I've always been a regular reader of video game publications, especially in my younger days; when you're living in the late 1980s and stuck in school for 8 hours a day, there's no sweeter escape than cracking open a fresh issue of Nintendo Power and poring over the pages. But the state of print is much different than it was during my analog-based childhood. Magazines are folding, newspaper sales are plummeting, and, frankly, the Internet is to blame--although it hasn't really done much aside from making our lives easier. Print is now competing with the impossible task of remaining relevant in an age where waiting weeks for information is a laughable prospect. And since the Internet has essentially stolen print's fire, it's going to have to do something drastic to stay afloat.
GameSpite: Year One may be the perfect example of where video game publications should be headed. For those of you not familiar with GameSpite, it's a web site--run by 1UP scribe Jeremy Parish--that features digital "issues" of content written by a staff of hungry writers. What appeals most to me is that GameSpite's content is stuff you're not going to find in print, or even on major web sites; most articles are in-depth discussions of games well outside of their 2-week release window. And GameSpite: Year One is a compilation of this content in book form--split into two volumes, what with how many danged words there are.
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