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Yesterday the New York Times had an article on how gamers are turning from magazines to the Internet for gaming news. Of course, my first thought was why does the Times care? I think articles like these, and other mainstream publications’ attempts to cover gaming culture, are either thinly veiled attempts to lure a younger audience or exist for the sake of shareholders somewhere. Take the Manhunt 2 hoopla for instance.
My second thought was, duh.
Does any publication understand the populace’s shift towards seeking information online more than the New York Times? Hell, if someone hadn’t blogged about it, I wouldn’t have been aware of the article in the first place and if the article wasn’t available online, I wouldn’t have read it. And then, when I had to register to read it, I read it here instead.
From the article:
Why wait for a monthly mailing when the Web has fresh game reviews, articles and tips on how to beat the games?
Exactly.
Now the problem is that even when magazines have awesome, exclusive content — content not on the Internet, it ends up on the Internet anyway. The major gaming sites pick up on magazines’ exclusives, and even though they cite their sources and don’t publish all the content, they still steal the magazines’ thunder. Then in forums you can find full page scans of the article a few hours after the magazines hit the shelves. It has to be discouraging.
Magazine publishers say that readers want longer features and in-depth articles as a counterpoint to the short, bloglike pieces they find online. But Kyle Orland, a freelance journalist who writes a media coverage column for Gamedaily.com, wondered if that strategy was working, saying that when a large feature is published, it doesn’t get read.
“Attention spans are just getting so small that readers don’t know what they want,” Mr. Orland said.
As an aside, it looks like GameDaily is AOL’s answer to Yahoo! Games, which was the once cool Games Domain (bows head).
Anyway, I’m not sure what point Orland is trying to make. The blogs I read have a wide range of lengths and complexity. The Escapist routinely runs features which are “magazine quality.” If the problem is that magazine subscriptions are down, then the problem is with the product, not the consumer.
I’m stopping now because I have a short attention span, but I think that rather than writing a throwaway article on gaming magazines (with awkward man on the street quotes), the New York Times should write an article on how the hell Prima is still in business. Shouldn’t GameFAQS have nailed their coffin shut by now?
Silvercube:
Excellent article!!
I loved that quote:
““Attention spans are just getting so small that readers don’t know what they want,” Mr. Orland said.”
Made me laugh.
My attention span is actually pretty good, its just that many articles are just boring to read because:
a)their style of writing is soporific
b) I don’t care about what the article is describing
I hope magazines will be able to stay alive. But lately most of the magazines I have been subscribing have been really painful to read (Especially EGM’s horrible reviews)
I used to love that magazine so much…