When does the last issue come out? This magazine was actually SOLD in my hometown but I always ignored it. Might as well buy the last issue so Flint knows people CARE about what he's killing off.
When does the last issue come out? This magazine was actually SOLD in my hometown but I always ignored it. Might as well buy the last issue so Flint knows people CARE about what he's killing off.
eBay Auctions / GameTZ profile / DP Feedback / Youtube / Twitter / RateYourMusicOriginally Posted by Edmond Dantes
I dont know if it was anything against the mag itself or more with how I tended to avoid the vast majority of gaming mags in general, but I never even read T&T. Looking back at it though, I wish other gaming mags would go away before it. I think many could agree as well.
I feel sorry that T&T has folded. I'm amazed that it's survived as long as it had. Wasn't it only supposed to last for one or two issues way back then? It's a testament to the brilliant writing and content of everyone involved.
For me, this was the last link to that videogame past, the era of VG&CE and Electronic Games and the fanzines. I always appreciated the fact that T&T pulled writers from the zine crowd, like Ara Shirinian and Pat Reynolds and, of course, Joe Santulli. I don't think we ever truly achieved our dream of the "professional game fanzine," but Tips & Tricks came the closest.
I also think Bill Kunkel is right on the money as far as Gamefaqs is concerned. It's dominant for one simple reason - it's the only player. Instead of a comprehensive game database, I frequently find something that's half-finished, poorly assembled, and cheaply produced. It's designed like a website from the late '90s, not this decade.
The idea of pdf strategy guides, or at least moving away from the endless scrolling text, is long overdue. Heck, do away with those antiquated faq's anyway. They don't help me nearly as often as they should, and very rarely for anything more than one console cycle in the past.
I do think the prozines, as they've existed for the past decade or so, are doomed to extinction, but that's because of their poor content. Then again, I don't know if a market for a real videogame magazine exists yet. You'd think consumers would be more grown up by now, especially now that games are finally accepted as part of our pop culture. You never have to deal with those insulting "I let my kid play this game" articles in magazines and newspapers anymore.
So why isn't the public being served? Why does it seem like the existing prozines are targeting the same kids who read MAD and Spider-Man comics? It's still far too juvenile, still far too corporate, and still far too obsessed with the hype machine. They're catering to children who obsess about their wish lists to Santa.
Fortunately, the internet provides us with far more options than ever before. I'd prefer to see this as our opportunity. The loss of print isn't always a bad thing. Perhaps this media - games - is better suited to an interactive format like the internet. Games journalism is more commonly pursued, and many of us are still working out the kinks, just as videogames are still fairly young. And the arrival of Virtual Console and Live Arcade (and their peers) will finally bring all of videogaming history together. We won't be forced to deal with what's new, new, NEW!!! We'll have choices, and that's going to have a profound impact on things.
Hmm...now that I think about it, this really is the new golden age of videogames. It's never been better. Now we just need the media to really address it.
My endless thanks to Bill Kunkel and everyone at T&T for their many years of dedication and service. Here's hoping you manage to pay the bills without taking a crummy day job. You know, like me.
Ghibli Blog - Studio Ghibli, animation, and the movies
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Video Game Fanzines Forever!
As an aside, I'm surprised by Bill's statement about EGM meeting an untimely demise. I'm not aware of circulation numbers, but I've always assumed that they've remained successful. They're probably the best games magazine overall right now, and it's actually good reading every once in a while. But maybe that's just aging loyalty. Whatever.
Still, is there talk of EGM going under? I can't imagine that it would. What would that leave then? Game Informer, which is published by the retail chain here in the Twin Cities? Play, Dave Halverson's latest incarnation? There are a couple others I can't name, but they seem really, really cheap. Would that leave us only the UK imports?
Ghibli Blog - Studio Ghibli, animation, and the movies
Daniel Thomas Vol 4 - Video games, music, and my musings
Video Game Fanzines Forever!
