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Steve Harris hints at the future of the reborn EGM
When Electronic Gaming Monthly closed its doors back in January, it not only left behind an issue that never got published but also a brand that gamers everywhere easily recognized. The magazine's original founder, Steve Harris, recently bought back the rights to the magazine (as well as online rights), and this week he spoke with Publishing Executive to detail a bit of his plans for his new venture."The new Electronic Gaming Monthly will let you take your magazine and its content from print to computer to wireless devices -- even to your television," he says in the piece, continuing, "Content will be delivered via a digital device included with each issue." He doesn't go on to explain whether he means a thumb drive or a CD or what, but we're just as curious as you are to know more about the rebirth of a magazine we grew up reading -- and hated after hours spent trying to find Sheng Long. Curse you, early-to-mid-90s game magazine editors![Via Bitmob]
Here's your new issue of EGM! It's called Maxim
click to embiggen ... the full image While some folks wait to subscribe to the reanimated EGM later this year, those who currently have a subscription to the deceased periodical have begun receiving their replacement magazine: Maxim. Yes, the mag that controversially scored 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand higher than Killzone 2 and Street Fighter IV is clearly the right replacement for the demographic.A note on the issue of Maxim arriving in mailboxes states that the balance of customers' paid EGM subscription will be fulfilled by the engorging engaging mag. Have fun, boys! And, um, sorry to any of those female subscribers. We're sure you'll love all those articles Maxim is famous for.[Thanks, Dan]
FigurePrints celebrates Ulduar with 10% discount
In celebration of the release of Patch 3.1, Secrets of Ulduar, FigurePrints is having a little sale. When placing your order, if you enter the promotional code 'ULDUARSECRET' you'll get 10% off of the price of your Print. Normal price being $129.95, you get $13 off bringing the subtotal to $116.95. Shipping is about $20, so your print would come to $136.90. This sale will only last through the 30th, so you have a little under two weeks to make your purchase.I suspect that discounted price is still too high for most people, and only the crazy folk like me will pick up on it. I bought a FigurePrint at full price awhile back, and it was certainly worth it to me, even if the print was much smaller than I expected it to be. It was less a monument to my character, and more a little physical memory of what I've been doing for four years. That's worth $150 to me. To most people? Probably not. That's rather steep for what you get, even if it is crafted for your character.
Mac 101: How to set a default printer
Over time you may wind up with several printers set up for your Mac. This results in a list of available printers every time you go to print. If the default (the first one selected) isn't to your liking you can always change it. To do so, bring up System Preferences and go to Print & Fax. Now right-click (you can hold the Ctrl key down if you don't have a 2-button mouse) on a printer in the list and choose: Set default printer. There you go!Note the plus and minus signs below the list of printers. If you're just getting started, click the plus to add a printer. If you've sold a printer, click the minus to delete one after selecting it. Apple has an excellent 101 of their own about setting up a printer on your Mac.Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 section.
Future's UK numbers down in 2008, 19 laid off from US offices [update]
Gamesindustry.biz reports that Future Publishing's numbers in the UK were almost uniformly down in 2008. The only magazines in the publisher's stable that saw sizable increases in readership were Playstation: The Official Magazine and PSW (which is unofficial, incidentally). Playstation: The Official Magazine in particular did well, adding over 7,500 new readers. The only other magazine to see any growth at all was Official Nintendo Magazine, which increased its readership by an incredible 41 people. All other Future gaming publications in the UK, including stalwarts like PSM 3, Edge, Official Xbox Magazine and PC Gamer, saw significant decreases in readership.Additionally, VG247 is reporting that 19 employees are being laid off from Future's San Francisco and New York offices. A Future UK spokesperson referred to the laid off employees as "redundancies," saying, "These changes were made in line with Future's stated strategy of focusing on structure and costs in a severe global economic downturn." The report does not specify which departments the layoffs affected.The news comes in the wake of lower revenues and readerships for Future's US publications and an increase in users on Future's websites. It raises the question: Just what kind of future there is for Future's print business?(Update: We've confirmed via a Future US employee -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- that none of the 19 positions eliminated were from editorial. Sales and marketing were the only departments affected.)Source -- VG247 - Future lays off 19 staff from SF and NY officesSource -- gi.biz - Circulations slide for majority of Future games magazines
Counting Rupees: Oh, magazine
Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming: With the end of the holidays came the news that EGM is being shuttered. These are disappointing days for many people, not least the hard-working staff that contributed to the respected magazine. I think that the occasion probably merits a mention as much for its inevitability as its sadness.In days in which even large, mainstream print publications are facing severe financial difficulties, it seems all too obvious that smaller, niche publications are going to face similar pressures. And gaming magazines seem to me to be among the most vulnerable, for several reasons.
