 | Paper gaming magsAugust 20th, 2006 |
I’m fond of pointing out that these days, Penny Arcade has more reach (and much more street cred!) than many of the print mags. Now comes an article on Gamesindustry.biz giving some hard numbers on just how dire the situation is for print games outlets:
The average circulation of a games mag in the UK is now almost certainly well under 35,000, compared to just over 50,000 a year ago. As one top UK PR put it today, “Jesus Christ. No one used to get out of bed for less than 80k.”
On an individual level, the downside is even more obvious. The benchmark of the British market in recent years is the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, which has suffered substantially in the 12 months – falling to 100,117 compared to its last audit of 132,069. Unfortunately for the execs in Bath, the number for the same period last year was 133,242; that’s a 24 per cent decrease year-on-year. When looking at those figures, it’s worth bearing in mind that Sony’s sold more than 7 million PS2s in the UK.
Are there things that print mags can provide that the web cannot deliver? One thing is clear: competing on the grounds of reviews, news, and demos is a strategy unlikely to succeed: the Web has both more bandwidth and more timeliness.
Content is king. It’s possible, of course, for a print mag to establish itself as a content provider that is simply unmatched on the Web; discounting the effects of scanned-in articles, there’s always an audience for excellent content. But if the type of content that is provided isn’t broadly appealing enough for financial viability, well, the market is unforgiving. I suspect, for example, that something like The Escapist has the sort of content that many game aficionados would be willing to pay to read, but I strongly doubt that it’s a large enough audience to justify a print magazine.
So are the print mags doomed? Interestingly, there’s launches of MMO print mags (I’ll even have an article in one of them). At first glance, the match-up seems odd; it’s an audience that is by definition ultra-connected and certainly doesn’t need the latest news. The last try was heavy on the opinion pieces and strategy articles. We’ll have to see what the new tries are like.
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