UK Gaming Magazines GamesMaster and GamesTM Set To Close Next Month

Wow, what ?!
Oh, well...
For me it doesn't really matter since now i strictly filter the games information that i want to know.
So, i don't really worried about losing the most up to date games information that i really want to know since i rely the news from Nintendolife for my replacement of Games Magazines that my siblings bought a lot since 18 years ago.

I don't touch my siblings Games Magazines anymore.

This leaves Edge as the only magazine covering Nintendo systems and games in the UK.

... If I want a sleeping aid, maybe I'll consider it.

Sad but predictable. Print magazines are just not an optimum format anymore.

GamesMaster and the golden joystick. The good days

Maybe the future is in self published gaming fanzines. Print is a very vital medium.

Awww I'll miss Games TM.

It’s sad for sure as for some of us, there goes a bit of our childhoods. Time to move on though. I’ll still get Edge from time to time when I’m in the UK. I love NL so hopefully it will stick around for a while yet

I think I spend more time reading and commenting about games than actually playing them right now...

Wait what i'm a gm sub. Maybe there change me to the edge magazine and that's better than nothing. past me would not belive a life without c+vg, Nintendo magazine and gamesmaster in fact past me would even refer to it as a bad future lol.

Very sad, loved the TV show with Patrick Moore,
All hail the Games Master:

I used to buy it back in the day because it not only reviewed Console games, but also Commodore 64 games, which was amazing.

Future had NGamer (previously NGC, N64 etc) before it obtained the official title, leaving the already official magazine to close. Future ran both the Official title and NGamer but NGamer went down hill after that and then was closed. The Official magazine continued until the lack of games left it with nothing much to review. It closed with Nintendo, as I remember, with drawing the Official title.

There is still Retro magazine.

It's a shame but definitely not too surprising.

That's sad, but it was inevitable. I remember growing up buying Games Master magazines as that's how I used to find out all the new games. My biggest memory was buying them to try keep up with Pokemon D/P's European release because it kept getting delayed for us. (no idea why.) It was agonising as a kid but we eventually got it and it's one of my cherished games.

I don't know those mags and really couldn't give a hoot they are going out of business, but I do think it is awesome they aren't doing like most other companies do and just give notice then dump them, that was very cool to find them new jobs

Devastated to be honest. I'm sick of spending more and more time on my phone and on computers... reading a book or a magazine at leisure is a fantastic break away. I buy both of these magazines each month... sad, annoyed at this. Edge is the only multiplat gaming mag now and that's just full of high brow pretentious nonsense most of the time 😕

These days, it's not viable for a gaming publication to be profitable. Especially when any news happens, it's published online and is available straight away. It's a shame these publications have to close down, but it's the times we live in. And sooner rather than later, even the newspapers will stop print.

I remember having to wait a month to get the latest gaming news from the likes of N64 and NGC magazine. As the new consoles came out, the name change of the magazine always felt like a new era.

It's good the staff are going to be relocated into other areas.

Very disappointing, many fond memories of both. Hadn’t realised all 3 magazines were from the same publisher, I can understand Future wanting to streamline if they’re not all profitable.

@tudsworth No there's another great magazine Retro Gamer that does feature Nintendo games from time to time.

Me personally I am sad about Games.TM it's a good magazine and Gamesmaster is OK, sad times for the print media. I wish all affected staff the best for the future.

It's the times we live in unfortunately. With news only a click away on the Internet by the time a magazine has gone to print we pretty much know everything we need to know anyway.

Don't get me wrong I absolutely love this website and likewise push square. Probably check in for news updates at least 10 times a day but it's websites such as these and the interwebb in general that have killed the printed games magazine

I used to subscribe to N gamer and I couldn't wait for it to arrive each month. Was really gutted when it shut down

Had the chance to read them but they felt weak content wise.

I lived on GamesMaster magazines growing up. My brother wrote a letter to them once, and he even won the letter of the month award! We didn't receive our games, but I mean, to have our letters published was reward enough.
But yeah, print magazines aren't really pushing the envelope anymore, especially they are usually so late when it comes to gaming news or reviews. As much as I love GamesMaster, their shutting down is probably for the best.
Thanks for the times, GM!

As a 42 year old I grew up with gaming magazines so I find this pretty sad news, I predict Retro Gamer Magazine will be the next to go.

@tudsworth There's also Switch Player, which is UK-based, but it's only available via a subscription from their website, not in shops.

A very sad day indeed.

I buy the occasional GM magazine, but unfortunately when you can get new information instantly they were fighting a losing battle.

I really feel GamesMaster could still be a big voice, but in a different way other than a magazine. I can imagine a tv show (even though it has been done before) or youtube channel would work well for them if it is done in the correct way.

@Tigrinus1975 I doubt it. It seems to be the one acquired brand Future has any interest in keeping, probably because it serves a niche the PlayStation and Xbox magazines can't.

@Dogorilla I'll have to look this up, since it seems like the kind of thing I'd be interested in reading, especially if it has a similar sort of style to mags like NGamer.

@Pj1 oh yeah, I sub to Retro Gamer, and I love the sheer variety of stuff they cover, but it's not quite the same as a normal gaming magazine, where the previews and reviews are the draw, since it instead focuses primarily on long-form features. That said, they do seem to have more of a Nintendo focus of late due to the sheer number of retro and arcade compilations the Switch is getting, so we'll see.

