The internet and the availability of news content that is updated daily has affected print magazine sales. But retard magazine editors are also damaging their own sales by putting their unique content on their websites, sometimes before their print mags go on sale.

The EDGE website will gain nothing by putting up their review of Halo 4 the same day as the other 100 websites and blogs. But the mag loses something - a reason for buying it.

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I like magazines that give me more than just "information" though. I buy EDGE for the well written columns, and in depth articles that aren't just "Top X that Y!"

Good writing is a profession. Professionals need to be paid, and subscribing to magazines like EDGE lets that happen.

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The Decline of Console Video Games is Upon Us

With the redesign, more prolific title, new price, & upcoming release of Wii-U, & no doubt another price drop for 3DS, I see no reason why Nintendo Gamer won't have a considerably better time of it this year.

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Knew I was going wrong somewhere.

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Aren't circulation figures becoming increasingly irrelevant in an age where a lot of people read the online versions of their favourite magazines and newspapers?

Daily Mail circulation figures may have fallen, but their website recently posted record traffic.

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The new Nintendo Gamer mag has only made things worse. From the outside it looks like a decent, informative read. Then you come to the fanart and cosplay sections and realise their focus group researchers were all 13

Now GameCentral has a national audience in the Metro every tuesday (which is free) I wonder how the others can compete.

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Although it shares some of the same content, their website is completely different to the newspaper - it's basically TMZ.

It's like the paper is there to appeal to the usual misery guts, whereas the website becomes even more celebrity/gossip focused.

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Yep, because anyone who does cosplay or fanart is 13. They're two of the most expressive creative outlets a gamer can have, and many, many people above that age engage in either or both.

Besides, how can two small sections prevent a mag from being a decent, informative read? What a bizarre argument.

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I would point towards Rock Paper Shotgun, amongst other sites, for reasons why the death of print doesn't necessarily mean the death of quality games journalism.

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[STEAM] [PSN] [TWITTER] [LAST.FM] [RAPTR]

Back in the day when I read PC gamer it had a circulation of 80,000 that is a huge drop.

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Lexus Manson - The Worst Blog on the Internet or your money back!!!

And yet print budgets have fallen massively (and continue to do so)

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GamerGuides.com

I bought the latest issue of Singletrack (a mountain biking magazine) today and in the opening editorial they talked about how paper and distribution costs are going up and the magazine trade is waning, before announcing they've got 20% more subscribers than they did last year and they're going to be printing on thicker, better paper and with higher quality ink. There's no big company backing them up, they're completely on their own and I don't know how they do it. It's just a damn good magazine, and it's only £3.50 (going up to £4 the issue after they upgrade).

There's always going to be demand for a video games magazine. I just see the cheapo ones disappearing and a magazine like Edge becoming a bit more expensive, printing less often but still getting enough sales to go on.

EDGE: 24,443 (down from 28,051)
GamesTM: 15,066 (down from 18,025)

guess it wont be long before my sub to either mag is not renewed as there wont be a mag to sub to.
as for my other mag sub (Retro Gamer) i'd guess that will be way way less than the above on sales.

I think they do Retro Gamer more for the love of doing it than making piles of dosh.

Its strawberry floating bizarre that magazine sales are going down so rapidly when more people than ever before are getting into gaming as a hobby. Fair enough theres the net to take away readers but you'd think there would be a lot more impulse buying of magazines than before.

I think maybe the price puts people off. I mean edge is a fiver which I think is still value for money, but i'm a cretinous nerd:-)

Official playstation magazine,i am amazed that still has readers. What is it now,6 quid or so with a demo disc thats pretty irrelevant with the advent of PSN.

As for Total film,thats the worst magazine i've read in my life,it should be used as food for the fire and nothing more.

Games tm readership is worryingly low,its a magazine that divides opinion but I love it,always have and I prefer it over Edge. Its a sad day when a magazine closes its doors,i still shed the occasional tear for Arcade

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Rapidly-greying is SHITE at games

Surely it's more to do with how out-of-date the information is vs. quality of content?

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"Race drivers don't really care how fast they're going..we keep going faster and faster until we approach that limit of control and that's when we balance ourselves..that's how we make good time."
JOHN FITCH
1950's Le Mans driver

I'm almost tempted to subscribe to 360 Gamer, just to feel special.

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Download my Android game for FREE on the Google Play store

The price is off-putting at £5 a go. I have old copies of Mean Machines and stuff and they were £1.20 or something and I used to buy 3 or 4 a month for different formats. NO chance of doing that these days.

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1 > 2 > 3 >>>>>>> 4 >>>>> 5

Don't agree with that I'm afraid. I've always rated NGamer highly and think since the new look/name it has just got even better. The whole point is to celebrate Nintendo and gaming on the whole. Fanart and cosplay is part of the gaming culture so has a right to be there, besides it's only 2 small sections so hardly taking up a lot of space. Doesn't effect the great features and writing that makes up the rest of the mag.

And it's not as if it's like a "send in your drawings" feature of old magazines, these are decent, professional looking pieces of fan art... usually.

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The Eeveelution club! \o/

It's really sad seeing the decline in print magazines, I always love carrying the latest copy of Edge/Games TM with me for a quick read. It's just nice having a phisical magazine in your hand rather than reading off a screen. I don't read them for the latest gaming news, just for the really good articles.

I could see the digital copies of these magazines picking up if there was a good cheap device along the lines of the Kindle (sub £80) which had a nice non backlit (option to turn off/on) touch screen using something similar to e ink.

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Total Film used to be really good, what's wrong with it these days?

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