Before sending Electronic Gaming Monthly down the pan Ziff Davis publishing, the media giant which owned the venerable publication, might have consulted Tim Lindquist of DoubleJump Publishing.
Tim puts out the more modest Hardcore Gamer. In the face of the current troubled economic climate and the need for some hard cash to keep his mag going, he decided to put it on eBay. It looks like it worked.
The publication was listed for $42,000 (£30,410) and was saved from the scrap pile by a last minute show of interest, just an hour before the listing was set to come down. The buyer has not been named as the deal is still being negotiated, but Lindquist expects it to be finalised this week.
“Obviously, the print media market is a difficult market to be in, and we’ve been looking for investors to help out with Hardcore Gamer for quite a while”, said Lindquist. “I see people auctioning all kinds of weird stuff on eBay, and they get all kinds of publicity from it. Sometimes people will just bid on an impulse buy, people with a lot of money, and buy a potato chip that’s shaped like Jesus for $15,000 just for the publicity of it”, he added.
Offered in the eBay listing were, “copyrights, registered trademark rights, intellectual property rights, back issues, subscription lists, customer lists, vendor lists, employee contracts, distribution contacts, public relations contacts, advertising contacts, Web sites and domain names associated with Hardcore Gamer, including HardcoreGamer.com and around 30 other domain names.”
Lindquist noted that Hardcore Gamer's costs are low, with staff getting “hardly get any money”, but decided he was not the man to steer the magazine through the current recession.
Simple as that. Maybe if the combined media savvy of Ziff Davis, which has been in publishing since 1927, could have produced an eBay listing, EGM would still be with us today.
Source: NYTimes.com
Tim puts out the more modest Hardcore Gamer. In the face of the current troubled economic climate and the need for some hard cash to keep his mag going, he decided to put it on eBay. It looks like it worked.
The publication was listed for $42,000 (£30,410) and was saved from the scrap pile by a last minute show of interest, just an hour before the listing was set to come down. The buyer has not been named as the deal is still being negotiated, but Lindquist expects it to be finalised this week.
“Obviously, the print media market is a difficult market to be in, and we’ve been looking for investors to help out with Hardcore Gamer for quite a while”, said Lindquist. “I see people auctioning all kinds of weird stuff on eBay, and they get all kinds of publicity from it. Sometimes people will just bid on an impulse buy, people with a lot of money, and buy a potato chip that’s shaped like Jesus for $15,000 just for the publicity of it”, he added.
Offered in the eBay listing were, “copyrights, registered trademark rights, intellectual property rights, back issues, subscription lists, customer lists, vendor lists, employee contracts, distribution contacts, public relations contacts, advertising contacts, Web sites and domain names associated with Hardcore Gamer, including HardcoreGamer.com and around 30 other domain names.”
Lindquist noted that Hardcore Gamer's costs are low, with staff getting “hardly get any money”, but decided he was not the man to steer the magazine through the current recession.
Simple as that. Maybe if the combined media savvy of Ziff Davis, which has been in publishing since 1927, could have produced an eBay listing, EGM would still be with us today.
Source: NYTimes.com
Companies:
Ziff Davis
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Comments
Joji 26 Jan 2009 13:59
1/1
The demise of EGM, 1up yours etc was always a huge possibility. EGM was a pretty good magazine, but its subscription model and reliance on ad space was a real problem for it. Shame it couldn't sell more on the newsstand in the U.S.
I heard from the 1up crew that Ziff Davis were even slow in getting up to speed with the whole online thing. On the flipside, Future's Edge is successfully striding across the planet as the multiformat games mag, a fine example of how to sell a games magazine, and long may it live.
1up is still a good site though. Guess I'll have to check out that Hardcore Gamer mag.
Ebay could have saved EGM, but I think Future might have picked it up, were it not for Edge being their own success story.
I heard from the 1up crew that Ziff Davis were even slow in getting up to speed with the whole online thing. On the flipside, Future's Edge is successfully striding across the planet as the multiformat games mag, a fine example of how to sell a games magazine, and long may it live.
1up is still a good site though. Guess I'll have to check out that Hardcore Gamer mag.
Ebay could have saved EGM, but I think Future might have picked it up, were it not for Edge being their own success story.