Print photos from your iPhone with HP iPrint Photo
How would you like to be able to shoot photos on your iPhone, and then immediately print them on your HP printer? HP has a new product called iPrint Photo (click opens iTunes) available in the App Store that makes it very simple to print your iPhone pictures. The free download opens to a list of photo albums that looks very similar to the list in the Photos app on the iPhone. Tapping on a photo brings up a Print Photo page with a large Print button on it (see photo at right). If you only have one networked printer available, just tapping the Print button sends a 4x6 inch (10x15 cm) print job to that printer. If more than one HP inkjet printer is on your local Wi-Fi network, tapping on a printer search icon brings up a Chooser-like list of printers that you can select one from. This is an excellent free app -- it took no setup and I was able to print a picture immediately after downloading the software from the app store.Between this software and HP's announcement of their Mac-compatible media server, it looks like HP is starting to play nice with Apple!Check out the gallery below for a few more photos of this app in use. %Gallery-40276%
Show and Tell: Oh, Mama!
It's no wonder we're seeing Mama branch out -- Cooking Mama spawned a ridiculous amount of love, even if it didn't break any sales records. The shining face of Mama (or the image of her fiery eyes) is fast becoming a staple in the gamer crafting and cosplay communities. Mama's out of the kitchen, so we're dedicating this week's Show and Tell to her!Take the guided tour by starting right here, or be reckless and jump right into the gallery below.%Gallery-35505% Show and Tell is all about fan stuff, so long as it's Nintendo-related. We love to see your collections, your crafts, your frosted creations, your t-shirts and swag of all sorts.Just snap a few pictures, tell us what's up, and send it all to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest. Not a handy type, but found something neat? Send us a link instead.
DS Daily: Favorite gaming ad?
The Mega64 ad from yesterday got cogs in our mind turning. There have been a lot of good ones over the years, some of which have been featured here on DS Fanboy through Promotional Consideration. Like, this one. And this one. And this one we made ourselves. And ... well, you get the idea. So what have been some of your favorite gaming advertisements? A random billboard? Some commercial you saw on TV? An ad you flipped past in a magazine? Out with it!
Fujifilm, Nintendo bring photo printing service to Japanese Wiis
Not that the Big N hasn't snubbed the vast majority of the world before with these channel releases, but folks holed up everywhere save for Japan have yet another one they can only look longingly at from afar. Thanks to a new partnership between Nintendo and Fujifilm, the Wii Digicam Print Channel is immediately available for Japanese Wii consoles to access, which essentially gives owners the ability to upload images from SD cards and receive customized prints, photo books, business cards, etc. in the mail. We're not totally at all sure why someone would choose to handle this on a gaming console rather than, say, an actual computer, but hey -- who are we to judge? Oh, and for you folks in North America, Europe and beyond, expect the service to roll your way sometime in the future. [Via DigitalCameraInfo]
SOE runs first EverQuest magazine ad in years
Sony Online Entertainment reportedly bought a "three-page advertising spread" for EverQuest in this month's issue of PC Gamer magazine. The massive ad promotes the Living Legacy campaign -- an initiative that allows former EQ and EverQuest II subscribers to play for free until the end of July.In two interviews, reps from SOE told us that the Living Legacy initiative is intended to show lapsed and potential EQ and EQ2 players that both games have evolved over the years, and that they deserve a fresh look. A print ad is a bold statement, although new marketing pushes for old games are not unprecedented. Near Death Studios bought ad space for Meridian 59 on the Vault Network when the game relaunched in 2001 after a two year absence. Electronic Arts plastered the web with Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn ads in the wake its 3D graphics engine upgrade.But will it work? Should more old MMOs do it? Are advertizing blitzes and a couple of free months of play what MMOs of yore need, or does this industry move too fast for that to be sufficient? Commence pondering.
Jumpgate Evolution dev chat to commence June 9th
At 5:00 PM EST on Monday, June 9th, Stratics will host a live chat with several members of the Jumpgate Evolution team -- including producer Hermann Peterscheck, concept artist Kirk Lunsford, community manager Nicole Hamlett, and UI programmer Josh Stefanski. Stratics will also be giving away a beta key and a limited edition print to two lucky participants.The chat will take place in the #straticshoc channel on Stratics IRC. You can use your own IRC client or the Java one provided by the site. A list of servers and ports is included along with further instructions in the announcement, in case you're not a regular.
Beckett releases an in-depth WoW guide
Beckett Media is a company normally known for their collectible magazines -- they cover things like baseball cards, Yu-Gi-Oh, toys, and all of that other junk most people don't bother with (ok, ok, I kid, collectors, but I don't get the point of buying toys you don't take out of the box). Apparently, a little while back, Beckett started to get into another field where most of what you do is collecting: massively multiplayer online games, and they started a magazine called Beckett Massive Online Gamer. And now, they've started publishing a series of biannual guides for various online games, starting with our very own World of Warcraft.We haven't seen the guide, but their sales page promises "tips for conquering dungeons, guides for leveling to 70," and "perfecting WoW endgame classes," all for only $9.99. To tell the truth, it sounds pretty lame (not to mention that you can get exactly the same stuff right here for the low, low price of free), but at least there's another print competitor to the official Brady Guides -- if you absolutely need your WoW news in print form, you've got at least two choices now.Anyone seen one of these yet? Next time you're at the collectibles store, see if they've got one sitting on the magazine shelf and let us know what it looks like.
Games for Windows Magazine goes online-only
The list of defunct video game magazines has grown quite a bit over the last few years: Tips & Tricks; Computer Games; the Official PlayStation Magazine (the old one, not the new one). Well, we can add another name to the list today, as Ziff Davis just announced that Games for Windows: The Official Magazine will no longer exist in its print form.In announcing the move, effective as of the April/May issue, Ziff Davis Vice President Simon Cox assured readers that the decision had "nothing to do with the Chapter 11 stuff," and everything to do with the computer gaming audience's massive migration to online news sources. The magazine's editorial staff will be transferred to computer game coverage on 1UP.com, Cox said, though the magazine's art team will be moving on. Current subscribers will be able to transfer their subscriptions to Electronic Gaming Monthly or request a refund PC Mag, according to 1UP's Dan Hsu [updated with correction from Hsu himself @ 3:09].The decision marks the end of the run for a magazine that started in 1981 as Computer Gaming World and leaves Electronic Gaming Monthly as Ziff Davis' only print video game magazine and Future's PC Gamer as America's only computer game-focused print mag. Will this latest streamlining help attract interest in the long-offered sale of the Ziff Davis Game Group? Given the widespread contraction of the magazine market, we can't say it would hurt.
Guitar Princess
If you've got a fetish for franchise mash-ups, of even if you've just always wanted to see what a mess a guitar would look like outfitted with the N64's buttons, stick, and directional pad, then here you are. Michael J. Patrick has this image of Princess Peach rockin' out as an 8x10 print available for sale on his Etsy shop for twelve bucks. It doesn't seem like there's much of a market out there for Princess Peach fanart or mock-ups of guitars with controls from a two-generations-old system, but who knows?What song do you think she could be playing that would leave her looking so forlorn? Our guess is that it's Nirvana's "Something in the Way." Maybe she's been going through a lot of stuff lately, you know? Whatever's keeping you down, Peach, we hope it doesn't drive you to one day blow your brains out with a shotgun. Some think, "It's better to burn out than to fade away," but you've got so much ahead of you!
Nintendo Power shutting down?
We attempted to think of something witty and clever to start the post off with a bang, but in the end, it would just be inappropriate. For at least one of us here on staff, Nintendo Power delivered the very first experience to the concept of gaming journalism.Recent reports, however, have indicated that massive layoffs have been implemented at the publication. This is by no means an official announcement, but certainly either a massive downsizing or outright cancellation. NP has been putting out their pages for nineteen whole years, and it would be a great loss to the gaming community to see such a mainstay eliminated.That said, our brilliant coverage of all things Wii and DS have probably helped in some small way to facilitate this grim news. Oops. Also, will this affect the tentative plans to bring legacy NP content to the Virtual Console? If they have to die, let their memory at least by memorialized in style.
Spamtrap automatically prints, shreds spam for ultimate satisfaction
Watching the digits in front of your dedicated spam folder grow isn't entirely enthralling, and to be honest, witnessing just how much junk email you receive on a daily basis can actually be somewhat infuriating. The Spamtrap provides a much more tactile and satisfying way to demolish said waste, as it disregards the delete command and gets straight to the dirty work. The installation interacts with spammers by monitoring several email addresses, and once any spam is received, the Pentium II-based machine "automatically prints and shreds" the garbage so you can really tell the spam whose boss. Subsequently, the system then feeds blacklists with the information it receives in an attempt to further clean up the web for other individuals without such extreme means of purging their inbox. And for those environmentally conscience folks who are on the edge of irate, yes, the creator does go the extra mile by recycling the paper that inevitably gets wasted. Hit the read link for a video demonstration.[Via BoingBoing]
DIY 3D printer utilizes hot air, sugar to craft random objects
Just when you thought a $5,000 3D printer wasn't such a bad deal after all, the zany gurus at the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories have put Desktop Factory's iteration to shame. The CandyFab 4000 is a homegrown printer that utilized a bevy of miscellaneous spare parts around the lab as well as the same sort of CNC hot-air control mechanism that we previously saw in the text writing toaster contraption. Their selective hot air sintering and melting (SHASAM) method allows the printer to begin with a bed of granular media (sugar, in this case) in which a directed, low-velocity beam of hit air can be used to fuse together certain areas repeatedly, eventually working the remaining grains into a three-dimensional object. The creators claim that while their CandyFab machine only ran them $500 in addition to junk parts and manual labor, even starting from scratch shouldn't demand more than a grand or so, so be sure to click on through for a few snaps of the fascinating results and hit the read link for the full-blown skinny.[Via MetaFilter]
Your average inkjet can now print Super 8 / 16mm film
No doubt about it, vanilla inkjets seem to be garnering a whole lot of attention these days, and while the latest trick won't yield circuits or OLED displays, it could make filmmakers who long for days past quite excited. Jesse England has apparently discovered a fairly easy to automate process to print video frames onto transparency film. After discovering the dimensions for both Super 8 and 16-millimeter film, he simply made a template, arranged the filmstrip using Adobe's Premier and Photoshop, and printed it out on an everyday Epson inkjet. The noticeably manual task of punching out sprocket holes was still left to a hand-powered box cutter, but we're sure there are less tedious solutions just waiting to be implemented. As expected, the actual video quality was deemed "terrible," but the emotional impact was bittersweet indeed. Be sure to hit the read link for the whole low-down and to see a couple of video demonstrations to show you what the fuss is all about.[Via BoingBoing]
CNC hot-air gun used to draw faces, text on toast
Slicing up ole Xbox consoles or using immensely powerful lasers to heat your morning cup of joe are certainly entertaining ways to make industrial machinery a bit more fun, but the CNC Toast printer ups the ante by providing an over-the-top replacement for those plastic molds we used as youngsters. By hacking a CNC hot-air gun to respond to a "computer-dictated X-Y control system" and affixing it to the carriage of a printer, the evil scientists were able instruct the toasty (ahem) blaster to move around in a user-selected pattern in order to print images and text onto pieces of toast. Cleverly dubbed "digital toast imaging technology," the apparatus was able to affix a number of slightly awkward faces on slices of bread, and even imprint "Hello World" onto one piece in particular. Still, you can't get the full impression of how geektacular this truly is without seeing it in motion, so that's why you should click on through right about now and hit play, cool?[Via HackedGadgets]
