['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

   

I was recently lucky enough to add a few copies of 3 For 3DO Enthusiasts to my collection. This means that I now have six issues of America's top (and also only) full-color magazine devoted to the wonder console of the early 1990s. Foreign 3DO owners had it much luckier -- while 3 only lasted seven issues (plus one free giveaway), 3DO Magazine lasted until late 1996 in Britain (with a demo CD, even), while an unrelated Japanese magazine with the same name ran for twelve issues over the course of two years.

The 3DO Company did have their own internal newsletter, but neither it nor 3 never really took off much. It's simple why, really. The 3DO console had a pretty poor market position by the time someone bothered to start a mag for it in America (the system was already on the skids by early 1995), and there simply wasn't the userbase nor the advertising revenue available to make a big, fancy magazine. That, however, didn't stop Don Hicks, head of Massachusetts-based PiM Publications from talking up a big game in his kickoff editorial for 3:

"3DO has a broader appeal. 3DO attracts a different type of consumer than Nintendo or SEGA machines. This means a publication dedicated to those 3DO users must explore the platform differently than most multi-platform game machines available in the U.S. or Europe. In fact, 3 should be a blend of product reviews, technical information, market information, and stories on new developments and the people that make them happen."

In short, Hicks wanted to create a type of mag that was already in something of a vogue in the mid-90s: a "multimedia" magazine. Remember that word? How it got bandied about all the time in Next Generation, Wired, Fusion, Electronic Games, Electronic Entertainment, and about a hundred other computer mags? 'Twas a bold new future that gamers had to look forward to ten years ago -- one with lots of video, lots of pre-rendered game sequences, and lots and lots of Tim Curry...with a dash of Mark Hamill on the side.

Unlike most of these avant-garde info-tainment magazines, though, 3 kept a pretty low profile through its existence. A very low profile. No issue was over 64 pages, and each one featured surprisingly straightforward design, which black text on white backgrounds and screenshots aligned next to each other in neat little rows and columns. (The screenshots are pretty obviously taken with a regular ol' flash camera in early issues, but Hicks hooked himself up with a real screen grabber later on.)

Towards the end of 1995, 3's page size went below 50 an issue and the mag's days were obviously numbered, despite the unwaveringly cheery tone of Hicks' editorials ("The 3DO Company has matched their competitor's efforts with more product, better design, and a company filled with people to make it happen," he wrote in the next-to-last issue). The mag closed without comment with its December 1995 edition and has since remained largely forgotten by pretty much all gamers everywhere.

   

The funny thing about this story isn't 3 itself -- it's your typical game mag, pretty much, and once you get over the amateurish design you'll find that it's pretty darn well-written. The real story doesn't begin until you look at Don Hicks and the state PiM Publications was in at the time 3 was launched.

Until 3 came along, PiM's main title was Amazing Computing, a monthly mag devoted to the Amiga computer line. It was one of the first Amiga mags in America, debuting on a monthly schedule in early 1986, and it was arguably the most respected -- only IDG's AmigaWorld held a bigger readership. Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994, however, put a rather obvious period at the end of Amiga's story -- while the fanbase might keep it going for a while, it was plainly never going to rival the PC in the marketplace again, no matter what the Amiga's notoriously optimistic fanbase thought.

So Hicks, like any decent businessman, decided to diversify a bit. He signed a deal with The 3DO Company to let PiM distribute the first two issues of 3 for free to their user mailing list, similar to the way Nintendo launched their own magazine in 1988. Unfortunately, his timing couldn't have been worse. The PlayStation and Saturn were launching in Japan just as 3 hit newsstands, and most hardcore gamers of the time decided to wait and see what Sony and Sega would do in America before spending $500 or so on a system without any "killer" titles. To put it another way, Hicks did everything right with 3's launch; it's just that the audience simply wasn't there.

With 3 closed, Hicks' only product was once again Amazing Computing, a mag appealing to an ever-diminishing base of Amiga users. Amazingly (hur hur), he kept the mag going until late 1999, and even when each issue was cut down to 32 pages and printed on paper that the phone book would be ashamed to use, Hicks still tried his damndest to remain upbeat in his writing. "This issue's diminshed size might have a negative effect on the North American Amiga market," he wrote in what became the final issue (above, right). "Yet, we have no choice, if Amiga vendors are not able to get product, make sales, and earn a living, then we need to design a system where they can. We stated many years ago Amazing would continue as long as there was an Amiga market. If this means removing Amazing from the newsstands to lower ad prices for Amiga vendors to keep them in the here [sic], we just may need to do that."

I know it's impossible to keep a diehard Amiga fan down, but I can't help but feel sorry for Mr. Hicks. He stuck with his choice of computer through the good times, then the bad, then the very bad, and his "Plan B" out of his dilemma was to launch a mag for a doomed game system. PiM Publications declared bankruptcy in late 1999 and Hicks disappeared from the Internet soon afterward, but wherever he is, I hope he's still got that positive can-do outlook on life. That, and I hope he gave up and got a PlayStation 2, at least. Hopefully he wasn't one of those (shudder) Nuon early adopters.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He owns enough magazines to smother himself with should the need arise, and his secret fantasy is for someone flush with game-publisher stock options to give him a monthly stipend so he can spend a year researching their full history and finishing the site. In his "off" time he is an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]