EGM magazine, whatever happened?

[Mad Gear]

I recently picked up an issue of EGM magazine as i was a huge fan of it during the early to mid 90's and i was truly shocked and saddened to see what it had become.

Back in the day the magazine was literally bursting with reviews and previews and would be a good 200+ pages thick. Now it's more like a pamphlet that would be dished out free at your local Gamestop.

I know that times are hard now due to internet sites but there's plenty of other mags that seem to be doing OK. It just seems strange that such a once massive selling magazine has become a flickering shadow of it's former self.

[theMot]

Yeah 200 pages, 150 of which were ads. You can probably tell i was never a fan but it's the truth. I still have a few copies from around 93/94, the yearly review issues were pretty good but the rest. blah.

[FoxyGamer]

yup, that's true- and it's not just EGM, it's every magazine out there- either it's watered-down self-serving BS, or it's a bunch of "wacky" commentators.

I've already called for a journalistic revolution in another thread :D

[le geek]

I disagree to a degree. While it is a smaller magazine, EGM's writing is much better than it has been in years. Back when Next Generation was still published, I'd lump EGM in with Gamepro...

Cheers,
Ben

[Graham Mitchell]

EGM has blown for awhile. I'm constantly shocked that EGM sucks these days, and Nintendo Power is actually halfway decent.

But you know, I don't think every magazine totally sucks. GMR was okay when it was around, and Game Informer is actually kind of cool, IMO.

[geneshifter]

EGM has blown for awhile. I'm constantly shocked that EGM sucks these days, and Nintendo Power is actually halfway decent.

But you know, I don't think every magazine totally sucks. GMR was okay when it was around, and Game Informer is actually kind of cool, IMO.

I agree about GameInformer. That is actually a fairly good mag. Still has lots of ads but not too many and the previews and reviews are pretty good. As long as the amount of ads doesn't get bad like O magazine or Cosmo, it'll be fine, lol.

[LiquidPolicenaut]

I recently picked up an issue of EGM magazine as i was a huge fan of it during the early to mid 90's and i was truly shocked and saddened to see what it had become.

Back in the day the magazine was literally bursting with reviews and previews and would be a good 200+ pages thick. Now it's more like a pamphlet that would be dished out free at your local Gamestop.

I know that times are hard now due to internet sites but there's plenty of other mags that seem to be doing OK. It just seems strange that such a once massive selling magazine has become a flickering shadow of it's former self.

I totally agree on this one. I was a big fan of the mag back in the early to mid 90's when I also used to buy Gamefan. I still feel EGM was best from early 90s to about 95 and then slowily started going down after the change from the original editors/review crew. Around 98, however, things went straight to hell and kept on going for the following years (granted, by 96/97, I was liking Gamefan a lot better than EGM at that point). Ah yes, those were the glory days of game magazines. They just arent the same anymore, especially after the internet explosion. I still have many old issues of both EGM and Gamefan and still like to bring them out and read through them again.....

[BHvrd]

April Fools jokes is one thing that did them in, i'm not bullshitting either.

I knew 3 different friends that cancelled their subscriptions over the Goldeneye 007 on N64 fiasco.

I stopped reading them personally cause of ads, they ran some really tasteless ones and just went overboard imho.

[fishsandwich]

Yeah, the last issue was quite thin. Slow time of year for advertisers? I do not like the last re-design they did but I dtill read it.
I haven't read a GamePro in years.

[BocoDragon]

"Previews" used to contain little information, and mostly screenshot montages showing the whole first level of the sidescroller or whatever.....

News would be in huge typeface, and only one or two stories per page.... No news ticker or anything like that.

The back half of the magazine was filled with mail order ads for companies that no longer exist because of the internet.

I'm not sure if there is literally less content in new EGM at all...... though keep in mind that the value of game information has gone down in general since the internet. I don't think it's as magical to pour over an issue's nooks and crannies like it once was.... most information has been repeated and discussed online long before it reaches the stands....



April Fools jokes is one thing that did them in, i'm not bullshitting either.

I knew 3 different friends that cancelled their subscriptions over the Goldeneye 007 on N64 fiasco.

I stopped reading them personally cause of ads, they ran some really tasteless ones and just went overboard imho.

haha well those are not valid reasons to dislike a magazine IMO... Their sense of humor and the fact that they ran crude humor ads? Meh.

[MarioMania]

I liked EGM in the 90's not so in the 2000's

[gepeto]

I tell you I went on a trip last week an said what the hell I pick up a nintendo power from the newsstand and I was quite impressed the writing the articles the reviews were all top notch.

I blew off nintendo power for years because I felt that because there was really no 3rd party support it would be kiddie and biased. Boy was I wrong I plan on placing a order for a sub.

As far as Egm I don't know what happened. The staff door revolves alot and
I don't think they changed with the times. When it went to like 200 pages I was a heavy egm fan sure alot of it was ads but they had a diversed range of topics. I trusted some reviews but I sorta felt they were on the take.

Famous quotes
Toshinden is better than tekken, Way of the warrior Is the best fighting game ever made, Crash bandicoot is better than sonic or mario.

Famous Letter of the month I remember goes to habeeb the torturer.

[smokehouse]

Most gaming mags suck and EGM landed up being no different. About the time EGM started to slowly go downhill, Die Hard Game Fan was released and for a few short years, gamers were treated to what a real gaming magazine should be.

Not to long ago I got a “free” subscription to EGM and decided to once again give it a chance. “Yep, it still sucks.” I thought to myself as I read the uninspired comments and lousy reviews. I let the free subscription run out and the chances of me ever picking up a copy are slim and none.

