You should be familiar with our regular Street Viewtiful feature by now. We pick a possibly topical company, and use our secret spy camera (Google Street View) to have a peak at their offices.
This month we’ve picked the Bath-based Future plc, who lately made the decision to end the rather spiffing Nintendo Gamer magazine.
Future’s first ever videogame magazine was Amstrad Action back in 1985, which featured 100 pages and had a print run of 40,000 copies. In 1987 they became the first publishing house to stick a ‘free’ floppy disk on the front of a magazine.
It wasn’t until 1992 that Future published their first magazine that wasn’t based on computers or videogames. That magazine was Cycling Plus.
Bath is a historic town so naturally Future’s office in Monmouth Street is rather grand looking.
A small pub called The Griffin can be found next door. Perhaps this is where team Nintendo Gamer ended up after their bad news was broken to them.
Scroll further down the road and you’ll find a rather random statue of a green pig rather haphazardly placed on the pavement. That has got to be a lawsuit waiting to happen.
We think Future has missed a trick by painting their doors green. Surely red would have been a better colour? They would have matched their logo rather nicely, we think.
The above building is Future’s registered company address. The real action (well, magazine publication) happens at Quay House, also in Bath.
Nearby facilities include a post office, a “Noole Bar” and not one but two job centres. “Connexions can help with choices and decisions about your future,” claims the advert in their window.
We wonder if that also entails people’s future at Future.