EDGE: Christ on a bike, it’s a knuckle sando! - The Bear and Badger

Yossarian

Lord_Griff wrote:

Yes, contrarian media drives print media sales.

It's a tactic, but it's a pretty short term one. You don't build up a loyal audience through just being contrarian, you sell a few more issues of the specific product you are being contrarian in. I wouldn't presume that media companies are being contrarian for the sake of it, some certainly are, but there's certainly an awareness in at least some parts of the media that being contrarian isn't a sustainable business model.

mistercrayon

FWIW with days gone it’s not an inconsistent view with Vice games where the guy said he beat the game all of a sudden without getting a whole bunch of essential items and others have said swathes of the map are unused.

JonB

LivDiv wrote:

On paper yes but this is Future. If they were money smart they would still have a site, or team up with a site like Polygon or Kotaku or even mainstream media to publish Edge guest reviews and features. No offense to Jon here any of the other writers but the content is sat on the bottom shelf of Smith's.

Obviously some online presence would be good, but there's something to be said for wiriting for print, even today. I wrote a piece for Kotaku UK last week and now it's probably already on about page 7 of their site, never to be seen again. Anything in Edge has a sense of permanence. I would guess they sell about 15k a month these days, which isn't a big number, but something written in there might actually be read and appreciated more than something that pops up on a biggish site for a day or two and then sinks without trace.

retroking1981

Do you know how many hits your article for Kotaku had?

That'll be there forever whereas that issue of edge will be in select houses of buyers.

As a buyer of games in sales long after their release, I often check sites for old reviews. In that respect it doesn't matter if it's on page 1 or page 1000 of a site, I still have access.

tigersgogrrr

I haven't read Edge in years but it is - for me - still the place for games journalism. Obviously I have no grounding for this whatsoever but the reputation remains.

So well done, Jon. Well done.

JonB

retroking1981 wrote:

Do you know how many hits your article for Kotaku had? That'll be there forever whereas that issue of edge will be in select houses of buyers. As a buyer of games in sales long after their release, I often check sites for old reviews. In that respect it doesn't matter if it's on page 1 or page 1000 of a site, I still have access.

That may be true with a review. But an opinion piece will generally just disappear and no one's likely to go searching for it. It's almost preferable to be on a smaller or more focused site in that respect, where it may at least hang around on the front page for longer, or people may go looking through the archives.

I don't have numbers, it's more the feeling that people might actually take time to read something properly and appreciate it that I'm talking about, I suppose.

Yossarian

There’ll be copies of that Edge magazine preserved for reference until long after Kotaku’s servers are switched off.

Blocks100

I know, I've already buried all my back issues in a time capsule in the back yard so future generations can enjoy them.

Bob

What game did you review JonB or are you sworn to secrecy by the EDGE team. My copy arrived in resplendant yellow.

RedDave2

Blocks100 wrote:

I know, I've already buried all my back issues in a time capsule in the back yard so future generations can enjoy them.

The world needs more heroes like you.

Future generations need to know how much better doom would have been if only you could talk to the monsters, make friends with them.

g.man

Dr. Doomlittle

Yossarian

Blocks100 wrote:

I know, I've already buried all my back issues in a time capsule in the back yard so future generations can enjoy them.

Probably easier to leave it to the experts.

Kara_Jane_Adams

I’ve got all my back issues in the cupboard.

Because I still dip in and out of them.

poprock

Kara_Jane_Adams wrote:

Because I still dip in and out of them.

Like Scrooge McDuck, but with magazines.

Kara_Jane_Adams

poprock wrote:

Like Scrooge McDuck, but with magazines.

And pants.

poprock

I didn’t want to presume.

Tempy

retroking1981 wrote:

Do you know how many hits your article for Kotaku had?

That'll be there forever whereas that issue of edge will be in select houses of buyers.

As a buyer of games in sales long after their release, I often check sites for old reviews. In that respect it doesn't matter if it's on page 1 or page 1000 of a site, I still have access.

Kotaku UK doesn’t have a huge readership, but I know thank to some handy retweets my Sekiro article was viewed around 130000 times, because imgur, where I hosted my gifs, checks how many views an image gets.

Dinostar77

Edge still has alot of reverence and relevance with the videogame industry. It may not have the circulation it once did but still fantastic for JonB getting a review published.

edit: I didn't see what game jonb reviewed this month in the previous posts. Can someone stick the name of it in a spoiler? I want to try to read all the reviews and see if I can guess which is jonb's review.

hylian_elf

He has mentioned it here and other threads,

Spoiler:

It’s not a secret!

JonB

TBH I don't know if you're not supposed to say, and I haven't mentioned it anywhere else. But since no one ever comes here I thought it would be fine.

Tempy

Pretty sure Chris Schilling always lets folk know features, dunno about reviews.

JonB

Yeah, it's just reviews I'm not sure about. I guess it's no big deal, but I've not seen anyone, say, tweeting about doing Edge reviews so maybe it's not the done thing.

Blocks100

They'll end up being eaten by moths, best bury them in the backyard like wot I did.

mistercrayon

After reading bits and bobs of the article about play date... I’m even more in. It feels like they’re actually trying to do something nice. The ouya comparisons in terms of pitch are not far off but these guys seem more professional certainly.

Skerret

Imma develop for it, Skerret's Crankfest is greenlight go

Bob

JonB wrote:

TBH I don't know if you're not supposed to say, and I haven't mentioned it anywhere else. But since no one ever comes here I thought it would be fine.

Lol - going to read it now

Diluted Dante

regmcfly wrote:

Love if you could slide a copy of the edge style guide over for a perusal
I remember when me and kaz went drinking with Nathan Brown he mentioned

Rule 1) talk about something in the game / mechanics by the end of paragraph 1

Rule 2) the use of we

I think I have an old copy. I'll have a look for you. The only bit I remember is not to use Portakabin unless you're 100% sure it is one.

Diluted Dante

That was easy.

How do you want it?

mistercrayon

Ha they probably got a mail at some point about someone using the word portakabin for any old cabin and thus genericising a trademark. Fun fact: Velcro is also a brand of product rather than a thing in and of itself.

Yossarian

They almost certainly did. We recently got one about the word Tupperware.

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