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[Nreive]

The ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) figures were recently announced and showed a drop for every single videogaming magazine in the UK.  While this looks like bad news for the traditional print mag, publishers have already moved into digital with their catalogues - both Future and Imagine sell digital versions of their mags.

The figures themselves make for interesting reading. Let's start off with the positive - kind of - with the fact that Official Xbox 360 Magazine and PC Gamer have shown a relatively small drop with 4% and 5% respectively. The Official Xbox 360 Magazine, which is clearly the runaway winner in the circulation figure stakes with a whopping - by today's standards - 58,610, a loss of 2,249 on the previous year.

The losers this time around with the biggest drop in readership was Play with a figure of 15,693 - a drop of 28%!  Not too far off that mark was N Gamer with a fall of 27%. N Gamer has been surprisingly surviving on low readership for some time, but this latest circulation figure of 7,745 is all the more alarming.

Something a lot of people have mentioned around certain websites is "why publish multiple magazines for the same format if they are selling so badly?"  In Future's case, it's money as Official Xbox 360 Magazine is doing very comfortably with 60K+ while Xbox World 360 isn't doing terrible either with 23,061. However, the money theory goes out the window with Imagine Publishing's X360 and 360, which bring in 24,090 and 11,183 respectively.

It may be sooner than we think when the current crop of gaming mags go out-of-print.

[KiwiArcader]

While the stats are not good they may change significantly if they start reporting digital copies sold given the cheap pricing of those compared to print versions. I have subscribed to Edge, Games Master and I have purchased quite a few Games tm and Retro Gamer digital issues, both of which I am also considering subscribing to. Why? Because they are very cheap so it makes sense for me to subscribe and receive 12 digital versions for the same price as 3 - 4 physical copies.

I think you may find that digital actually start to carry/subsidise the print versions over time especially when you look at the number of people buying into the tablet market, and it's only going to get bigger and bigger. While there are certainly lots of people out there that like the feel of a magazine in their hands there also plenty like ourselves that are quite comfortable reading them on their iPads etc.

[Nreive]

Only four gaming magazines made it into the top 72 digital charts for 2011 (Top 72? Don't know why). The main winner was Edge with around 8,740 digital editions sold each month, complimenting the print edition very nicely with an 18% increase overall. PC Gamer managed to sell around 1,515 editions, balancing out the drop in the print editions with a 1% increase overall. PSM3 sold 1,630 editions, but still an 11% drop in sales overall and Xbox World 360 sold 980 - amended drop of 6% overall.

Admittedly, it is early days for the digital market, but either way, it's bad news for the print magazine market.

[meppi]

It disturbs be a bit to not see Retro Gamer in there at all. :-/
I know it's a niche market, but still.

Also very surprised to see the XBox magazine topping the chart as people are always eager to say how the UK is Sony's market and no one else's. Very interesting indeed.

The way I see it with digital distribution is that we're still in the very early days.
Heck, I love gadgets and new tech stuff, and I still don't own an iPad myself...

Transition periods always are painful and it's sad to say that some probably won't make it, but at least they have a have an option to keep magazines going in the future, even if it's not in actual print.

[Nreive]

Retro Gamer isn't registered with ABC for auditing - never has been - so there will be no official circulation figures. It would be a complete guess on the RG figures, but you'd assume that it gets in enough readers to keep it going. RG's readership should be consitent enough to keep it going - no declines as consoles fade out, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if RG were the last videogaming print mag on the store shelves.

UK = Sony? Maybe during the PS1/PS2 era, but not anymore. Ever since the 360's release, it's dominated the UK gaming scene, discounting the Wii, of course, which has sold even more.  This may account for the large amount of 360 mags out there.

[KiwiArcader]

It surprises me how one publisher can release two or even three magazines for a single market audience. The number of Xbox 360 double ups is amazing. I certainly think we may see these guys rationalizing and moving to one mag for a specific market in the not too distant future.

The game magazine digital market really has only be going for a few months at best at this stage of the game. Future and Imagine were late to the digital market while Retro Gamer has been sitting here for quite some time so it would be interesting to see their stats given they are also catering to a niche market. The big problem these guys have is they are incredibly slow releasing back issues and at reasonable prices. I want every issue of Games tm (and not those low quality abominations that are the DVD based versions they sell) at a reasonable price. Retro Gamer have all 100 issues available but issue 1 costs the same as issue 100 so it is expensive back filling the collection. If they priced or sale priced the first 50 issues at $2 each I'd buy the lot in one fell swoop and I know lots of people would probably do the same.

[meppi]

UK = Sony? Maybe during the PS1/PS2 era, but not anymore. Ever since the 360's release, it's dominated the UK gaming scene, discounting the Wii, of course, which has sold even more.  This may account for the large amount of 360 mags out there.

Well on the other big forum I read, every once in a while it's brought up how Europe and especially the UK is "Sony country".
No one seems to doubt them when this is stated, so I tended to believe them.
Seems like those are simply Sony fanboys trying to cling to their glory days when looking at the facts.

[Nreive]

Europe, certainly, but not in the UK. Apparantly, the 360 looks set to be no. 1 in UK and US but overall third. The rest of the world differs greatly it seems. 

[triverse]

Late in replying on this one but I think digital sales are hurt by companies being greedy.  Sure, they have to pay staff and such but honestly, is there any reason to be charging $4 to $5 for a digital issue?  If it is a case of not wanting to butcher physical copy sales then just hold back the digital for a week or two after the physical copies hit the shelves.  Publishers need to look at iOS pricing, which admittedly has changed the way fans view digital content prices- for better or for worse.

Digitals shouldn't be more than, say, $1.99 for current issues and $0.99 for retro issues.  I see many companies selling retro issues for $2+ and current issues for $4+.  That is just too high.

Also, sell "volumes" for a discounted price, Retro Gamer is in the best position to do this with their immense back catalog of digital issues.  Price these at the cost for 9 or 10 issues and give fans a couple for free as a thanks for buying a set at a time. 

Also, with digital, why aren't publishers taking the initiative to offer bonus content?  Load up some cut pages from the issue, interviews with people now that worked on the mags then, etc.  I would definitely buy a digital issue if it was presented like a "Directors Cut" with additional content here and there.  I know there are a lot of people that would want the original version in digital format so just make two- extra sales (movie makers have been doing this for years).

The options are pretty limitless here, if only those in charge would try something slightly new (I am not saying embed videos and sound in the mags like EGMi tried doing- that stuff is far better suited for websites).