EGM the best gaming mag left? I'm laughing but that's a scary thought. Game Informer is a horible mag I must admit. It always ranked up there with Gamepro in my opinion. I'm still a bit bothered over Nintendo Power. It wasnt much better, but atleast at one time it gave very good in depth walkthrus of games released for their systems. Sometimes they'd even cover games that didnt get released untill much later then originaly planed.
That's sad..
Future of Print
Obviously, I'm not privvy to the numbers, but Z-D is clearly dumping as much content as possible onto 1UP and unless I'm mistaken, there was no blow-in subscription card in the latest EGM. That would mean death by attrition -- run out the string on existing subscriptions and then dump it. Ad sales also appear to be dropping.
Hey, I briefly wrote a Game Doctor column in EGM and Sendai/Decker published the 90s reincarnation of EG, so while EGM has never been a big favorite of mine, they've done some good things over the years and I like a lot of Dan's work. I thought the PS3 tomato-shot cover really took sac and was the kind of good edgy that EGM can accomplish at its best.
Game Informer stays alive by attracting ads with its massive readership, which is to say everybody who rents a game in North America gets a free sub. That business model even killed off LIFE Magazine eventually, so I don't know how long it will work for GI, esp since pretty soon game publishers are going to start wondering if it's worth generating advertising for one magazine.
Hardcore Gamer is still around and may even pick up at least one of T&T's more attractive staff members. Gamepro, well, I won't even attempt to explain how that's still around.
It does seems as if gamers have stopped looking at the magazine stand and, even if they haven't, they can get game coverage in WIRED, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, ROLLING STONE, etc. since gaming now IS part of the mainstream.
Unfortunately, as the mindless reprinting of a blog rant by a T&T freelancer who had no knowledge of the situation on sites like Kotaku and Joystiq demonstrates, online game journalism still has a long way to go, as no print magazine on Earth would have parroted that jive without checking with Chris Bieniek or me first.
Anyway, I still like reading material I can take into the bathroom with me.
It seems like the guy from newsweek (who's name i won't even try to spell) gets most of the "exclusives" these days...
I'm guilty of not paying for a game mag since the 90's. As much as some of you are slamming gamefaqs, they have an edge over "professional" game sites: user generated content. With no deadlines to worry about, users can take months to make sure their guides cover every feature in a game.
The vast vast majority of game mag guides/official strat guides just aren't in-depth enough. With the exception of some DoubleJump guides, I have ALWAYS found errors / missing info. It's not always the fault of the authors: they have to rush these guides to market in very short time periods, so it's no suprise that things are left out, but it's still damn sloppy. What I'd give to get ultimania guides translated!
With guides out of the way, the only thing mags can offer are features / news. sites like kotaku get me game news much faster than a game mag could. So that leaves features. Currently Mags seem to have the best features, but it's only a matter of time until they're antiques. the move to 1up.com is probably the smartest move Ziff could've made. It'll only be a matter of time before EGM is phased out.
The only reason I've picked up mags in the last 5-10 years has been for demo discs, so if sites like 1up.com could work deals out with the companies, I'd be happy to pay a fee for exclusive features / demo discs mailed to me. I think that this is where the future of game publishing is.
What I like about reading magazines, apart from physically holding something in my hands, is the ability to read more comprehensive articles, something more in depth than the hype machine. It seems that that's really the sole domain of games writing in mainstream publications these days. Yes, I'm glad that you're plugging Grand Theft Auto, but what about something else? What about the games culture itself, or its history?
I know that magazine publishing was hit especially hard in the last recession (which many of us have never really recovered from), and the fact that we're a country that simply doesn't read is a glaring problem. But I'm still puzzled at why there isn't a better outlet for videogames. I'm not going to miss the current paradigm, but I'd be greatly disappointed if all the prozines disappeared forever.
I'd still rather read the zines. They were always better. The basic fundamental question - how to write about videogames, and what to say - have never been properly answered.
