Charla On Video Game Mag Shenanigans
June 6, 2006 10:50 AM | Simon Carless
Kevin Gifford's recent article on the state of U.S. game mags has elicited _lots_ of commentary, both in the post itself and elsewhere online, and poking around in the Slashdot thread on the post, we found a very neat comment by Backbone Entertainment's Chris Charla, formerly EIC of Next Gen magazine, about the game magazine industry.
Charla is great at explaining the difference between the U.S. and UK game markets, by way of rebutting complaints about the amount of ads in game magazines: "In the US, magazine distribution is really inefficient -- there are hundreds of thousands of places to buy magazines, and to reach the realtively small number of people interested in a nich publication (games, fishing, knitting, etc), you need to print way more copies than you can possibly sell. Selling through 20 or 22% of your newstand copies is considered good, and hitting 30% or higher is fantastic. That means you're wasting the cost of 70% of your newstand distribution, which is a lot. At best, your newsstand sales might break even."
He also explains: "Then you have subscriptions. The $12.99 or $19.99 you pay for a year of a magazine doesn't come close to paying for the printing and shipping. It's a total loss leader. What it does, however, is ensure a certain level of readership for the magazine (vs. the uncertainty of newstand/retail sales). This number of readers -- the guarenteed circulation -- can then be shown to potential advertisers, along the lines of "hey, look, a quarter-million people subscribe to this magazine! Our research shows they each spend $600 a year on software! You should advertise, because this is your core audience." And then (hopefully) you sell some ads. Advertising is the *only* place a typical US magazine makes any money at all."
He concludes: "That all said, magazines are a fanastic bargain, and given that the ads are really very targeted, I don't mind seeing them in games mags, the same way I enjoy looking at the ads in car mags or other technology magazines." Do you feel likewise?
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3 Comments
I have nothing against ads in a mag, especially if they are targeted. What I don't like is every other page being an ad. There are far too many game mags where nearly every right page is an ad. They were there, but I know I skipped over them sometimes without so much as a glance. For survival and profitability they need a decent volume of ads, I get that, but I think there has to be a better way. Placing small banner like ads on content pages would be a more interesting way and would break up the monotony. I used to really love when a company would burn some money on a cool promo item. I remember sega had air freshiners, papercraft, and even magnetic "paper" dolls durring the dc era. Of all the ads in the magazines I have read over the years I remember very few, but I can certinly remember what games those promo items were for. Like all advertising creativity counts, and that is one place where print game ads have been behind IMHO.
D | June 6, 2006 4:09 PM
Hey D, there is a misconception that you see an ad on every other page of a magazine--gaming-centric or otherwise. What you often find is that advertisers will want to cram adds in the front half of a magazine and close to the back. And yes, it sucks that they are on right-hand pages, but few companies want to buy ads on left-hand sides. Most magazines I've seen have a 70/30, edit/ad split. I can live with that.
As for the "cool" ads in the magazine, I wouldn't mind seeing more of those either, but most of these companies are busy burning ad dollars online and on TV so I guess what you see is what you get.
Matzah Luther King | June 7, 2006 9:21 AM
Oh ya, I didn't mean a literal every right hand page, that would be sheer lunacy. It just seems like all the ads are the right hand page. I always thought it odd seeing as we all read left to right and our instinct is to flip and look at the left page. I would say a 70/30 sounds about right too. They spend the money for the page, I don't see why they don't fill it with something intersting. Intersting always wins.
D | June 7, 2006 5:20 PM