Mar 17
Massive Magazine
Oh ho. What’s this?
MASSIVE Magazine is the ultimate guide to the world of massively multiplayer online games. It covers the games and culture with a progressive and breezy editorial style produced by the top writers in the industry. Issues of MASSIVE will include features on the games, their communities, guilds, profiles of top players, and other features that will make the magazine a part of the MMO world.
On the downside, I only give this thing even money that it ever makes it out the door. It’s slated for a first issue in September, and a lot can go wrong in six months. On the upside, I’m very glad someone’s trying this again. MOG Magazine had such potential … would have been nice if they’d made it to issue 2. And anyone else remember the SOE Worlds magazine? There isn’t even a working link for that thing on their site anymore.
As a writer, I’ll also cop to being excited about this on a selfish level. I’d love to get some stuff into a print magazine. If any of the CGM folks are reading this, I’m a pleasure to work with! :)
4 comments4 Comments so far
How did Darth Vader made it on the front cover?? Now don’t tell me because of SWG! SWG is dead in it’s current form (since NGE that is!
I’d be happy to see one of these mags survive as well. I love reading about games, especially the ones that I haven’t had an opportunity to play yet. One difficulty with sustaining such an endeavor maybe quantity of gaming information on the internet. I’m sure many people would forego the pleasure of print for the free content on the internet. :-(
The irony here is one of reversal in my opinion.
Computer magazines have ushered in every form of computer gaming, being there first with code people could transcript from the magazine into their computers, later with previews, and then finally with CD/DVD demos and backend websites.
Yet, MMORPGs sorta came from a different angle. Having developed from genres so niche major publications rarely covered them, MMORPGs were largely ignored until PC gaming mags started picking them up. They invariably did what all established institutes do: try and make them work within their understood pattern.
That, of course, doesn’t work. Even the EIC of CGW recently recognized that, saying in print that they had to rethink how they cover this sort of games. This is nothing new for us veterans of course, but is pretty telling for a print magazine to finally understand it.
But that still doesn’t change the fact that print magazines cannot keep up with the pace of change in a genre founded upon the very concept of dynamically-updated content. At best, you get things like 1up.com, the day-to-day backend of CGW.
So I’ve never really cared much about print magazines about MMORPGs. What could they possibly cover that isn’t already by the zillions of places that developed around them? Sure they can immediately canvas much larger audiences through traditional distribution channels. But to what end? MMORPGs are still high barrier of entry experiences because of the *experiences*. Even a zillion people being able to talk about them in casual conversation isn’t going to solve that problem.
Maybe that’s the point though. Maybe driving magazine sales to a whole bunch of readers that don’t buy them, and/or get no benefit from them, will finally highlight just how niche MMOGs still are to the people who matter most: their creators.
[...] I was shocked when I saw they were even going to try for one MMOG-related magazine, but now Gamasutra posts that a second publication is going to try to grab a share in this twitchy, spastic market.  ”Scheduled for the end of May, the first issue will feature interviews, instance maps, questing guides, and articles on players’ interaction with various games, and will include input from Beckett Media as well as industry professionals and gamers. The company also publishes trading card related magazines including Beckett Baseball and Beckett Magic The Gathering, as well as Beckett Anime and Manga magazine.“ [...]