Predicting the future of gaming mags

With the demise of Electronic Gaming Monthly earlier this month, and the continuing decline of print magazines in general, a lot of industry folks are wondering whether print has much of a future in this tech and news oriented business. Joystiq has a very interesting post up about the state of gaming mags, predicting that the only print magazines that will still be around in a few years are the ones with the support of a large (and lucrative) publisher – like Nintendo Power.

From the post:

“it seems likely to me that the remaining gaming-oriented print magazines are likely to face a similar fate over the next 3-5 years. I just can’t see a significant advantage that most have over the Internet. The most likely to survive, if they play their hands well, are probably those owned or supported by specific hardware manufacturers – think Nintendo Power”

Basically, a moneyed company like Nintendo can afford to keep it’s magazine around and tout it almost as an advertising tool, but media companies are better off going online-only, especially for gaming and tech enterprises. Sad but true. I’m still reeling from EGM’s death, as many loyal EGMers – and afficiandos of fine bathroom literature everywhere – are quite unhappy about this turn of events.

Read [Joystiq]