nature: the subscription-based distribution system meant it didn't have to worry about appealing to casual bookrack browsers by devoting half its covers to GTA/Halo/Next Big Thing du jour. That allowed it the freedom to devote space to games that often slip through the cracks in other publications. The mag had a fannish sincerity (not the same thing as fanboyism) to it that I really enjoyed. And they let me wax eloquent about Paper Mario and Marathon for longer than any sensible magazine should have.
Ironically, I liked XBN because it took the opposite approach. It was a console-specific pub that ditched fannish-ness in favor of a much more analytical approach. The writing and design were strong enough that I bought it for years despite my complete lack of interest at the time for all matters Xbox.
ToastyFrog said:
I appreciate seeing this, even if it's from a fella we employed as often as possible, because Jeremy 'gets it.' When Warpig asks aloud why we paid him to write four pages on Shin Megami Tensei, not only is it akin to looking a gift horse in the mouth, which he's excellent at doing, but it also misses the point of what we were doing at GMR. The industry is full of enough high-rolling franchises, like Madden, GTA, whatever, that it almost doesn't matter whether we cover these games lightly, heavily, or not at all. They'll still sell in the billions whether we champion them or not. That's not to say they're not good games, they're excellent games, and they deserve to sell. But so do games like Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Phantom Brave, Phantom Dust, Otogi 2, and others. They are well-made games that deserve to sell just as any other. And so we tried to shine a light on those types of games. Smaller publishers need every boost they can get, whether they're fighting for shelf space, or editorial space. If you can't dig it, sue me.
If I can be self-centered to my own personal goals for a moment, I felt very strongly that GMR should not chase after what we thought the buying public wanted to read. I thought we should put in front of our readers what they needed to read. I wanted to put things in a magazine that most magazines don't seem to do much of any more. I wanted to make GMR a magazine that I, as a gamer, would want to read. Game magazines are still very relevant, perhaps not to net-savvy enthusiasts, but in an encyclopedic sense. We should be trend-setters, we should be the taste-makers. It's great to see Western-developed games make such huge strides, as it makes their Japanese counterparts wake up and shake the arcade-borne cobwebs out of their systems, adjust, transform and grow. But that doesn't mean it's all gangster-clothing and bullet-time. Someone needs to show both sides of the picture and that's what we wanted to do on GMR, and god bless, we had the freedom to do it. You can question us for that, but that is a part of our legacy, 25 issues strong. Thank you to all who contributed to our success over the past two years, whether through contribution, or reader support. It makes it worthwhile even now.
It won't be the last you'll see of this sort of thing come out of Ziff. We have a few things up our sleeve, so hang tight.
"It's great to see Western-developed games make such huge strides, as it makes their Japanese counterparts wake up and shake the arcade-borne cobwebs out of their systems, adjust, transform and grow"
I don't think you'll see them adapt. It's not Japanese culture. They will become a niche, dominated by Western games, over time.
That's like saying, Japanese movies will adapt to become popular all over the world. They haven't have they? They aren't thinking for a second about outside cultures. Anime is popular only because it strikes a chord with angsty teens.
That Japanese games were #1 for a while there was probably merely a fad in the grand scheme of things. Thing of the money that will be put into next and next-next generation games, and how much it will take to impress gamers of Generation Y as they grow up. This industry is immature compared to Hollywood, but it's slowly inching towards becoming that business model and industry.
I don't think you'll see them adapt. It's not Japanese culture. They will become a niche, dominated by Western games, over time.
That's like saying, Japanese movies will adapt to become popular all over the world. They haven't have they? They aren't thinking for a second about outside cultures. Anime is popular only because it strikes a chord with angsty teens.
That Japanese games were #1 for a while there was probably merely a fad in the grand scheme of things. Thing of the money that will be put into next and next-next generation games, and how much it will take to impress gamers of Generation Y as they grow up. This industry is immature compared to Hollywood, but it's slowly inching towards becoming that business model and industry.
CrimsonSkies
Member
"If I can be self-centered to my own personal goals for a moment, I felt very strongly that GMR should not chase after what we thought the buying public wanted to read. I thought we should put in front of our readers what they needed to read."
I don't really need a game "journalist" to tell me what I "needed" to read in any given month. I'd really enjoy a publication that just presented the facts, had consistent standards, treated each game fairly, and let me make up my own mind without injecting their own personal gaming taste in the mix (I don't mean reviews here). Very few people have been able to do this in the gaming industry. Way too opinionated and tilted, but that seems to be the nature of things. I wish more actual degreed journalists would enter the field. Perhaps that would improve things.
I don't really need a game "journalist" to tell me what I "needed" to read in any given month. I'd really enjoy a publication that just presented the facts, had consistent standards, treated each game fairly, and let me make up my own mind without injecting their own personal gaming taste in the mix (I don't mean reviews here). Very few people have been able to do this in the gaming industry. Way too opinionated and tilted, but that seems to be the nature of things. I wish more actual degreed journalists would enter the field. Perhaps that would improve things.
CrimsonSkies said:
I'm guessing that since you've placed various words in quotation marks, you're trying to take swipes at either myself or people in my line of work, which seems to be something we should feel guilty of if I'm reading you right. But then again I don't expect "people" like "yourself" to ever be civil to anyone on this board unless it suits your subjective tastes. According to your wish list of things, you should just send me your email addy, and I'll make sure to get you on every press release that's ever sent out. No opinions, just bullet points and facts and a complete lack of anyone's personal taste to affect what's offered.
If you think you know about everything that comes out, and don't need to be exposed to something cool that you might have missed because your totally awesome favorite sites already told you about it, then you're the luckiest guy on earth. This intent was to educate and entertain our average reader, who doesn't spend hours poring over individual posts buried in a myriad of threads. But of course, you'll probably blather on about how they should hire scientists and poet laureates to construct teh ultimateXZXX0rz g4ming mag3zine.
Whoa!
In one part of one paragraph Milkman sums up what I've been thinking for a decade (and the reason I finally took the plunge to gaming journo).
GMR was genuine. It came across in every piece.
Somewhere between Edge and EGM there is a middle ground. A place for a serious gaming magazine that doesn't take itself too seriously. One that both the "gamer" and someone who just enjoys playing some games can pick up, read and enjoy.
Kobun Heat
Member
JAAAAAAAAAAMESMilkman said:
What happens with juniors in this thread?
If you have only this to add to the thread, it would have been better forcing yourself to save it.
Loosing a job is not funny, specially one you care of. So make yourself and humang being and show a little of respect. Is that asking too much?
Matlock said:
See, I likes my crude humor just fine.
And you don't need to get yourself a journalism degree to waste money on your way to a game writing job. Case in point, me. Current payoff date for my grad-school loans is in 2009.
The punch-line to that one is, I make more money doing this goofy shit than I would with the master's degree anyway.
DFS.
skip said:
You'd be correct, sir. Myriad was originally (in current form) a noun, meaking "myriad of" acceptable--it was later adopted as an adjective via poetry.
Of course, it could also mean 10,000, but that's severely outdated.
By the way, any word on...what I asked you about in pm the other day?
Kobun Heat
Member
Well then. I guess I'm just poetic.