Video Game Magazines Transitioning to Podcast Formats

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. Hello and welcome to Altered Geek. I am...

I have to figure out when is an appropriate time

to stop saying this. But I am your sometimes

host, Michael Powers. I am joined this week by

your always host. I believe you've always been

the host. Always. Always. Steve Megatron Phillips.

yo yo this week this day so anyways still trying

to break out of those old habits yep yep on this

episode we kind of wanted to talk about i wanted

to we wanted to shine a little spotlight on nintendo

power making its return as a podcast um directly

from nintendo Which is interesting, especially

since I believe they brought one of the editors

of the thing to actually headline the podcast.

I believe he's also the guy that's responsible

for bringing all of their indie game development

for the Switch right now as well, just from this

article I've read for all of 30 seconds. I say

that because while I've heard about the podcast

and I've known about it for a little over a week,

I haven't listened to it yet. I haven't either,

although I want to just because I'm familiar

with the brand name of Nintendo Power. I mean,

I would like to check it out, but when it comes

to my gaming podcasts, I have a long and storied

history with the gaming podcasts that I listen

to, which is primarily the only podcasts I listen

to are gaming related. Um, that's kind of like

what I, what I wanted to get into, which was,

um, kind of, kind of went off on this tangent

a little bit, kind of hit on it. But, and I talked

about this off air that if we were going to talk

about this, um, like gaming or Matt game magazines

as podcasts, uh, this actually almost ends up

being like, uh, how I more or less how I was

personally introduced like into podcasts. And

it's kind of really quick, and it goes along

with this, but I used to read Electronic Gaming

Monthly. Yep, me too. Like all the time. And

we all know that they also had the website 1up

.com. And they had a number of podcasts on 1up

.com from Retronauts to 1up Yours. Oh, GFW Radio.

Didn't all those get bought up by IGN or something?

So the story of 1UP was they were bought by...

Was it Zip Davis? No. Yeah, yes. Zip Davis bought

them all back and shuttered a lot of the staff.

And then there was a massive podcast exodus from

the one upside in the end of 2009, which was

heartbreaking for me. And then everyone kind

of went their separate ways. And through that,

a lot of people that left, they started their

own podcasts. So then I added their podcast to

my rotation because I wanted to be able to keep

up with what they were doing and hear about their

gaming insights and stuff like that. The 2009

Exodus was a big deal for me because I started

listening to podcasts in 2005, and I started

with stuff like 1UP and Retronauts and stuff

like that. The guys they had on the show, they

were the editors of the magazine. So you could

read their reviews in the magazine, and then

all of a sudden you could actually hear them

on a podcast. and they would follow up a little

more, talk a little more in depth about how they

felt about a certain game. And because you could

actually, like, you hear the person that wrote

the article talking, you could get, like, an

idea, like, you would get a better understanding

of what type of game they were talking about.

And just over the course of, like, the last decade,

like, listening to these guys, because I still

listen to them today. Like, they're all doing

their own podcast, their own thing. Like... I'm

able to listen to them and know if a game that

they're talking about, if they like a certain

game, then I will probably like a certain game.

It seems kind of weird to have that kind of a

bond to a podcast host. But I don't really think

it's any different than sticking by a particular

reviewer that you like or anything like that.

That's one of the reasons why I got in the podcast.

That 2009 exodus that everyone got laid off at

1UP. I was like, well, these guys are all starting

their own podcast. Why can't I start my own podcast?

I have stuff I want to say. I want to say it.

I don't know if anyone wants to listen to what

I have to say, but I want to say it. But this

all kind of goes together. I was listening to

podcasts that were made by the editors of a magazine.

Obviously, Nintendo Power has a much more storied

history than most other video game magazines.

I used to subscribe to Nintendo Power. I didn't

subscribe to it, but I did remember reading it.

