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Media Entertainment Games

Two Ziff-Davis Magazines Cancelled 55

Posted by Zonk from the dead-tree-media-taking-some-hits dept.
Starsmore writes "IGN is reporting that Ziff-Davis Media has pulled the plug on two of its magazines: Xbox Nation (XBN) and GMR (the collaborative effort with EB Games), for undisclosed reasons. Andrew Pfister (GMR Editor) confirms the report as well via 1up.com " From his post: "The news has broken over the Intraweb, and unfortunately, the documents are real. As of the February issue, GMR is being discontinued. Subscribers will be the only ones to receive the February issue, and all subscribers will have the option to switch over to another Ziff mag."
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Two Ziff-Davis Magazines Cancelled More

Two Ziff-Davis Magazines Cancelled

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  • In other news (Score:3, Funny)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @11:55AM (#11082391)
    In other news, the circulation of clay tablets telling the saga of Gilgamesh continues to decline, and the practice of attaching messages to the legs of birds is showing no signs of revival.
  • Does anybody really read gaming magazines anymore? The internet is the best place to get up to date gaming news, not some rag that is 4-6 weeks out of date when it hits the newstands or is mailed to your home.

    • Re:Gaming Magazines = dinosaur (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      People do. The major problem though isn't with the media, it's with the XBox. Current retail figures show that there's a massive mismatch between XBox sales and XBox support sales (games, magazines, etc.) And XBox sales themselves are beginning to plummet.

      My understanding is that, essentially, the XBox as a platform is dying. People who've bought XBoxes have generally found the usually mediocre games choices (there are, what, seven decent XBox titles?) together with the clumsiness of the system itself (wh

      • My understanding is that, essentially, the XBox as a platform is dying.

        But does Necraft confirm it???

        People who've bought XBoxes have generally found the usually mediocre games choices (there are, what, seven decent XBox titles?)

        Of all the Sony-only and Nintendo-only games out there, there is only one which I wish my X-Box could play, GTA-SA. Beyond that, all the best (IMHO) games are available on the X-Box... and the last two titles of the DOA series can not be played on any other cosole.

        together
      • The xbox mounts nicely under a coffee table, while the gamecube mounts nicely under a bed. The PS2 tends to mount better on top of things, specifically on top of the coffee table the xbox is under. At least that's my experience.
      • Of course you are just a troll (or just totally un-informed), but I gotta respond anyway.

        Xbox is actually the console that has shown the most GROWTH over the past year.

        For the 13th consecutive month, Xbox grew its share of year-over-year monthly console sales -- climbing an additional 19 percent compared to last year -- and hitting a 41 percent share in November.

        Market share on a year-to-date basis for Xbox increased from 24 percent in 2003 to 37 percent in 2004. During the same time, PS2 share dropp
    • Once in a while, I'll pick up a console magazine for the demo disk if I see something interesting. Usually on weekends, when I cash in a good ten or fifteen dollars worth of pop cans, since Kessel's puts the magazine rack right next to the recycling machines so I stand there looking at them for fifteen minutes while I stick cans in the machine. When this happens, I usually take the disk out, lose the magazine, and shortly thereafter lose the disk too, since I get bored with them in about ten minutes. I use
    • I read gaming magazines. I have subscriptions to both GMR and PC Gaming. While the information may be out of date, it is not like we are talking about stock prices here. A review of a game in a magazine versus a review of a game on the Internet is going to convey the same information - who cares if I have to wait a few weeks to read it? There is a case to be made for being able to drop a deuce and read some game reviews.

      Also, I've found that GMR - due to their partnership with EB - had coupons that were occ

  • I got a subscription to PC Gamer as a gift. It's not timely or anything, but they have reviews that I trust and I'm patient enough to not buy a game until they have had their say. They get exclusive previews and screenshots, and the articles are always well written. It's never anything you can't get on the internet, but it's pretty much just a very well done, comprehensive website that I can read on the couch while someone else uses the computer. If I had time to read all my gaming news on the computer, I'd
  • GMR going away is a shame.. it was actually a good/decent console gaming magazine compared to the rest of the crud out there.. and there reviews were fairly reasonable(not all 10's) like some others... oh well...
  • GMR was kinda redundant in the face of EGM, but I really liked their reviews. They were the only ones to actually give GTA: San Andreas a somewhat sensible one. The loss of XBN makes me very sad, they had some excellent writers, but I guess there's only so much Xbox stuff one can cover per month. The official XBox mag is well known to be a total rag except for the demo disc. Why can't crappy mags like GamePro and PSM be killed?
  • GMR was a great magazine, while it lasted. Can't accout for XBM, but I hear it was pretty damn fine itself...

    The biggest problem I have with the whole situation is that the realization came after an Electronics Boutique email was posted [ga-forum.com] on an internet forum.

    I feel for the guys that lost their labors of love yesterday--and to find it out that way? Jeez.

  • Excellent! It worked! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @12:10PM (#11082521) Journal
    I take full credit for the cancellation of XBN.

    After the election, the 1up newsletter that is affiliated with XBN sent out the following:

    Thanks Ohio! by Kristen Salvatore

    http://gaming.ziffdavis.com/flat/Images/b.gif So I'm assuming that all of you who voted for George Bush will soon be lining up your sons, daughters, and cousins at the local armed services recruitment stations and signing them up for duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, and most likely Africa --because you voted for war.

    To which I sent the following email to Ziff Davis's CFO, vp for comm, and the editor of the 1UP publication:

    Hi,


    Do you really think that anyone subscribes to your video game publications to hear your unoriginal, tired and ignorant commentary on a political matter?

    I currently subscribe to four of your publications. Two of them are business-related (PC Magazine and eWeek). But two of them are for relaxation/amusement (XBN and EGM). I have enjoyed reading them because they are a brief refuge from the contentious world of partisan politics in which I live and work.

