The death of magazines?

[fsn]

Good morning Gentlemen.

I have just deposited for recycling a fairly large stash of military magazines. I'd been buying magazines since 1974 and found that I stopped reading them. I stopped regularly buying them about 10 years ago, a few years ago I tried to flog off some magazines at the local wargames show and there was absolutely no interest, and today was the logical end point. 

Every now and again I buy a magazine, but there is very little interest. Why? Well I think the obvious answer is the internet. The great big World Wide Web can answer an awful lot of questions. Where I can't find the answer, I can always ask the Forum. Secondly, I find magazines don't give me enough information in a single article. For about the cost of 2 issues of a magazine, I can buy an Osprey.  Thirdly, there are an awful lot of articles in magazines that I'm either not interested in ... or worse are so specific to a particular rule set as to be largely meaningless. Then there's the storage. And the indexing.

I used to buy magazines for some light reading at bedtime or when travelling. Now, the Kindle fills the bill.

The one thing I think magazines can do is bring to my attention new manufacturers and products ... but I have Pendraken which satisfies all my wargaming needs ... well most ... I still need Tumbling Dice for 1:600 aircraft.

And Heroics and Ros for 1:600 ships.

And Navwar for 1:3000 ships.
 
And Timecast for some scenery

And a few others

So, Gentlemen, are you still enthusiastically buying magazines or have you largely given up on the printed periodical? Have you swapped to e-magazines?

[Nick the Lemming]

I gave up getting several magazine every month a good couple of decades ago now, first it dwindled to an occasional buy when I saw one at a newspaper shop that looked interesting, though it did have a bit of a resurgence when Henry Hyde took over at Miniwargs. For the last few years though, I haven't bought a single one, and often don;t even bother having a flip through when I see one at the newsagent.

Too much 28mm crap in them these days, there's very little in them that interests me any more.

[Ace of Spades]

I can't part with the ones I already have and, if cheap enough, I'll by a friends stash if he wants to get rid of them. Still love the smell of printing ink mixed with mildew...
New ones I very, very seldom buy. Maybe pick up one or two when out shopping and feeling pretty sure I'll be waiting in the car for an hour or so before the better half has spent her budget.

Cheers,
Rob

[fred.]

Very timely.

This weekend while having a bit of a tidy out, I found a big stack of wargames magazines -a few years worth mainly Minature Wargames - offered them to my gaming buddies, for free, only one taker. I had a flick through myself to see if there were any I wanted to keep. I only ended up taking photos of the articles on the Mongols by our own Mick S. I actually found I could read these articles directly on my phone, which is handy.


I do still get WSS electronically. Mainly as it's  really cheap, and contains enough to be interesting on a bi monthly basis.

I've found magazines are good for tempting me into new games - which isn't always a good thing!

Much of the rest of the content is of little interest.

[Maenoferren]

Buy one so rarely that I keep it for Posterity. The last one I bought was Miniature Wargames in August. The one before that was probably June 2016.
I actually put my collection of Miniature Wargames 1-200 into a charity shop.

[d_Guy]

The only hard copy mag I now get is "The Arquebusier" (I have some of the very early issues, let the subscription lapse, and now have a regrettable 40 year gap).

I get "Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy" electronically (used to get "Wargames Illustrated" in electronic form but it simply got so glitzy and gimmicky I couldn't deal with it - plus it seemed like a giant advertisement for 28mm). WSS makes an attempt to cover the smaller scales plus the regular columns agree with my curmudgeonly view of things.

I had a huge collection of "Strategy & Tactics" but in the last move kept only the dozen or so copies relative to my narrow interests.

In 2018 I have bought on the newsstand only one magazine, the Nat Geo, "Inside the Medieval World". Looked at the pictures for ten minutes and now don't know where it now is. If it were on my kindle/iPad I would be able to find it.

My first choice for any new book is electronic - I like sitting in the dark and reading.

Completely agree that Osprey (plus Helion and Partizan) books are better than buying a mag for a single, overview article.

Obviously I come to this forum for most hobby info (and boardgamegeek). Virtually every single human connection I have to wargaming game through this forum.


I like the smell of my iPad.