I used to pick it up in the store and sometimes

scan through it to see if there was something

I wanted that... made it worth me buying like

if it was a game that i was interested in or

um a set of reviews that i wanted to be able

to read later i would um i would pick them up

then but uh yeah i i used to read a lot of gaming

magazines back way back when and uh a lot of

kind of pc games a lot of Star Trek I read Star

Trek communicator magazine which doesn't get

put out anymore obviously because magazines don't

really get picked up so people consume podcasts

because they could be anywhere and don't have

to actually read it and it's something that's

just more easily consumable as a whole and It

didn't have an impact on me starting podcasting,

because my journey was a bit different, because

mine started through voiceover. But when it came

to the magazines themselves, I was always kind

of a frequent purchaser of them all. I used to

get a lot of the Beckett branded... uh like they'd

had like dragon ball z magazine they had you

know uh you know different anime franchises or

different uh um you know movie based things and

you know of magazines that were out at the time

i can't remember half their names there was um

there was like always a sci -fi one and there

was like a movie one that was always out It tells

you how long I've been in an actual bookstore

because most of them get closed down. I feel

like the movie wall was like Cinescape. That

one I think is still around. Okay. Well, see,

I don't look at the magazine, right? I don't

either. You can actually get a lot of magazines

digitally now. See, like I have AT &T internet

and cell phone. And so they, as a part of some

promotion, for around christmas time we're giving

away like these years uh subscriptions to um

you could pick four magazines that you could

read for free okay at &t would foot the bill

and i was like oh this is this is kind of cool

you know uh it's like i think the app on your

phone would be called i think it's called readly

or something or okay uh something to that effect

but i downloaded it because i was yeah it's readly

and uh every 30 days you can choose a new set

of four magazines to read uh and i thought it

was kind of cool same magazines you can read

you can read the same ones if you choose or you

can choose a different set um so like i for my

my first month i chose uh pc world uh maximum

pc and then the uh um one of the movie ones and

uh i i was kind of interested in it i think it

was like total total film was the magazine um

and then and then you can like bookmark other

ones that you you want to to possibly subscribe

to later um and then you can read basically like

when you choose one of that particular thing

you can read the entire backlog that's on the

uh on the site so it's uh it's kind of cool I

I know of a lot of the magazine stuff I used

to read though like back then like I said the

Star Trek one and the other stuff like that's

that's kind of what's prompted me to kind of

pay attention to some of them now as podcasts

like I know they don't have those same editors

and I I honestly couldn't remember their names

if I wanted to but uh I seek out a lot of different

voices in those same type of communities just

so that I can kind of get a more rounded opinion

of it. Yeah. I, when EGM went down and one up

went down, like that was my, I was more into

EGM and like that and that stuff than I was like

game pro or anything like that. Like I couldn't

game pro to me just was like, horrible reading

i yeah game pro was was terrible i did like the

aesthetics because at the time that i was reading

that i actually wanted to uh that actually prompted

me to start my emulator site of sorts because

i tried to start my own online magazine website

and that just failed utterly uh it's like when

when egm went down though they they were going

to go There was a period in time, like, it was

right after the iPad came out, and everybody

was doing a digital magazine. And Ziff Davis

was going to try to bring EGM back as a digital

magazine. And I was, like, all for it. Like,

I was like, oh, EGM's coming back. But, yeah,

it came back, and I checked out a couple issues,

and it was neat. But, like, they didn't bring

anybody that I cared about back. Like, all the

personality that they had, like, all left and

found other work. And it just wasn't the same...

It wasn't the same magazine anymore. Like, I

follow personalities around. And that's one of

the things, like... I'm interested in the Nintendo

Power podcast, but, like, I have to... I have

to figure out how I'm going to consume it. Because

there's two ways that I listen to podcasts right

now. And one is as I'm going to sleep, and the

other one is in the car. There's one podcast

I listen to that's called This Year Collection.

I don't think the guy does them anymore, but

I have all of the podcasts saved that I care

about. He basically takes an entire year's worth

of podcasts from different shows and breaks them

down into a best -of collection. So I have like.

I have like, for example, there's like a GFW

radio best of collection for like 2008, and it's

done in two parts and each episode is four hours

long. Wow. But it's not like it's not like but

but it's a it's a it's a collection of stuff.