@Silkyinsect_UK reading game mags was what got me into reading as a child and I don’t care if the news is up to date I still enjoy sitting down and reading a mag it’s very relaxing but I also realize I’m in the minority in that thinking in 2018.My health has been horrendous since I was a kid to current and gaming mags helped me pass the time in my many long hospital stays & doctors appointments especially now because I don’t like reading on my phone and I don’t want to bring my laptop or tablet to the hospital or doc visits.I hope they don’t shutdown retro gamer but it’s inevitable.

@MeatSauce I fear that it's not far off that we'll all be experiencing life entirely through our phones/tablets/laptops. Mags, books, galleries, libraries etc offer genuinely stimulating breaks away from our screens... It's sad that our options on how to consume culture are slowly getting taken away from us. Worse still, by the sound if things people don't really care!

There's really no need for print mags when we have eZines like NL to give us up to the date important information.

Oh, look archive evidence of usage of Mario's nipples.

And hey Starlink starter kits have a distribution problem. This is breaking news!

I'm surprised it took Future this long to close down Games TM after buying it from Independent Publishing.

"GamesMaster, as some of our older readers will be aware, actually started life as a TV show in the early '90s [...]"

Older. Readers. How rude 😉

@Silkyinsect_UK very true I hope ondemand mags like Nintendo Force are viable enough to stay around for a bit.

It’s been atleast 5 years since my grocery or newsstands have had a single game mag it’s all Hollywood gossip,food or fantasy sports.

The fact of the matter is that print media is on its way out, people just aren't buying magazines anymore. It's been like that for a long while now, I've had subscriptions to many magazines over the years and every last one of them has shut up shop. People just aren't going to wait a month for news anymore when they can get it instantly via the internet.

For a magazine to be successful now it needs to offer something over and above other media forms, have really unique content or have a reputation of quality writing that makes you want to buy that magazine.

I have a subscription to retro gamer at the minute and I think that's unique enough to carry on running for now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that go in time.

At least Retro Gamer is still running. Those magazines are always really well made, and filled with facts even I didn't know.

Games TM is genuinely good.

Print magazines need to evolve. There’s a quarterly football magazine called The Blizzard and it’s fantastic because it doesn’t focus on news at all. You could go pick up a copy from 5 years ago and it would still be an enthralling read today.

Magazines need to move away from news, previews and reviews and focus on editorials and features, as then they don’t lose out by being ‘late’.

Good luck to all of the employees affected by this. It’s sad but this is what’s happening to physical media

@KIRO Me too! 😅

I had no idea GamesTM was still going, it was always the poor relation to Edge in the multi-format mags. Very saddened to hear GamesMaster is going however. It used to have a very unique voice and a bigger sense of fun then any of the other mag (except maybe the old N64/NGC before it became NGamer).

I was never really into gamesmaster magazine I preferred CVG but it’s incredible that it had lasted this long will be sad to see it disappear

Games TM was one of the best gaming magazine - heck, one of the best magazines period, I've ever read. Sad to see it closing. On the other hand, I totally get it. Heck, I haven't bought a copy in years.

I have every issue of Games TM and will be sad to come home and not find the latest issue. I find it strange that as a long time subscriber they haven’t communicated it to me.

ONM was the best though

I live in the states and would spend good money on GamesTM for years. I haven't read the mag in a while as I read Retro Gamer and I only have money for one pricey UK mag. I hope Retro Gamer is around for a while as I love it.

I loved GamesTM. Used to buy it in print, then bought it digitally for a while. Loved that it had more in-dpeth articles about the industry than just being pages after pages of screenshots like EGM used to be. It had genuinely interesting content, its layout and articles were not catering to childish fanboys but more serious gamers at large, whatever platform you gamed on.

But one thing that I still love about magazines (still subscribed to Maximum PC - digitally), is that you get a good picture of what's happenning out there, even in fields you are sometimes less interested in. Most gaming websites tend to be focused on some aspects, and most platforms like Facebook and Google are usually becoming huge echo chambers feeding you only things that they think you're interested in. I often read magazines from start to finish, and I can attest that I learn a lot more stuff doing so, than browsing through gaming websites.

I personnaly don't like too much where we're going, with that all-digital future because while it's interesting to be able to search for all these things on the web, ultimately, you don't search for things you don't even know exist. And like mentionned before, if Facebook or Google see you browsing to Nintendo-oriented sites, then they'll tailor their news feed so you see Nintendo stuff. Other things you might have found interesting may not be shown to you.

I like the "curation" a magazine does. Editors pick out news and articles for you to read, and while some websites do a good job of doing that too, it's just not the same.

@Dezzy that's wrong I am in the camp for physical magazine. I got otakusa and NEO and renewed for both. So dismissing us is clearly wrong.

@Realnoize spot on 👌

@Silkyinsect_UK yeah, I love the aesthetic of Edge...but the quality of the writing was atrocious, they wanted so badly to be high-brow that so many features became a tedious exercise in translating pretentious drivel

@Steevil glad I'm not the only one. Gaming in general isn't quite the high art some people perceive it to be in my view. I think the likes of Gamemaster strike a good balance 👍

One of the episodes actually had contestants play a beta of Duke Nukem 3D:

@Equinox games tm is a top quality magazine sad to see it go.

Wow, gamesmaster... Reminds me of my school days! I didn't realise they were still selling the magazine.

@zool Let's face it, Super Play/N64/NGC/Ngamer was the only magazine that was really strong content-wise year on year. Once that died, I couldn't stand the step down in quality going to the others. I remember when I got a PS2 and a DC and expected their mags to be as good! I still bought NGC when I didn't have a GameCube as it was that far ahead.
How I can stand to read anything on NintendoLife I'll never know

@mid_55 I know what you mean. Sometimes NL feels like an Official Nintendo site, and they tow the line much like the magazine did. Or is it just me?