Ghibli Blog - Studio Ghibli, animation, and the movies
Daniel Thomas Vol 4 - Video games, music, and my musings
Video Game Fanzines Forever!
This is one thing I have to agree with completly. I've not bought an actual subscription let alone an issue of a gaming mag in over 5 years. Why? Because the way reviews are handled. Often times the reviews are done with a biased edge twords certain companies, often will overly criticize a game for minor flaws, or even pump a game everyone already knows will be a sucsess at the expense of everything else. They throw away objectivity in favor of comprimising their integrity. Yes, it's game reviews. I get that. The problem is, for all the bitching and crying from the gaming comunity at large over how companies refuse to grow up and release mature content, reviewers on the other hand have yet to do likewise. It doesnt look as if it'll ever change though. Untill then, I dont see gaming mags getting much growth.
Magazines give off a more personal feel to me than a web site. I'll just use EGM as an example. Name a random game that gets reviewed by a few guys in EGM around the same time that a place like Gamespot or IGN reviews it. Whether or not a magazine or web site gets a kickback or advertising dollars for a review doesn't come into the equation when I'm reading it. I can get enough from most any review, good or bad, to make up my own mind.
When I read that review in EGM, Nintendo Power, Game Informer, Gamepro or an older magazine, I think of it as a person having reviewed the game. Fair review or not, I don't always associate the review with that particular magazine and damn them for a poor review. When I see the same game reviewed on some larger internet site that covers games, I consider it a review by the web site and not a person. It feels more impersonal to me.
Guys writing for magazines may give unfair reviews, poorly written reviews or reviews that are anything but a review. Yet I am more accustomed to reading reviews by a person in a magazine than I am on a web site. Sometimes the magazine review is a lot better or at least more fair, see below.
Typical budget priced PS2 RPG:
-EGM guy: "5.5 out of 10. The storyline, graphics and spells are cool, if you're living in 1995."
-Established Web Site: "This game sucks and the graphics look like first generation PS1 graphics. Nothing new."
Last edited by bangtango; 06-30-2007 at 07:32 PM.
While I can't claim to have a lot of experience with reading Tips & Tricks, I still must say I've very sad to hear this news, especially what with all this talk of recent improvements (I'll have to remember to rectify my inexperience and pick up some issues in the future).
Seems like more and more bad news keeps coming for video game journalism, and I can only hope that some good will come out of it. Maybe it'll be a wake-up call for some publishers and writers to act more professional and credible and start offering better content. Maybe we'll see a revival of gaming magazines in the future when people realize their aren't enough choices left anymore and the internet can't replace everything. Sometimes things are free for a reason. Sometimes getting news and getting it now isn't enough.
Personally, I think the best feature of a gaming magazine is the passion and talent of the writers. If they don't have those traits, the magazine has got nothing. Few things make me happier than reading a truly well-written article on gaming, whether it be a review, special feature, strategy section, or whatever, and don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic amateur writers online but they're hard to find. Unlike other arts like drawing or music, writing is something that nearly everyone in the Western world can do in a literal sense, but very few have the skill to make it an art, despite that everyone and their brother thinks they can. Trying to find a decent review on GameFAQs can be a very disheartening, nauseating experience. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. Sites like HonestGamers are far more discriminating, but the best writers tend to not be especially prolific. I think the largest factor of that problem is that these brilliant writers tend to have, well, real lives. They're adults that have responsibilities with families, jobs, and college, so putting a lot of time and effort into writing an entertaining, informative, and accurate piece purely out of the kindness of your heart (when it might not even be appreciated) isn't always possible. When writers actually get paid for their work (or at least get published), it gives them an opportunity for their writing to flourish. Or, at least, that's how it SHOULD work out.
But getting back to my long-winded point, magazines benefit from that their writers tend to be people that love games and want to write about them so much that they go beyond just putting a thing or two up on a web site to making a career out of it. How many contributors on GameFAQs actually take their work so seriously that they intend to make it their career? Not that many, and those that do are among the few truly talented that will one day realize that can't keep working as hard as they do for no compensation.