Right. So it's like a montage of greatest clips

from over the course of the year. And he tries

to format them, tries to format the episodes

in the way that they actually aired. So you'll

get a What You've Been Playing segment that'll

be an hour long, but it'll be basically the best

of What You've Been Playing sections from over

the entire year. That's what I listen to whenever

I'm caught up on current podcasts or I'm just

bored. I just go back to those. I've listened

to those podcasts on repeat. And it's all interesting

because they're all... All those podcasts are

almost 10 years old now. So it's really interesting

to see some of the predictions that were made

and stuff like that come to fruition. Or see

how wrong certain people were about things. That's

always fun. I miss magazines. I actually am one

of those people that likes to actually pick them

up and read them. when they're digital i i find

that i don't have much uh attention span i can

uh i'd like to physically be able to flip through

the book which is i can read a book digitally

i can do that there's something about consuming

a magazine digitally that i'm not able to do

i think i think it's because like especially

in this day and age, I can get a magazine article

online. I'm used to reading something off my

computer screen. There's just this weird disconnect

that goes on in my head. I'll try to check it

out. I'll add it to my iTunes account and see

whenever I get a chance to get around to listening

to it. It is kind of interesting that the first

episode focuses around... No, no, that's not

interesting because the first issue of Nintendo

Power was around Mario 2. So I think the second

issue was around Zelda. I don't remember. Well,

I think they said in the first episode of the...

the podcast, it would feature the former editor

-in -chief of the magazine, Chris Slate, who

now works at Nintendo of America. They were going

to talk about basically guests from Nintendo

reminisce about Nintendo's busy 2017 and then

their lead developers of Legend of Zelda, Breath

of the Wild. I am so torn on the Switch. I really

am. I don't. I kind of signed off on modern Nintendo

stuff after the Wii. I have a Switch. I like

playing it. I like the games that I've played

on it. But it's selling like hotcakes, and I

have no idea what people are buying. Apparently,

as of yesterday or today, it is now the fastest

selling video game console in US history. hmm

like but like I mean obviously like I'm a microcosm

right like I don't like I have I have Mario Kart

and I have one two switch because it's a party

game that's primarily what I bought the switch

for was for party stuff and I bought Zelda but

I don't understand like the appeal of it. I've

pre -ordered a couple of games. I've got Metroid

Prime 4 pre -ordered and I've got Bayonetta pre

-ordered. The one game that I really secretly

want, I want them to release Wii Sports for the

Switch. Wii Sports was the only game I liked

on the Wii. It was the only game I liked. On

the Wii, I liked Smash Bros. Brawl. I liked Wii

Sports and bowling. Yeah, that was fun. That

was something our family liked to sit there and

play, and it was entertaining. Because especially

when you figured out how you could kind of cheat

by whipping the ball a certain way. Yep. Bowled

a perfect 300 that way. Yep. We figured out that

you didn't have to get off the couch. See, that's

the one thing. Well, that was one of our family

members. That wasn't me. I can't do that sitting

down. I tried. That was the one thing with the

Switch is that I never played it. Not the Switch,

the Wii, I never played it sitting down. My family,

we would not let each other. You had to get up

or you forfeited your turn. There was no, I'm

going to sit right here and just flick my wrist.

It's like, no, you get your butt up and you do

this the right way. Yeah, I couldn't do it. Sitting

down, I had to stand. Yeah, I don't know. As

far as the podcast, as far as magazines coming

back as podcasts, I'm all for it if, like you

said, if the original people that you had a connection

with are there and they're doing the kind of

commentary on it. But as a whole, I don't know.

Yeah, that's kind of digging on nostalgia, and

I wish some of these magazines would come back.

But, yeah, I don't know. What do the listeners

think? That would be the key question here. What

do you guys think about, you know, podcasts or

magazines coming back as podcasts in this digital

audio -video era of consumption? Is there a video

game magazine that you want to come back as a

podcast besides Nintendo Power? And also, let

us know, are there any gaming podcasts that you

enjoy, or I would like to know at least, are

there any gaming podcasts that you enjoy listening

to? Because my collection is getting fairly fine

-tuned. I've basically been listening to the

same guys. share the same stuff like the last

i've consistently followed all the guys that

left oneup .com for like the last 10 years um

and i've listened to just about all of their

shows all the different versions of their shows

and stuff like that i would like to get some

outside opinions i mean uh on uncertain things

or try or try something new so Yeah, let us know

what you think about Nintendo Power coming back

as a podcast or other video game magazines potentially

coming back as a podcast, what you'd like to

see, what you listen to as far as video games,

if video games are your thing. I'm trying to

think of a good hashtag for this for the Facebook

and Twitter page, but I kind of want to say Altered

Power. I like it. So use hashtag Altered Power

and let us know what you think about this. You

can find myself on Twitter at BoothNinja81. And

you, Steve? At SCP21. Until next time, get altered,

get geeky. Wait, no. Yes, that's right. I can't

even. Yeah, okay. Get altered, get geeky with

the Altered Geeks.