Sloppy Potatoes

Still contemplating EGM’s closing

This is part of a series of posts about the closing of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the state of magazines, newspapers and the recession.

For a couple weeks, I’ve been sitting her contemplating just how to write this post.

As I’m sure many of my readers have heard, Electronic Gaming Monthly — as close to a video game Bible as they come — is done. I’ve read the magazine for as long as I can remember, and been a subscriber for years. I’ve purchased other mags at the newsstand, but EGM is the only one I subscribed to.

I eagerly awaited the arrival of each month’s magazine in my mailbox. I used to be a ravenous videogamer. I purchased and rented all kinds of games — except RPGS, but that’s a different post for a different time — and based a lot of my decisions based on what the experts over at EGM had to say. I purchased and rented less in the last couple of years as my free time has slowly dwindled into nothing.(www.sloppypotatoes.com and www.chinstrapninjas.com and life in general have something to do with it) But, I still loved reading the mag, and I still read just about every article, even the ones about RPGs. (I really need to write a post about my RPG complaints). I loved the in-jokes, movie references, the words that were at times poetic, at others snarky, but in every case entertaining.

I had seen the rumors on the Internet — EGM owner struggling, mag may close — but never believed any of it. Here was this iconic piece of the videogame universe, beloved by hundreds of thousands around the world. It was thee game news source for so long, there was no way it was closing.

Sure, Next-Gen shut down several years ago. GMR didn’t make it either. I subscribed to both of those mags back in the day, and really enjoyed them. The entire print media industry, from magazines to newspapers, is trying to evolve into something the general public will devote just a small bit of their Internetin’, TVin’ time to. And while this recession will likely shutter the small newspaper I work for and countless others, like it already has, I never believed EGM would be gone.

As a newspaper guy, one of my favorite parts of the magazine was the editor’s column in the front. I loved reading what Dan “Shoe” Hsu and, over the last several months, James Mielke had to say every month. At times they talked about the business — a business I contemplated joining at some point — at times they talked about the magazine design and at times they just opined. It was always the first thing I read. Every month.

I’ll probably miss that most. I’ll also miss the editor’s bios in the Review Crew section. The editor’s used this space to tell what they were playing and included a quick creative paragraph that talked about something going on in the office, or in their personal lives. There was something I could almost feel oozing through the words in those two small parts of the magazine. That environment, those people had what we had at our small paper a year ago. Things have changed for us, too.

I’d like to put a tease here telling you what the next post will be about, but I just sat down and this one poured out. That’s probably what I’ll do next time, so check back in a day or two, or monitor my Twitter feed. I’ll post a tease to it there.