No, Exit had it right when he said "time out". Username bans and IP bans are only effective up to a point. But a time-out is in order and perhaps I'll be back in a few months and cause a few less problems.
The sad thing about it though was the timing of the ban. If I was banned while causing a problem in the Tengen Tetris topic it would have been completely understandable. However, it makes you look bad when you only banned me when I questioned the authority of the Mods. No moderators or admins jumped in to tell me to "shut up" when I was apparently causing a problem in the Tengen topic. However, an admin was on my back the second I made a joke about a Mod. If anything, the Mods should be willing to handle more heat themselves than the regular posters.
And this is something that you guys need to examine in how you handle things. There's no problem with being very strict in how you handle problematic members-- in fact, it's part of the reason why these forums have worked so smoothly over the years and avoided trolls and spammers. But along with that good reputation, this site has also developed a reputation outside of DP of having Mods with big egos who think that they are untouchable by regular posters. In reality, you're no better than anyone else and you're just here to facilitate everything. Don't take your job any more seriously than that. I know you may say that you "don't care" what outsiders think, but it's always to the board's benefit to attract new members, not scare them away. Oh, and it also doesn't look very professional when a Mod is making a joke about banning someone.
Several members will likely come to your defense here, and they may be right in what they say. But that isn't the point. The point is the PERCEPTION you've achieved OUTSIDE of DP, not the reality of what goes on. And incidents like don't help that perception. With all that being said, Mods are welcome to ban this Username and IP now too. I won't be needing them. Time to go sit in the corner and think about what I've done.
Last edited by NESviper; 07-02-2007 at 12:39 AM.
http://www.members.tripod.com/~Son_S...arspangled.mid
Freedom.....Freedom!
Sigh too bad the banned party cant see my sarcasm v_v.
Last edited by Richter Belmount; 07-02-2007 at 01:50 AM.
U GAIZ JUST DONT LIKE CHANGE , (builds a artificial foundation here)
I do enjoy the occasional Tips & Tricks issue, though I've never been big on codes. Japan Report and the Collector's Corner were great articles, and I bought it simply to read the two of them (and occasionally flip through the Final Fantasy article).
'Tis a shame, it was fun while it lasted.
I guess PSXFerrari must have had a trade in the works for a 2600 and some games or something.
Wow, I didn't know that ShenmueFan had his own forum.
That's too bad, I thought it was a good magazine. I liked the tournament report feature and all of the other little things they did to make the magazine stand out.
Funny story - I used to shoplift around ten years ago and the only time I got busted was for stealing a copy of Tips & Tricks. Yeah, I was a dumbass, but at least I wasn't punished with writing the guide for Superman 64.
The issue i've always seen in game mags is content. The entire industry is insanely secretive, most developers don't want you to know how games are made. They have legal agreements with the console manufacturers limiting what they can talk about.
Until a game is locked down, developers rarely want to talk to the press about it because everything is subject to change.
Add to that the fact that the industry is cyclical. There are very few releases in the summer months and very little else to talk about. I always wanted to see a game rag drop the reviews and go to bi-monthly. Cover the industry itself.
There's no arguing that the internet will be able to do cheat codes, reviews, and walk-throughs faster (and sometimes better) then a print publication. Focus on the strengths of the reporters, interview game devs, follow trends in the industry.
Video gaming is a 37.9 billion dollar industry. If you can't find anything interesting to write about then your just not trying hard enough. Leave the internet to what it's good at, user created content. Take the high road and do what print is better at, reporting.
Well, I can't say I read Tips & Tricks every month because I prefer to buy the periodical code books. However, I went into my local movie rental shop yesterday and found the Tips & Tricks issues for May, June and July on their magazine racks. I grabbed all three of them and will read them over the next couple of days. Too little, too late but I guess it is one extra person reading the last three months of hard work from the T & T staff. I should try buying some of the magazines a little more often to help keep them around but I'll admit I always think that when another one disappears.
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