[norkusa]

C'mon, the new EGM isn't that bad. The meat of the magazine, the reviews, is still basically still the same and the layout + previews are good. Seanbaby's monthly article is always a nice read too.

Anyone that thinks that the early 90's EGM's were the best years though really need to thumb thru them again. I was just looking thru some of my old issues because of this thread and saw *a lot* of laughable stuff in them (not including the ridiculous amount of advertising and poor quality screen shots either). My favorite was an 'artist' rendering of what the new Cruis'n' USA game would look like. The pic literally looked like it was made in 5 minutes on a Commodore 64.

My only complaint about the new EGM is that they seem to rip-off a lot of their feature ideas from other mags. Like when they set up a bunch of classic systems for a group of 10-13 yo kids (and more recently, a bunch of old ladies with a Wii) was a blatant rip-off of an ongoing feature in the British music mag Q where the play new and old music for kids and note their reactions. There were a few more too that I can't remember at the moment.

[PDorr3]

I enjoy listening to their podcast more than their magazine really. I dont really read their huge articles but I do like reading reviews and their previews about games I dont know about. I dont base my buys on their reviews one bit but I always find peoples impressions on games in their reviews to be interesting no matter how much I may disagree with them.

[portnoyd]

EGM. It finally reached the point where even for free, I would read it for about 10 minutes (or half a dump, for those of you keeping count).

[Damaramu]

Yup, I get it as a freebie too (until June of '08). It's truly a crap magazine, in which I usually carry it to the john with me as well.

[bangtango]

I don't really see the new EGM as being any better or worse than the 1990's magazines, just different. The review crew section has still slipped a little but the format of having multiple reviewers is still there. The reviews may not be lengthy or hard hitting, sometimes they are not well written, but having 4 guys give a take on the game is something that always kept me a reader.
I guess the problem today is you never have any idea who is going to be reviewing a game, at least I don't.

Back in the old days, you could expect Harris, Semrad, Alessi and some version of Sushi X. Eventually Alessi got replaced by someone (Danyon Carpenter?) but for a good stretch, you at least knew who would be reviewing every game that month. Nowadays they assign various reviews to somewhere around a dozen different people, isn't it?

As for the current staff, I think Shoe is an asset to the magazine and I am a Seanbaby reader. Shoe is better than most people give him credit for.

[swlovinist]

I am not going to tell someone whether or not to like the mag. We all have different opinions of what our favorite mags are, and why we read. I personally think the mag right now is far away from its glory days. The way the EGM crew talks in their reviews just plain blows. They are so stuck on themselves. I dont see the mag lasting more than a couple of years more. Game Informer has become an okay mag. They used to suck, but now have filled the the gap as the better all arounder read, even though they tie in too much to their gamestore merchandise. Heck, I even like Nintendo Power more these days. Gamepro as well, has started not to suck as much with their new format. Even though I think that there can be a better mag for me, I will take what I can get. As of now I am not a subscriber of any of them.

[Damaramu]

What's that little section towards the back of EGM that pops up every now and then. Sean Baby? Puerile and completely unfunny. I don't give a shit who he thinks he is, it's just sad.

[Wolfrider31]

I think its just the nature of gaming mags now. With the advent of the internet, they're simply not good enough sources for news and information. That equals less people buying, which equals having to shell out more space for ads, which leads to less people buying.

What I don't understand is why no one has come up with doing a games magazine in the style of The Escapist. That's internet proof.

[Wolfrider31]

Anyone that thinks that the early 90's EGM's were the best years though really need to thumb thru them again. I was just looking thru some of my old issues because of this thread and saw *a lot* of laughable stuff in them (not including the ridiculous amount of advertising and poor quality screen shots either). My favorite was an 'artist' rendering of what the new Cruis'n' USA game would look like. The pic literally looked like it was made in 5 minutes on a Commodore 64.


Haha! I literally had that EXACT issue open to that EXACT page a few hours ago. It was pretty laughable.

[rbudrick]

While I too believe EGM's glory days were the early to mid 90s, I think that they are on par for almost every other mag out there now, which is to say they all kinda suck right now, though NP has actually gotten better, while at the same time sticking rather closely to their roots. NP has a highwire balancing act they must carry out to cater to many age groups. I think they've done this balancing act as gracefully as such a difficult act can be done, and kudos to them. Yes, it's sorta kiddy, but not completely now, and certainly not alienating to anyone.

After EGm moved offices across the country, that was the huge turning point for me. Certain writers I admired very much and I thoroughly enjoyed thier style and and their writing in general. Now, I just don't give a shit who each writer is, and I don't see much of any style with any of them. I used to actually be able to tell who wrote what article without even looking, but now, like mentioned above, it is a revolving door. It's so sad, because it used to be my favorite mag in the world. Now, I just read it and keep subscribing out of habit.

I will say, in their favor, they do occasionally have some very interesting articles, but they are very far and few in between now.

It all makes me wonder...without the internet, would the news we received from these mags, having been unread by us, be just as magical as past incarnations of the mags? I just don't know. I love the internet and all, but it has cheapened the thrill of receiving new issues of favorite publications. However, I look at my favorite non-gaming mags like Scientific American, Discover and National Geographic, and they stay comletely fresh, offering plenty of news and artcile content I never saw online. I think NP has managed to still offer a reasonable amount of info of this nature purely due to the exclusive access they have to info, though even the writers and editors of NP are limited, since they are quite obviously low men on the totem pole at NOA.

-Rob