Topic: Ninendo Force Magazine

[UncleBob]

True - but here, GoNintendo, IGN... The forums are just a part of the website.  There's reviews, news, interviews, and all kinds of other -ews things.

NeoGAF is *only* forums.  Nothing more.  100% of their model depends on people coming there and postings stuff for the site operators - for free - to keep them going.

[Cyrian]

Just realized that Nintendo has been spelt wrong in the topic title. I know good for me. That's all.

Ha! I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out.

[tendoboy1984]

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/email-neogaf-is-censoring-you/

The  business model for Neogaf is not ‘community’ but to be an advertising vendor. The idea is to attract as many eyeballs as possible to see the advertisements that appear on each page. Normally, this is fine, good, and the standard of how most sites operate on the Internet. However, Neogaf does not generate its own content. It leverages users to do it for them and often steals news and content from other websites (i.e. instead of the eyeballs going to that website, they would just read the content on Neogaf). I’ve seen message posters there spend a huge amount of time and energy making great ‘original posts’ or spend a big amount of time of making posts and updates on a thread. My question to these ‘heavy’ Neogaf posters is: Why are you spending all that time making someone else money?

I know some folks around here aren't Malstrom's biggest fans, but it's an interesting article.

To answer Malstrom's question at the end, it's because NeoGAF, like any other forum, is community-based. People post threads and comments to start a discussion.

[Shaymin]

You're trying to get logic out of Malstrom. There's much better things you can do with your time, like organizing a bellybutton lint collection.

[UncleBob]

Umm... Why not start your own community? Make your own money off the ads?

[MegaByte]

Inertia.


Also, NeoGAF used to be Gaming-Age's forums before it grew into its own thing.

[azeke]

According to this news NF#1 is already out.

But i come to official site and there is nothing on it.

[Ceric]

According to this news NF#1 is already out.

But i come to official site and there is nothing on it.

So says Nintendaan as well.  He has a link to the Magcloud for it.

[ShyGuy]

So  Nintendo World Report: Powered Off is Sega CD and Nintendo Force Magazine is Sega 32x?

[azeke]

So  Nintendo World Report: Powered Off is Sega CD and Nintendo Force Magazine is Sega 32x?

What does that make Pure Nintendo thing? Dreamcast?

[Ceric]

So  Nintendo World Report: Powered Off is Sega CD and Nintendo Force Magazine is Sega 32x?

What does that make Pure Nintendo thing? Dreamcast?

Saturn

[azeke]

So here is me at http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/497452 :

$18!.. Ouch. 80 pages though. Tempting. Oh, there is a coupon for this shop... I'll bite.

Hmmm... Shipping is $10 to my country. Ah, whatever...

Aaand done.

I'd feel better about it if all proceeds went directly to authors though.

Not sure if i should read it now as PDF or wait for journal to come in physical form...

[TJ Spyke]

ONLY 80 pages? That really is pathetic. I was pissed when EGM started being less than 100 pages, and $18 got me a years worth. $5 is not bad, too bad that is only for the digital version.

[UncleBob]

That price buys me a DS game.  Over the course of a year, that'd be 4 WiiU titles.

Sorry - I was super-excited about this, but I can't justify that much one a single issue of a magazine.

[NWR_Neal]

Sorry for the higher price, guys. We're a small outfit with no advertisers/publishers, so we're using print on demand, which means that, at cost, this puppy in $17 to produce. If you think it's too pricey, that's your prerogative, but for what we can do with it, it can't be any cheaper.

[UncleBob]

Neal - I can't speak for anyone else, but magazine ads don't bother me a single bit.  I'd rather 20 pages of ads and a $5 magazine than a $20 magazine with no ads.

[ShyGuy]

PlanetGameCube was the Master System
Nintendo World Report is the Genesis
Nintendo World Report: Powered Off is Sega CD
Nintendo Force Magazine is Sega 32x
Pure Nintendo Magazine is Saturn
Pietriots is Game Gear
PixlBit is Nomad

Nintendo Power was Dreamcast

[TJ Spyke]

So PGC has almost no fanbase other than the staff
NWR is good and varied
NWR: PO is crap that no one wants
NFM is pointless and used by almost no one
PNM is good for retro style content but overpriced and not adept to modern stuff
Pietriots is a overprice, flawed version of PGC
PixlBit is a portable version of NWR
Nintendo Power is beloved by fans but failed to last again competition

[ShyGuy]

Well, it's not a PERFECT analogy...