[Steve J]

I cancelled my subscription to WS&S a month ago, for all of the reasons already outlined. I've kept some 'old mags' that have interesting articles in them, but given that I rarely refer to them, I wonder how long they will last? The space they take up will undoubtedly become an issue as book purchases take priority on my limited shelf space.

[Westmarcher]

Rarely buy one myself nowadays. Sometimes get a hankering to get one for going on holiday (that's 'vacation' for you, Terry and Bill) but when I go to the newsagent and browse through what's on offer, I often come away empty handed.

Yes, the eye candy is usually in 28mm - easier to paint well and photograph and a favourite for so many great artists - so no surprise there - but if you want eye-candy nowadays, there are so many great blogs to dip into and it's for free - and in so many scales. I cut down my magazine collection years ago - literally - cutting out some good articles and some great eye-candy photos - but I don't think I even have these now. I now only have one mag - a souvenir of the one time I submitted an article on an ECW demo I ran and had published. Another good thing with mags for me were the advertisements which drew figure manufacturers, scenery and all sorts to my attention that I may never have otherwise come across.  

From most posts so far and so many of the games featured in mags in 28mm also, could it be that the main market nowadays are 28mm wargamers/collectors, and not us smaller scale gamers/collectors?

[Glorfindel]

...not wishing to be the odd one out but I do buy all three of
the wargaming mags and look forward to them coming out.
(Honest - not related to any of the editors).

I feel that I gain quite a lot out of them (articles on subjects
that have later inspired figure painting) and that this is a small
way of helping the hobby.

I must admit that I did wince when I read the first post (depositing
military mags in the recycling).   I'll have them !!

I've not really embraced the technology revolution as I still
very much prefer paper books over soft copies.   



Phil

[Nirnman]

with the closure of the only paper shop in my town that stocked basic wargames magazines I have ceased to buy any unless when in Belfast for other reasons I will look at some in a major newsagent but only purchase if there is an interesting article

[Leon]

We get the magazines sent through each month and we all have a browse through them.  Sometimes the casting guys will take them home for a proper read and bring them back the following week.  I always have a look through the reviews/releases just to see what new stuff's appearing.

[Techno]

The only mag I buy nowadays is the Fortnum & Mason Fortean Times.

I just like some of the articles because they're so off the wall.

Cheers - Phil

[Westmarcher]

I had a huge collection of "Strategy & Tactics" but in the last move kept only the dozen or so copies relative to my narrow interests.

Until you said that, I forgot that I've still got one issue of S&T - Issue Nr.78 - game is "Victory in the West, volume 1: Patton's Third Army" - so I dug it out. All my other S&T issues were consigned to the dump long ago but I kept that issue because I was half way through the game but had to abandon it. I have re-discovered that I've written down all of the unit positions on the map so that I can re-start the game. Still haven't after all of these years - and that was about 35 years ago! 

[Now browsing through this - fascinating after all that time! ]

Along with the above issue were three copies of The Phoenix, a British Board Wargamers Magazine. Did anyone ever get that one? The issue numbers are 23, 24 and 25; the latter features a review of SPI's "Thirty Years War Quad" which I subsequently purchased but, alas, no longer have. The battles were Lutzen, Nordlingen, Rocroi and Freiburg. Anyone interested in buying them?  ... Didn't think so.   

[sunjester]

I haven't bought a wargaming magazine, paper or electronic for years. I still sometimes browse them in Smiths, just in case, but seldom find anything I think worth buying. I get more information from forums and blogs nowadays.

[Sunray]

They served their purpose  in maintaining the hobby prior to the net.  I have not purchased one .....in 10 years.  I sometimes come upon an old copy and have a nostalgic read at the articles and the adverts. Companies and firms that have come and gone.  Those still in there thriving.

In the early days (1970s) we had a page in Military Modelling - usually termed "small scale" . The 80s would bring the dedicated mags.  Miniature Wargames must be the most senior. I have a first edition of Wargames Illustrated.  I always found their perspective images annoying -  their photographer (Richard Ellis?) would put 25mm figures in the foreground of his shot and 10mm further down the table.

Was I alone in being annoyed at this false portrayal of wargaming ?