I used to read it ages ago but stopped.

One of the previous editors left to work at Blizzard and his succesor was also well known as a huge Blizzard fanboy.

The same goes with Valve and Steam fans/connections so take what you read with a big pinch of salt.

http://alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/large/misc-are-you-fucking-kidding-me-clean-l.png

It hasn't been the same since William R. Trotter left. However when I can nab a free .pdf copy I will read it.

I read the UK version of PC Gamer now and again when I want to read something after the paper on a journey.
Nice articles, but I have never bought a game on their advice alone.

Back when I was a young'un I used to vary between PC Gamer and PC Format, I ended up a PC Format subscriber for a few years. Unfortunately Future Publishing took them all over and basically turned the whole PC magazine industry into a monopoly. From there it went to hell, games suddenly started getting really undeserved reviews to keep the houses happy, articles became press releases, editorials became adverts. I gave up on the lot of them.

I used to have a subscription to their slightly more serous sister mag - PC Format, years ago when I was at college getting my HND in Computing
These days I read Richard Cobbett's 'Crapshoot' features on a Saturday, pretty religiously:

http://www.pcgamer.com/tag/crap-shoot/
But that's about it

I think it was PC Gamer that I discovered a demo disc with Age of Empires on it. So many hours of fun were had.

i still have a demo disc that contained 12 full version games, including: duke nukem 2, Monkey Island, Xcom, Ultima 1 and underworld 1, Wing commander 1, terminal velocity, need for speed, kings quest 1, alone in the dark 1, descent 1, and links golf.

a lot of those games i went ahead and rebought on gog, but still. i'm gald i held on to the disc, becuase people pay good money for those games, and i have them all for free!

I still have Discs 1 - 156 That works out to around 13 Years ;-)

Sadly lost all the Magazines in the fire we had a few years back ;-(

I subscribed to PC Gamer from about 1997-2000. Still have the demo discs, but sadly a few years ago I recycled all the issues. From what I remember it was a pretty good magazine.

And who can forget Coconut Monkey!

Don't get me wrong, i enjoy it too, but glossy paper means more trees cut down and more expensive technology is needed to recycle it. Soon we will enjoy all our reading on e-ink readers, including newspapers, books and official documents. The paper will be missed, but in the old days there were probably people who likewise missed vellum or clay when paper came about. Plus, electronic documents can be instantly updated, whereas the information is already obsolete once the paper article completes the long journey from the journalist's pen to the newsagent's.

I used to read PC gamer when I was younger, but these days I can get several games (on sale) for the price of a single PC-gamer magazine, and I'll get more enjoyment out of that.
The only magazine I've subscribed to in a long time is a popular science magazine, and that is because it makes for great bathroom reading material (most of the articles are just the right length for when I go to the bathroom, and if I feel like taking a bath, I'll just read the longer articles in the bathtub... too much information, right?).

i wont argue that your right, paper is on the way out. all i'm saying is, i'm going to be one of those people who misses it when its gone, and while its still here, i'm going to take advantage of it!

as far as books go, i don't need them to be paper to enjoy them. with one exception: poetry. I enjoy reading poetry on a real paper book so much more then on an e reader. probably becuase poetry is more of an experiance, a sort of ritual i guess. i like to savor it...AND the paper its printed on! lol.

I used to read PC gamer (UK) a lot in the past, back in the dark ages before the internet and then before the internet got fast (we were in the countryside so got the internet later and it was slow for a very long time). In those days the industry was a little different.

First up most games released a DEMO before the release of the game itself and the magazines were the best and often only place to get it (even if it was online you'd need a perfect few days to download it on dialup - without anyone wanting to use the phone!) So you got really tempted early by the game demo.

Secondly (and this is still something I somewhat miss) you used to get mods with the disks as well - even more when they shifted to DVDs. These were always fun and, because they were on disk you didn't lose them over time. (and again tehre was the downloading advantage).

As for the magazines being out after launch, I was ok with that as you could then read the review, back then the net was slower and all these online bloggers and reviewers were smaller in number and far more spread out. So the magazine reviews were often a first port of call for finding out and also for finding info on new games as well.


Nowadays the market has certainly shifted, I don't get the magazines any more at all; I do somewhat miss it, but I just find that I've shifted to being able to get most if not more info online - and now that the net is fast I don't need the DVD to get hold of demos (although therein lies another problem in that many games now don't release demos at all and if they do its often well AFTER the games actual launch).

Always went straight to the back for Greenspeak :D