[leahsdad]

Despite the cost (the official Nintendo Force website has a promo code, HPSD, to bring down the cost of the magazine.  With shipping, it brought it down to $16 and change), I went ahead and purchased the issue, along with the free digital version.  I plopped the digital version into my Ipad 4, and while my kids were falling asleep, I just perused the first issue, reading a few of the articles.

In one word:   AMAZING.

As I opened up the pdf, the first thing that pops at me is how professional this was done, as in, completely professional.   The articles which I read fully (the one Lucas wrote on Restore points, the FE Awakening review) were excellent.    And make no mistake, this issue is LONG.   Probably twice as long as any issue of Game Informer or Nintendo Power.

And about that.  Nintendo Power.   The fact that this magazine is called Nintendo Force, just how apt the use of a synonym of "power" is, didn't hit me until today.   This magazine is not a love letter to Nintendo.  It's a love letter to Nintendo Power, the magazine.   I've subscribed to NP for the last 4 years, and I've got a pretty good visual memory, so I'm immediately struck by how inspired the format and layout of Nintendo Force is to that of recent Nintendo Power.   I don't want to use the word "aped" because there are a lot of  improvements and changes made to the basis of modern Nintendo Power's layout and visual vocabulary.  Maybe not so much in, say, the downloadable reviews (which are pretty faithful to the NP style) but the reviews section is much improved--- NP had a horrible of habit of de-emphasizing art in favor of text, and mostly limiting art to standard screenshots.   NF blows out the art, giving it a lot of emphasis and doing that magazine  thing of letting art and text bleed and encroach into each other's conventional spaces, reminding you that, at least for now, the web can't do this. 

Oh, and as someone who loves retro games like I love the honeyz, thanks for the retro section.  Awesome.

It boggles my mind how much work obviously went into this.   Make no mistake, this magazine looks better than any video game magazine out there (granted, there are only 5 of them left out there). 

[Caliban]

Neal - I can't speak for anyone else, but magazine ads don't bother me a single bit.  I'd rather 20 pages of ads and a $5 magazine than a $20 magazine with no ads.

I think he meant that they couldn't get anyone to advertise on their magazine. Which is not surprising in this day, and age. Regardless of quality.

[UncleBob]

While I'm sure that's a possibility, it seems odd that Pure Nintendo was able to secure advertisers for their magazine (I guess enough to get it down to $20/6 issues).

This is really something HP needs to work on with their MagCloud service.  Since the issues are print-on-demand, it seems this would be very lucrative to advertisers.  Instead of selling StudioX the back cover for MovieX, they could sell StudioX the back cover for whatever ad StudioX wants to put on the back cover for the life of the magazine (print and digital).

[coffeewithgames]

Probably twice as long as any issue of Game Informer or Nintendo Power.

You must not subscribe to GameInformer. Latest issue is 100 pages, with about 10 ads. That's 90 pages of content.

I bought the digital copy of NF, but at $5 a copy, it won't happen again. There was only one piece I was interested in, and it didn't change the fact I was already buying the game. Neal, while the PHYSICAL copy price isn't really in your control, why not make the digital copy A LOT less? I can get a year's subscription to most magazines for $20, for physical copies. Many offer digital versions now though, at lower costs.

Also, what charity is getting the money?

[NWR_Neal]

It wasn't that we couldn't get advertisers, it's that they weren't pursued.

I'm not as involved in the business operations of NF, more contributing to it because hey, I loved Nintendo Power and it seems fun.

I believe Child's Play is the recipient. More details should be out on that soon, I think. Keep in mind that the overpriced digital version involves all of the money going to charity, as there is minimal production cost for a PDF compared to a print mag.

[Padawan of Windu]

I bought it the first chance I could!  While I'm waiting for the physical edition to read it all (like I would with Nintendo Power - avoiding web coverage of it's news until I actually had the magazine in hand), I peeked a bit at the digital version and the quality is phenomenal!  I absolutely love it, and was totally psyched that my art made it into the envelope art section (two, even!) =D