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A Tribute -- PCXL You Will Be Missed
Bamelin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
PC Accelerator how I miss thee.
You were only around for a short time and yet you filled those short years with many a carefree laugh.
PC Accelerator was the gaming magazine to read back in the day. A mag that gave the finger to any sort of semblence of being politically correct, a mag that wasn't afraid to say a game fucking sucked (in those EXACT words) for fear of losing advertising dollars.
Yes the haters said you were all about hormones and tits ... but what they didn't understand is that you were unabashdedly about hormones, tits and games. In a gaming publishing industry of mags towing the corporate line, I could always count on PCXL to say what they thought.
It's been seven years and I miss you still.
So what happened?
Carl Salminen: Can you tell us more about what happened at PCXL?
Matt Holmes: The survival of a magazine comes down to its being able to make money in increasing amounts over time. We leveled out at just over 100,000 readers and we weren't bringing more in. The only source of income for us was advertising dollars, and ad guys look at how many readers you have to decide whether or not they're going to buy ad pages. Subscribers, contrary to popular belief, don't make us any money at all. The cost of printing and mailing the magazine costs far more than the money they give us to subscribe - even without the coverdisc. Subscribers cost us money.
Unfortunately, the content of the magazine kept it out of large chains like Wal-Mart and we were competing in a tough niche market with not only Incite (a cheap wannabe PCXL) and Computer Gaming World, but PC Gamer! Our market share was not growing significantly and that's bad enough. Add to it the reluctance of advertisers to place ads in our magazine and the sometimes violent and negative reaction of our readers to said advertising (AOL and Dell being prime examples), and you have a situation where it's nearly impossible to make money. (BTW, to the PCXL readers who mailed back microwaved AOL discs to AOL, called them fags and -mentioned us- . . . thanks, dude, that was real smart.)
The bolded part is classic legendary PC Accelerator stuff. :P
arstechnica.com wrote:Homage to PC Accelerator: End of a (short friggin') era
PC Accelerator, magazine extraordinaire, is shut down. The final issue is available at news stands now. I got it, and right 'til the end, they didn't let me down. Please, indulge me as I take this moment to pay them the proper homage.
First let me say that PC Accelerator's editorial staff had balls. Yes, even the lovely Gia Decarlo (hi baby) who peered at me from her staff photo in every issue, with a longing that broke my heart, had balls. Plus, she wanted me. Bad.
But that's not the only reason I’m sad to see this magazine go down, biting the bullet of corporate mediocrity.
So they didn’t sell ads like the big boys at PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World. Who gives a shit!? They wrote such killer articles, and such piercing humor, that my ribs hurt from laughing by the time I read my way to the back cover. And their coverage of gaming was always on par with, or sometimes well above, the competition. That’s what is making me so mad that I could, I could, I could just swear. "Golly Molly on the Trolley!"
I loved it. I simply loved it. They were so irreverent, cutting edge and brazenly unashamed to make a parody of the industry in which they worked, that nobody understood them. Well, their fans did, but unfortunately that wasn’t enough. And damn it, they loved games. They embraced everything about gaming from its highs to its lows. They weren’t afraid to expose the slimy underbelly of the industry nor were they timid about giving kudos to the competition when it was deserved. I just … I can’t … AAGGHHH! Must not get angry, readers don’t like it when I get angry…
Okay, in closing I want to try and crystallize the thoughts of this rambling rant. PC Accelerator innovated. They innovated so much that it was scary. What people are afraid of they destroy. PC Accelerator was destroyed. It’s sad but it’s irreversible. They took chances the way other geniuses in past have. I liken them to the Monty Python troupe. At first everyone looked at them and said “They’re nuts! What the hell is this silly walk thing all about?†But look at the Pythons now. Venerated as comic geniuses, as I know PC Accelerator will be remembered. It's too bad that magazines cannot come back as reruns. Goodbye PC Accelerator. Good luck to you all. We will miss you.
http://arstechnica.com/etc/games/2000/gars-05282000.html
It makes me wonder if the system of how mags are sold in North America is sort of broken. The whole system is based on how many subscribers you can tell an advertiser you have so as to sell them ad space ... subscribers don't make mags money, ad revenue does ... which of course places a heavy burden on magazines not to piss off the hands that feed them.