    Unfortunately, your decision to breach that refuge with your stupid comment by Kristen Salvatore ("Hey, Thanks Ohio!") has led me to decide to cancel my subscriptions to all four. You guys want to get political and throw insults at me - fine, I simply won't subsidize you doing it anymore.

    This is being sent to the 1UP editor, the director of communications for ZD, and the CFO of ZD since your decision is affecting the bottom line of the corporation.

    Exxxceellleeennntt. Now watch this post get modded down to -5 a$$hole.

    • It must be terrible to be picked on so. How do you survive?
    • Could you please educate us on exactly where Bush is going to get more troops without a draft?
      • Stop-loss & recall: the military is like a giant roach motel. Once you sign up, you can't get out. If you got out before, you'll get roped back in.
    • Did their review of Full Spectrum Warrior, Ghost Recon 2, or Splinter Cell:Pandora Tomorrow bring you back in?

      Or is implicit promotion of war not enough?

    • "Now watch this post get modded down to -5 a$$hole."

      More like "-5 Republican." Gotta love party politics.
    • We're missing some context here...

      Who exactly is Kristen Salvatore and where in the magazine (section-wise) did this appear? Is this a reader comment that they published in reaction to some article? Is Kristen an employee/writer for the magazine?

      Obviously those kinds of issues make a big difference as to whether a comment like that belongs in this magazine or not. Quoting out of context is a classic and underhanded way of attacking someone.

      If (as I suspect) this is a user feedback comment to some earlier
      • She is a writer for the mag and the online version/affiliate of the magazine. There is no XBN website - they put their stuff up on 1up.com.
    • Do you really believe that they shut down two entire publications because one person decided to unsubscribe?

      It's their magazine, with their opinions...
  • Since of the Xbox have been increasing steadily, so it's surprising that's based on market share would be cancelled. But then, it was always hard to compete with the Official Xbox Magazine. OXM had a demo disc that came with each issue, and that made a big difference IMHO. Not only that, but it's not too hard to get a free sub to XBN if you're patient. My subscription was free, and I wasn't planning on paying for a renewal. Oh well. Hopefully, the OXM guys will use the larger subscription base to impr
  • seriously... i'm bad luck. I almost never subscribe, only done it twice. First it was Compute (I think, anyways), what i considered a wonderful mag back when I subscribed to it (early 90s?), had programming snippits, what i considered half decent reviews and such... and then got forced over to some unremarkable mag about 4 months after i subscribed to them, as Compute got pulled. 5 days ago I signed up for GMR (after getting it with the EB Edge card previously) and now they are cancelling them, too. Fro
  • Good. I had GMR after getting the 10% card thing at EB Games (which I use rarely, and haven't renewed in a while.) I hate GMR. It gives nothing original, it's smaller than other gaming magazines I receive, and the layout has been confusing (though that may have changed since I stopped getting it.)

    Compared to other magazines I've been receiving, such as GameInformer and EGM, it would not be worth any subscription price.

    Also, Gamestop > EBGames.
  • ...to cancel the rest of the magazines, I'd be happy. (OK...happier!)

  • GMR Subs were Inflated (Score:4, Interesting)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:10PM (#11085455) Homepage
    I worked at EB when we "invented" GMR. We signed up hundreds and hundreds of people per store because we were being given a spiff on each membership sale. It wasn't much, but if you sold well - and most of us at the store I worked at did - you could could away with an extra game or two every month (that's how you can tell I worked at a game store, everything is in number of games bought, not meals or gas gallons). Within a year, EB had taken that spiff away. So why resubscribe if you don't have an EB guy breathing down your neck?

    My guess is that the numbers dropped significantly after EB removed the spiff. GMR was a good magazine, so it's a shame this happened but even the $5.50 an hour retail worker knew that this would happen. Anyone working for GMR knew the deal going in, I would hope.

    As for XBN, which EB had nothing to do with save selling it, it seemed kind of specifically redundant. Good, but the only reason OXM does so well is the demo disc. Without the disc, why buy XBN?

    Nix two magazines. Whatevs. I'm still lamenting the fall of Next Gen [epinions.com].
    • I'm still lamenting the fall of Next Generation magazine. They changed their name to Next Gen late into their major changes in style, and a pretty much complete overhaul of the original editorial staff. The changed some of the staff, the sales fell, so they kept changing the staff, and the sales kept falling...

      Sigh... I still have the entire original run of the magazine(s). I wish I could at least find a place where I could buy Edge magazine.
  • ZD has a large number of total jerks doing editorial and writing work for their magazines and websites (particularly Official US Playstation Magazine and Gamespot).

    The only reason I continued to subscribe to OPM was the cover disc, and after I was personally insulted by their editorial staff I decided even that wasn't worth it. Similarly, I cancelled my Gamespot subscription after their editor in chief slagged a friend of mine in their forums in a totally unprofessional manner.

    Take away their demo discs (
  • Thank goodness.

    I mean, really - video games are pretty good at using digital media to put dozens of hours of entertainment on a relatively small use of resources. Do we really need to put out piles of wood pulp printed with what you'd kind of see if you blinked during a video game?

    Video games are inherently motion-oriented, and need an animated medium in order to convey anything like what the experience of a short period of time in the game is like - I can't imagine that the magazines were even close

    • I can't imagine that the magazines were even close as good a promotional vehicle as the (again, super efficient) downloading of video motion captures of the games.

      Yes--because those grainy movie files the company websites give me look so much better than the printed higher-definition screenshots in magazines. And the best part is that I can't show anyone any content from the game unless I have quick access to an internet connection and the patience to sift through convoluted website designs!

      End Sarcasm

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