According to iemag.com, NextGen is shutting down. The January issue will be its last.

The future was fun while it lasted.

Why can't the market support these guys NOW? If anything the console market seems larger than ever, with so many big releases this xmas.

What gives? Competition? Incompetence? I'm unclear.

Maybe this is more of a sign that people are deciding to get their info online, or maybe just subscribing to one or more of the system specific mags instead. Seems Game Informer is the only general gaming mag left now(and they arn't very good IMO)


All I can say is CGW better not leave or I'll be pissed. I can't even think of what any of those guys(especially Jeff Green) would do if they had to get real jobs. :)

I'd do what I did before.

Give the ladies some lovin'.

So, where you're from, that's a euphemism for "Eating government cheese out of a van down by the river"?

Hey, what do you think he needs the VAN for?

"If this van's a 'rockin, don't come knockin'."

No, really -- don't come knockin'. You might
accidentally catch a glimpse of Mr. Green's
ghostly[1] white unmentionables through the
spade-shaped bubble window.

[1] It really isn't a ghost, but a guy with a sheet
and a slide projector. And it would have
worked if it weren't for you meddling kids!

Wasn't Al Lowe doing some writing for NextGen? I imagine he's already got a monopoly on giving the ladies some lovin', although I suppose Jeff could go back to being well-oiled.

- Alan

Al Lowe was Mr. Joke a Day and Jacknabbit. The Jacknabbit died, but I don't know about the jokes.

"The Jacknabbit died"

Uh - oh. Guess I'll start knitting those baby
booties...

Well, the Next Gen perspective will be missed. They took games very very seriously and it was fun just to stand back and watch them.

Man, this sucks big-time. I just renewed my NextGen subscription! Christ, I don't want to be stuck reading god-awful, platform specific, fanboy console rags. Dammit, dammit, dammit. First they kill Next Generation Online in favor of Daily Radar, and now they've done killed the print version. I swear, if they try to switch my multi-year subscription over to the official Xbox magazine I'm gonna go on a friggin' killing spree.

Yoda, yeah. I think they were really good for an industry trying to be taken seriously and shake its juvenial rap.

"Yoda, yeah. I think they were really good for an industry trying to be taken seriously and shake its juvenial rap."

*cough* Game Informer *cough*

And it was a very well-designed book, too, from the start. Funky 5-color covers/metallic inks/etc. It used to have a "gallery" of awesome game art. Damn shame.

You guys are answering your own question -- i.e., why it failed.

It was well designed, unique, serious. Which is to say it had none of the crucial hallmarks of crap culture which are needed to survive in a marketplace full of droolers.

Being the EYES WIDE SHUT of video game magazines in a market that's looking for the THREE MEN AND A BABY of video game magazines can't be good.

If they had only run more cover features on "The Hot Young Babes of the Game Industry." I wanted to learn the turn ons/turn offs of Bobbi Bergman!

I was with him until the Eyes Wide Shut part.

Me too.

Perhaps he meant to say "the A.I. of video game magazines."

Damn. I wanted you with me until at least the Bobbi Bergman part.

I'm sad but not terribly surprised. (Hasn't Imagine shuttered other gaming properties this year?)

NextGen did many good things that the current market seems to value less and less. The magazine I remember (I haven't looked at recent issues) had a sense of games' history and an abiding interest in the people and technology behind games. Despite games-magazine trappings-flashy covers, the usual obssession with the next big thing-it wasn't so much a games magazine as a magazine that covered games.

I suspect, just on anecdotal evidence, that it tended to be read more by industry people than the typical games magazine, which would speak well for its influence but not necessarily the all-important circulation figures and ad rates.
A prestige book for Imagine, but did it ever make money? Ultimately, that's how all publications are judged.

"Imagineer on Tuesday, December 4, 2001 - 04:51 pm: According to iemag.com, NextGen is shutting down. The January issue will be its last."

Steve, why do you consistently post comments about other magazines and sites anonymously?

You're not particularly mean-hearted when you do so, and don't usually go out of your way to lionize your competing publication. Maybe that's a good thing, I dunno. You're a curious fellow.

Who's Steve? :-D