Nintendo Gamer is dead, Kazuo is one year closer to death - The Bear and Badger

Matt_82

Ah right, ok.

fronkhead

An end of an era for me: while I've always read other magazines Super Play/N64/NGC/NGamer and the short lived Nintendo Gamer were something really special to me, and they played an important part in giving me a more questioning and analytical mind when looking at things. You also really got the feeling that you were in the same room as the team themselves, which I really liked. Great writers, too, though nearly all of them have gone on to do Other Things (I think Greener works for AQA now, Tim Weaver writes novels and Geraint Evans works at Zen United).

Though I guess it was inevitable: Kittsy has hinted that as sales of magazines fell their budget was cut, and it seemed to have reached a point where it just couldn't keep going anymore.

And admittedly, as good as Nintendo Gamer was, I didn't think it truly carried on the spirit of NGamer and its predecessors simply because it wasn't possible given the constraints at the time: while the writing and variety of topics written about was still excellent, having most the work come from contributors rather than the same team in the same office diminished that close-knit-team feel to me.

Vela

I think you're 2 years late on this?

fronkhead

Definitely, though it's certainly a topic worth having a say in, despite the magazine closing two years ago. I grew up reading the NGamer lineage, and it's still interesting to discuss that lineage within this context.

Vela

I only ever started reading the magazine about 4 issues before they pulled the plug on it shortly after Wii U launch.

I hate to think about what a good quality magazine I must have missed out on, as it seemed for the most part to be pretty well written and with lots of snark.

What was its heyday like?

fronkhead

I feel lazy for doing this, but this blog post sums up what it was like perfectly: http://worldonetwo.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/raise-a-glass-to-n64-magazine/

There's also Kittsy's portfolio: http://www.martinkitts.com/portfolio/

The issue 100 feature probably sums up the magazine really well too: http://www.martinkitts.com/portfolio/issue-100-feature/

Vela

Cheers for the links.

I like nostalgia for old game mags. I think the ones that most clicked with me back in the late 90s were EGM circa dreamcast issues, CVG in the 64 era, and to a lesser extent Arcade and Ultra Game Players. The latter were hard to come by locally though.

The past decade has been edge, games tm and retro gamer for me, but I've stopped reading the first two as of 6-12 months ago. I just find myself disagreeing with their editorial too much and finding nothing much of interest in the games they cover.

I'd say all round though the death of games magazine industry is a real shame. Especially the UK component which had just the right amount of cynicism about it.

stonechalice

A Fronk is a chonk, who likes to plonk his donk.

GooberTheHat

Before exclaiming "Awhomp a domp donk!"

retroking1981

For all those who love the old game mags check out these links to download scans, theres tons here.

http://www.outofprintarchive.com/news.html

http://www.emuparadise.me/magazine-comic-guide-scans/all

Vela

Did anyone ever read Arcade magazine?

retroking1981

Yep, loved that one.

Another multiformat one I liked (although not great admittingly) was Ultimate Future Games. There was so many consoles about in that period, that mag just seemed to catch the excitment of it all quite well for me.

Gamermike

Vela wrote:

Did anyone ever read Arcade magazine?

I don't remember much about it but was certainly one of the better publications at the time.

I bought Arcade ever since they gave away the free book about Nintendo (mind is completely failing what it was about/called or whether i'm actually making this up) but it didn't last much longer after that.

mistercrayon

They did. It was called game over by David scheff. Or Sheff.

retroking1981

Yeah thats right, I still have that book.

Vela

Me too. Then I got cranky with them when they said mean things about Dreamcast.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories