Some of may recall my previous post on French games magazines. Well, on a recent trip to Paris I decided to finally pick up a copy of IG. It's a bit expensive, and my French ability isn't fluent, but they have a number of interesting ideas UK and US magazines should make note of. Website link.
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My favourite aspect is how they take a "whole history" view of games. If they cover a new game, like a Golden Sun title, immediately after it they'll have 2 pages covering the entire series, just to get you up to date.
They also give page time to free download games. Which is excellent, since while a lot of mags are starting to take indie games seriously, they tend to still focus on commercial indie games, whereas entirely free indie games get mostly overlooked. These two types of indie title are distinct - so much so that I think we really need a new nomenclature to describe each of them.
They also take a look beyond games, such as examining the artwork of Giorgio de Chirico, which was a major influence on ICO.
Overall a fascinating magazine. Design is a little bland, but the range of content is second to none. And the best part? The size. It's over 260 pages, without adverts.Let me say that again: THERE IS NO ADVERTISING. This means they can't be held to ransom by publishers who threaten to pull ads. What a miracle! TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY PAGES.
Yeah, IG is a weird case because it's been created by Ankama, a very successful MMO publisher/developer, also very successful comic/cartoon publisher/producer, so the real situation is they can't be held to ransom by *other* publishers, and for promoting Ankama's own products they have other, dedicated magazines that don't even need the pretense of being vaguely objective (and still manage to be fairly interesting, with many glimpses into the production process).
ReplyDeleteSo it's a sort of happy accident brought about by an unusual situation
Thanks for posting the photos - specifically because they reviews my game (Cat Astro Phi) in this issue. And as I'm not French I'd never have known! Just ordered myself a copy of issue 12 from their web site. Again, thanks :)
ReplyDeleteAnd now you have given me a reason to learn French.
ReplyDeleteHi ! I'm the french editor in chief of IG Magazine. Thanks for your review even if you don't speak french !
ReplyDeleteHere are all the cover of the magazine and the "story" behind each cover : http://bounthavy.com/wordpress/
You'll see all the cover that we can't do...
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy6YBmZCBHA
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