The current issue of Uncooked Media’s ONE Gamer magazine is to be the last. Fear not – the mag isn’t about to join the likes of Xbox World, PSM and NGamer in heaven’s paper recycling bin. It’s instead being transformed into a multi-format magazine known simply as GAMER, with the first issue launching 21st May.
The final editorial in ONE Gamer claims that GAMER will be “a magazine for everybody who considers themselves a gamer, whether they play games on an Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, PC handheld, smartphone or tabletâ€.
Joint editor James Artaius then goes to assure that Xbox coverage won’t be minimised in the slightest. Considering that their readership will mostly comprise of Xbox owners – especially to begin with – that’s a smart move. Reading between the lines though, it could simply be the case that GAMER is going to focus heavily on multi-format titles in order to cover the broadest spectrum possible.
GAMER will also be supported by GAMER Interactive, a free digital magazine released every other Wednesday for iPad, Android and Kindle.
As much as it pleases us to see a hear of a “new” magazine being launched, the decision to go from Xbox-only to multi-format does have a whiff of desperation about it, as if this is a last ditch attempt to boost flagging sales. We certainly fail to recall any other magazine going from single-format to multi-format before.
Still, we’d rather this happened than see the magazine disappear altogether. And although ONE Gamer (née 360 Gamer) isn’t the most prolific magazine around they do give a lot of niche titles significant coverage. A good example of this is the current issue, which unexpectedly features city-building sim Tropico 5 on the reverse cover.