R.I.P. Computer Gaming World
According to this news article on Gamasutra, Ziff-Davis is shutting down Computer Gaming World magazine.

I'm reasonably sure that I am among the longest-term subscribers to the magazine. I think I can make that assumption because if there were lots of us, the magazine wouldn't be going away. I've been subscribed for at least a dozen years - you can take a look at that mail tab on this 1994 issue I scanned in... Yes, I was living in Provo at the time. I think at the time this issue came out, I had just started my brand-new career in the games industy. Kinda scary, that.

I've been reading it for quite a bit longer. I dug up another issue from 1993 in my collection (which is much smaller than it used to be). Browsing through the November 1993 issue (still in great condition, though the pages are starting to change color), I see ads and articles on Lands of Lore, Aces Over Europe, Wing Commander Privateer, the first Gabriel Knight, Betrayal at Krondor, Return to Zork, Wing Commander Academy, and "King's Quest VI on CD-ROM!" Yes, a special edition on CD-ROM. Oh - and check out the PRICE of the magazine back in '93!

One of the reasons I subscribed to CGW was its focus (at the time) on not just the games, but the games industry. Yes, even before I was part of it, I was fascinated by all the behind-the scenes stuff. You'd get 4-6 pages of information on what went on at the last Computer Game Developer's Conference. And they had a "Rumors" page talking about vaporware and mergers and things going on in the industry.

Throughout the 90's (and continuing through today), most gaming magazines adopt a puerile tone and a "let's pretend to be teenagers!" attitude. CGW (at the time) didn't do that. Neither did Strategy Plus, a great import mag from the U.K. that eventually moved to the U.S., and then died. Sad. Anyway, I enjoyed reading a magazine that didn't rely upon 20 empty overhyped adjectives with every sentence drawing upon imagery of loss of control of bodily functions to get its point across.

Unfortunately, in recent years, CGW's quality declined, and the guy who ran the magazine before Jeff Green took over seemed to try to address the 14-year-old audience again, and I nearly cancelled my subscription. The last few issues seemed to improve - including coverage of indie games - but I guess that should have been a signal that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It's pretty hard for a print magazine about computer games to survive in this day and age, I guess. I mean, if you are getting such a rag, it means you HAVE a computer, and in all likelihood you are then connected to instant access to online news and reviews about nearly anything you'd like to know about the newest and hottest games.

But here's the interesting thing (to me, at least). While you can hunt down old news on the web via web archives, in general it's pretty ephemeral stuff. I've tried to hunt down things that were "big news" six years ago, and struggled to find any record of events and stories that you couldn't avoid stumbling over back then. I still have several of these old back-issues of CGW because they had articles that remain interesting to me now, over a decade later. There's an article in one interviewing several of the "great" RPG designers about... get this... RPG design! Things that they'd learned in 10+ years in the business at the time. And the old back-issues have some wonderful articles by "Scorpia" where she not only provides hints and tips through the old adventure games and RPGs of the era, but DISSECTS them and adds extremely colorful commentary on what made them fun and significant.

Some of the stuff she said in her columns are well worth reading by today's developers. Because we keep making the same mistakes they made a decade ago.

The last few years in CGW, they've had a column noting issues from 5, 10, and 15 years earlier - sort of a retrospective. They typically made fun of those old issues, mocking the articles and the games that were featured (and of course, the antiquated technology). Granted, there was much that was mock-worthy from back then... 98% of everything was crap back then, too. But I do feel it's a sign of the immaturity of our industry that we're so quick to ignore our short history.

Or maybe it's just that video games have been a major part of two-thirds of my life, now, and I'm just trying to find some meaning where there is none. But hey, leave me to my illusions. And some of Scorpia's old columns.

Labels: Mainstream Games, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:00 AM (Permalink)