The podcast team at 360Arcadians was talking about this based on a thread we had about gaming mags and Jazz mentioned that UK mags don't make money the same way ... which is why they are so expensive. But that also keeps them honest. I find UK reviews to be fresh and honest for the most part, with a "we'll tell you like it is" that you don't see here in North America.
I'll be the first to admit that gaming mags are a dying dinasour in the age of instant information via our precious 'tubes. Yet we still see the corporatizing of (major) gaming sites the same as we saw it happen to their magazing counterparts.
PCXL taught me one thing aside from an appreciation of tits, vulgar humour and games. They taught me the importance to be true to oneself ... because that's what they were to the very end.
PC Accelerator you will be missed.
Bamelin on
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I still have the last issue with the completely black cover.
...Games, Girls, Gone...
Excuse me while I go mourn for a few minutes.
I think it's a combination of magazines being afraid to charge more than 10$ an issue, and the idea that you can fund a magazine from ad dollars.
The US subscription model is based on practically giving the mag away free via cheap yearly subscriptions and then saying to game companies "look LOOK at all the people reading our mag, you need to advertise with us!"
The problem with this is that your reviews can't really trash those game companies products or they won't advertise with you ... it's abit of a catch 22.
This also makes me miss Game Players, which was funny in a totally absurd way. Long live The Cleansing!
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
YES
This was my favorite PC gaming magazine when I was younger. It was a shame when they folded...I always enjoyed when they destroyed PC Gamer over gaming competitions
I still have the last issue which says "It's Over" on a black background
The articles sounded great though, unfortunately I found I could only read it for the photographs so I put it right down...not enough copies of this magazine available for me to give it a second chance...I'm regretting I did not reading your impressive eulogy here.
I am enjoying Morgan on G4 though, apparently she is really for real into gaming if her myspace info is to be believed. I don't even mind the manjaw.
RIP Hector.
Once in a while, the staff that got absorbed by PC Gamer will make a joke that reminds you just how good PCXL was...
But it isnt the same as reading PCXL, then rereading it sideways for those hilarious side comments they put on the page edges.
My digital art! http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=8168
My pen and paper art! http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=7462
Well I missed the hell out on that one, didn't I?
You kinda have to take $=£ conversions with a pinch of salt, it's not our fault that you've wrecked your economy. But yeah, I much prefer the UK model. I'll pay if the writing is quality thankyou very much.
Too bad they didn't decide to do this online a couple of years later because I would totally go to that site.
Back in the pre-broadband days, it was a good way of getting demos, but not anymore.
i stopped reading pc magazines (PC Zone was my choice, and mostly for Charlie Brooker anyway) when we finally got broadband. All the reviews and demos i could want, when i want? Why, thankyou sir.
Now Edge, that's a quality magazine that deserves sales figures.
The writing style struck me as a forced, rehearsed, wanna-be pile of garbage. The blatant marketing ploy of sluts+gamez came off like a train wreck. They tried so hard to be Maxim, it was ridiculous (PS, I don't really care for Maxim, either). It was almost like these people were trying to say "look, we put an unrelated girl on the cover - you're normal and here's your validation!"
Pathetic.
All of that said - this is just one man's opinion. I absolutely hate that ANY magazine goes under. I want there to be room in the marketplace for more voices, less homogenization. At least they tried something different, I'll give em that.
With the troubles at 1Up (layoffs, selling?), the magazines that have reduced readership (Famitsu), and the general... shutting down an industry... I wonder what's next for print? It makes me a bit sad.
Worryingly, I used to get PCZone too.
Still pick up Edge occasionally too, usually in airports.
