Gaming
Magazines are Doomed
Print magazines are doomed. Soon all publications will move online. As with all media trends of late, this one starts with the geekiest information technology publications and rapidly cascades to more mainstream spaces. PC Magazine, an icon of IT journalism, started the trend in November. Now Electronic Gaming Monthly, an icon of gaming journalism, shuts down its print edition in favor of its 1UP network of sites.
Don’t think only the computer nerds are eschewing paper. Electronic Gaming Monthly catered to slightly less geeky console and handheld gamers as well. The cascade to the mainstream has begun. Soon even the dumbest supermarket gossip mag will go purely online.
PR guru Steve Rubel predicts the death of all tangible media by January 2014. The way things are going, dead tree magazines may not even have that long.
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Trailer
The imposing evil overlord Bison has been reduced to a blond wheeler-dealer with a goatee. The idealistic narcissist nobleman Vega has been reduced to a goon in a ninja suit. The brutal mercenary boxer Balrog has been reduced to some dude who fires rocket launchers.
Even Bison’s threatening catchphrase, “Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed,” has been reduced to the nonthreatening statement “You will not stop me.”
As revealed in this first trailer, every character in the upcoming Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li has been thoroughly douched up and dumbed down for Hollywood audiences. Despite games rapidly outpacing movies and movies frantically taking ideas from games, Hollywood still takes a condescending attitude towards video game characters. It’s Van Damme’s Street Fighter movie all over again, minus Raul Julia’s enjoyably megalomanic Bison.
