PC Gamer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PC Gamer is a computer games magazine, founded in 1993. It is a popular magazine devoted to reviewing new computer games. It features news on developments in the gaming industry, previews of new games, and reviews of the latest popular PC games, along with other features relating to hardware, mods, "classic" games and various other topics.
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[edit] Editions
There are two main editions of PC Gamer: the American and the British – which tends to be considerably larger – versions. Both are published by Future Publishing. The original British version was founded months before its American cousin. There are also numerous local editions that mainly use the materials of one of the two editions, typically the British one, including a Malaysian and Russian edition. The Swedish edition, though rooted in its UK counterpart, has grown to be more independent, largely due to the immense popularity of PC games compared to console games in Sweden, and now produces most of its' own material. An Australian edition has been published monthly by Perth, Western Australia-based Conspiracy Publishing since August 1998.
[edit] British edition
The British edition of PC Gamer has been in constant monthly publication since 1993. The magazine originally shipped with an accompanying 3½ inch floppy disk. A CD demo disc (labelled CD Gamer) was released alongside the floppy disk edition from issue 11 onwards with the first CD Gamer containing all the content from the previous 10 issues' floppy disks. The single CD was later expanded to two CDs. A slightly more expensive edition (£1 more) with a 9 GB DVD (DVD Gamer) ran alongside the 2CD edition for a couple of years, until production of the CD Gamer edition ceased as of issue 162. The magazine is not sold in the United Kingdom without cover disks. Subscribers get a special edition of the magazine with no cover lines (only the masthead, BBFC rating and barcode).
The 'PC Gamer' name has also been used in the UK by the new Mastertronic Group for selling low-price reissued software (commonly called 'Budget' games) which originally scored 80% or more in PC Gamer magazine.
[edit] PCG Servers
The British edition also contains a small section in Extra Life about its gaming server, which is hosted by jolt.co.uk. This gives readers a chance to get on a game they enjoy and challenge the UK team in various different online games, which get updated regularly. The current server administrator goes by the username of Dripfed, and has been mentioned in the magazine in several editions, especially when he included Battlefield 2142 on the server, which had been demanded by readers for some time at that point. The servers are admined by a group of forum regulars.
[edit] American edition
The American edition of PC Gamer publishes thirteen times per year (twice in December), and, as of the January 2007 issue (released in the middle of December 2006), 157 issues had been published; however, due to there being two editions released in May (for instance, in May 2006, issues 148A and 148B were published) and the holiday issues (so far, published for 2005 and 2006), the actual publication count is somewhat higher. Similarly to the British edition, the magazine ships with a demo disk, though diskless versions are available. The CDs were replaced by DVDs in the American edition too, starting in late 2005/early 2006.
When PC games with full motion video (FMV) sequences were popular in the mid-to-late 1990's, PC Gamer's CD-ROM included elaborate FMV sequences featuring one of their editors. To access the features of the CD, including the demos, patches and reviews, the user had to navigate a 'basement', which played very much like classic PC games such as Myst. It was in this game sequence that the magazine's mascot, Coconut Monkey, was introduced just as the editor was leaving the magazine, marking the transition from the FMV demo CDs to the more contemporary menu driven demo CDs that they use today.
[edit] Coconut Monkey
Coconut Monkey is the mascot for the U.S. edition. He was created by founding editor Matt Firme, and modeled after a Bermudan tourist trinket. Few realize that CM was almost defeated as mascot by Todd Vaughn's popular concept, Paco Frijole.
Coconut Monkey appears in the pages of the magazine, and has appeared, on occasion, in animated form where he provides commentary on demo discs included with the magazine. He has also starred in simple games included on the disc, and in fan-created games available on the internet. His greatly anticipated game Gravy Trader has been advertised by him for years, but has yet to be released, being a parody of vaporware. He is notable for having no limbs (the basis of a running joke in the magazine by mentioning him unable to do certain tasks because he has "no hands"), and speaking with an Indian accent. He comes from the Pacific Isle of Azul Libro and promises not to pull hair or eat babies.
On some demo discs, there has been a fictional review of his Gravy Trader game, giving it a 101% score, with the final verdict being "We saw the face of God and there is gravy dribbling down his face."
Neil Manke of Black Widow Games, designer of game mods like They Hunger, has made levels for games like Quake II featuring The Coconut Monkey, and throws in references to the character, including a reference in USS Darkstar where scientists on board try to actually get Gravy Trader to run, to no success.
[edit] Stance against gold farming
Beginning in February 2006, after Greg Vederman was named editor-in-chief, the US edition of the magazine has taken a stance against gold farming; specifically, advertisement in the magazine from any such company became prohibited. Vederman and other members of the PC Gamer staff, as well as a major proportion of readers, consider such practices unethical, and have lauded the move[1]. This received mild attention in the world of gaming journalism, and other publications followed in their footsteps. For example, Sony Online Entertainment, publisher of many popular MMORPGs, took out a full page advertisement in PC Gamer, containing a letter thanking Vederman.
[edit] Review system
Reviews are written either by the magazine's editors or by freelancer writers. Games are graded on a percent scale. In the US edition, no game has yet received any higher than a 98% rating (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Half-Life 2), while the UK edition has never awarded more than 96% (Civilization II, Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and Quake II). In the UK edition, the lowest score ever given was "N/A%" (Big Brother 2), with the lowest numerical score being 2% (Big Brother 1). In the US edition, the lowest score was awarded to Mad Dog McCree (4%; the sequel, Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold, improved very slightly to get a 9% score), unseating the previously lowest-rated game, Skydive! (5%).
[edit] References
- ^ Vederman, Greg. "Why PC Gamer Kicked Out Gold Farmers", Next Generation.
[edit] External links
[edit] U.S.
- PC Gamer United States website
- PC Gamer United States Forums
- PC Gamer United States Video Podcast
- PC Gamer United States Podcast
- Coconut Monkey shirt
