Shocked at GamesTM's numbers, it's a great mag.

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Maybe some of their silly scores, & antagonistic features (such as this one right here) have helped to drive off readers.

Jibes towards "rival formats" have started creeping their way back in to some single format magazines too, after years of being absent. It's so boring.

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Nowt wrong if you feel like playing on your sony GAYstation or Nintendo Wee.

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GamerGuides.com

I wonder if X360 will continue to call themselves the "Best Selling Independent Xbox Magazine" like they did last time. This led to the ridiculous situation of both Xbox World 360 (genuine) & X360 calling themselves "Best Selling Indie" on the cover.

A few years ago Play were promoting pages in the magazine as a "free gift". strawberry float right off. Actually ended up with PSM3 mentioning it in their opening editorial because it was so laughable.

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Y'know what would boost sales?

Tits.

Man, that PS1 mag that was full of 'em, forgotten its name...good times as a lad.

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I remember wanting to become a videogame journalist when I was a teenager more than a decade ago, and even then I knew it was a dying industry. The magazines were becoming thinner all the time, others were going bust (Total 64 for one) and all the time prices were actually going up, meaning that they were compensating for a dwindling readership (or that's how I explained it to myself, anyway).

On top of those concerns, I was always hearing bad things about the salaries of games journos and I knew that the only decent mags at the time were based in Bath - not a place I could see myself living.

I'm glad I got into TV listings in the end, as this is an industry that hasn't even peaked yet, let alone started to decline.

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Having lived in London all my life 'til I joined Future, I felt exactly the same way for a long long time.

And yet, six and a half years after moving here, I now can't see myself living anywhere else. (Unless a lottery win takes me to Vancouver or Boston.)

There are some downsides to games journalism, including the salary woes you mention, but I promise you living in Bath isn't one of them. It's an incredible city. Despite London being my home town, and all my family (and football team!) still being based there, I'd hate to go back to that ratrace.

What's the night life like?

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A student's dream, and a cynical 30-something games journalist's nightmare...

Neither of which appeals to a gay guy, hence my decision to work in Leeds and head ultimately for London rather than Bath!

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Ha! Ok, that'll teach me to lurk on here eh?

I havent read a games magazine since I was a child. I bought a tech magazine last year when I was staying in a hotel and wouldnt have even bothered using it as toilet paper.

What is the point in buying something in which all the information is out of date and irrelevant? The decent articles are all on the internet anyway. Why even buy jazz mags? Its all on the internet for free. Add to that the fact that they are stupidly priced.

Meh, useless medium kept alive by children.

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New master race build guide | Budget HTPC build

Why buy anything lol ? ?

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That simply isn't true of any games mag I know.

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Despite Future's spin on ABCs being 'not all that' I do still worry about Ninty Gamer's figures. I imagine, though, that bar it losing money hand over fist or a company disaster they'll keep it afloat and hope it'll pick up when Wii-U appears.

I've pretty much gone totally digital for what mainstream mags I get now. Ninty Gamer, Edge and Retro Gamer both go to the pad each month. They cost less (not quite 'less' enough, though) and I don't end up with piles of mags to get rid of. I've gone back to fanzines like Scroll, .exp, Fort90 and Kill Screen (although I find it a tad poncy at times) when I want a physical games read. It'd be quite nice to have a UK games zine to read if anyone knows of one?

Is the PC Gamer from steam the current UK magazine or has it been merged with US mag?

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

Londons awful, a heaving mass of humanity rushing about all the time. A visit is nice but I'm always ready to go after two days,

Bath is much much nicer.

Entirely separate thing, AFAIK made by the US team.

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

I still subscribe to OPM (which somewhat mitigates the price, I pay about £4 an issue I think), and think that the magazine is as good as it has ever been. One thing that put me off games magazines - and stopped me buying them for years - was the immaturity and relentless sexism, and the feeling that it was for boys who, in spirit at least, had never advanced beyond puberty. The current iteration of OPM treats you like an adult, is very well written, and isn't just Nuts/Zoo for gamers.

I do agree though that they ought to either lose the disc and hence cut the price, or otherwise do something very different with it. If it offered decent audio/visual "magazine" content they could justifiably keep the existing price.

PSM/OPM was steadfast in their attitude towards this since day one - they were firmly against it. OPS2 #34 rolled in however & that went straight out of the window. That lasted for about 6 months, before they changed it up again, toned it down somewhat & instead opted to hire a recurring model. Gorgeous as she was, that's what FHM is there for, surely? If you're buying a gaming magazine to be titillated, you're probably not old enough to be purchasing something else.

The only improvement the third iteration of OPS2 had over the original (#1 to #25) were the increasingly excellent covers. I thought the Need for Speed Underground one was especially great.

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