It wasn't a blatant marketing ploy either. These are a bunch of heterosexual guys who like their beer, women, games and decided to create a magazine revolving around that. It can happen that this type of person decides to play games you know.
Most folks that didn't like PCXL it was usually for the above reasons. As a long time reader of PCXL I can say, that it was pretty obvious they didn't give two shits what anyone might be saying in their mag. Your above comments are actually typical of the sort of letters they would publish in their reader's mail and then proceed to ridicule and make fun of. (no offence intended)
They were actually very consistant with their "style" and while at first I thought it was all marketing, after reading the articles and feeling the "personality" behind the magazing I quickly became a convert. They were "real" and this was at a time when finding any mag that "kept it real" was difficult if not impossible to do.
Seriously, it felt like a bunch of gaming testosterone driven males decided to make a magazine and basically threw all regular "holier than thou" magazine conventions out the door. They were both hated and loved for it ... and in the end driven out of business because they weren't able to conform to the expected advertisers standards of mediocrity.
And wasn't Matt Holmes only an editor for the last two or three issues? They should have gotten Salmon or even Rob Smith to interview.
yeah, its a fine line to walk. the counter-culture magazine, "just us guys" style is so obnoxious in all the wrong ways. but when you actually connect to enough moments you start to think either "im as much of a tool as these guys" or "these guys are being legit."
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Except some idiot higher up thought it would be a good idea to make the site pay-only, and it lasted about a week or so.
Also, Daily Radar's "Direct Hit" section was written by a few of the former staff.
I remember that one, too. Poor, poor, Dan Egger(?). Another favorite of mine was when they got drunk and played a handful of flight sims.
I also had a photocopy of the "fantasy frag" of Dr. Laura that I'd bring in to work to piss off a co-worker of mine who listened to her daily. Unfortunately I think I threw away all my old issues a few months ago when I cleaned out my closet.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010515205623/http://www.pcxl.com/
lol I'd never seen that before. Good stuff
Possibly my favorite quote from them, in reference to Tomb Raider:
What is Lara's "diddly-bop"? Answers on a postcard.
These people didn't realise that that was what the magazine was going for.
It was never sold in the UK, but I got to read a couple of import issues during my interning at Daily Radar UK. It was a great read, very funny. We actually had a "video game" personality in the UK called Dominik Diamond who was very much the same thing; video games are a part of a culture, but not a culture in and of themselves. You can LIKE GIRLS and stuff at the same time. I think of all magazines, Edge is the only one that sees video games as a wider lifestyle, but covering those places is outside its remit.
It's problem was the target market was too small. You had the small number of people who got it, casual gamers that just had FHM telling them what to like, "serious" gamers who thought it below them, and children whose Mum wouldn't allow them to buy it.
I'd read it if it came back, but I don't think the market is ready for it now either.
the market is ready for it. but since every tom, dick and harry can blast their opinion of games in an uncensored and honest way, its not really as necessary. now, magazines have to sort of strive to be an anti-internet, claiming more expertise or validity than the PA thread "Is Elebits Worth a Buy?"
now, i can get my dick jokes and game reviews in the same place, read them at work without getting caught and not pay a dime for it.
However I think a mag like PCXL offered something aside from up to date news ... namely the opinions of people I respected because they were willing to say whatever the hell was on their minds, advertisers hurt feelings be damned.
Being able to "get" something from a published mag is critical now ... Nintendo Power I believe still does it right, as the articles in that mag are smart, well written, informative and often exclusive.
OXM on the other hand is worthless, having been dependant on it's demo disc to sell mags in the past, with the advent of the Marketplace it's now withering away.
Oh.
Good to know.
I fucking loved PCXL but I'm gonna have to mention that this is incorrect. Maxim predates PCXL by like 2 years.
Also Gia was a dude.
So what are you saying here, that it aspired for crap, and made it? Just because you acknowledge that your work is bad doesn't ironically twist it around into something good.