Gaming Culture magazine is a passion project - by gamers, for gamers. If you’re sick and tired of doomscrolling articles from traditional news outlets/publications and video game journalists and want to read something positive, then the Gaming Culture magazine is the magazine for you. To be honest, this is one of the main reasons why I tend to avoid reading other journalist’s articles and why I refuse to watch the news on the television because I don’t want them to affect my mental health in a negative way. It’s ironic for me to say, seeing as I’m a journalist myself. Besides, in all honesty, why should I watch the news and read other journalists’ articles when I can create my own news? Reading other journalists’ articles on other publications and websites or watching the news on the television is detrimental to my mental health anyway.
While I see Bounding Through Comics, Fandom Pulse, That Park Place, wdwpro (@wdwpro1), Geeks + Gamers, Clownfish TV and so forth as the spiritual successors to Exclusively Games, fingers crossed Gaming Culture magazine will evoke the same escapism feeling from these publications where mainstream publications such as IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku, Eurogamer, Forbes etc have failed.
On an unrelated note, Duke Nukem recently appeared in The Real Game Awards (hosted by Craig Richard Skistimas a.k.a. “Stuttering Craig” of the Side Scrollers Podcast) as the host/announcer. As of writing this article, the name of Duke Nukem’s voice actor hasn’t been disclosed but it may most likely be Jon St. John or a voice actor who could come close to replicating Duke Nukem’s voice. Prior to The Real Game Awards, Jon St. John voiced Dusty in Rad Rodgers: World One and Rad Rodgers: Radical Edition. Unlike The Game Awards 2021, The Real Game Awards is entertaining to watch and it didn’t send me to sleep. It’s short, sweet and to the point. Whereas The Game Awards feels bloated and all of these pointless adverts come off as padding and fluff to pad out the runtime which is downright frustrating for people that needs to go to bed early, like for instance if they need to go to work, an event or any educational facility such as nursery, primary school, high school, college, university etc the following day. I’m saying this for myself and people that don’t live in America. In fact, Statler and Waldorf are nearly every gamer’s inner and outer thoughts, feelings and opinions about The Game Awards, including mine, personified.
This magazine will include in depth game reviews, interviews with industry legends (for example, an interview with Peter Connelly, who is the video game composer of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider Chronicles, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony and Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered), gaming news and updates, feature articles, gamer profiles, hardware and software reviews and a community section. The selling points are a diverse content, expert analysis, engaging visuals, strong community focus and sheer size. This aforementioned magazine will be distributed in print, digital and social media formats.
The magazine key features consist of 96 pages, the magazine pages will be in A4 (210 x 297mm) size, the paper stock will be uncoated and will be 150gsm, the cover will be 300gsm and the softcover will be perfect bound.
If I had to critique, first thing’s first. The front cover looks amateurish and it looks more like a mock-up than a finalised design. In my opinion, PhilipReadArt needs to be hired to design the front cover. PhilipReadArt has another account: Classic Gaming Magazine Covers (@gamingmagcovers). Secondly, the magazine itself needs more unique sections to help it stand out from the competition such as cosplay, video game movie, TV and anime adaptations, video game locations, video game events, video game exhibitions, video game conferences, video game conventions, video game arcade bars, video game fanfictions and so forth. Thirdly, this magazine needs a reader's letter section for readers to send in their e-mails or physical letters.
The magazine team consists of writers from Zzap!, Retro Gamer, Micro Mart, Metro (GameCentral), Newsquest, and a few more publications to boot, but each writer share a passion that got them enlisted into the team: to make the best possible multi format gaming mag with a quality that would put retail magazines and annuals to shame while at the best possible price for the consumer.
