PC PowerPlay

PC PowerPlay

First Issue of PC PowerPlay (May 1996)
Editor John Gillooly
Categories PC gaming
Frequency 28 days (13 times yearly)
Circulation 14,527
Publisher Next Publishing Pty Ltd
First issue May 1996
Company Next Media Pty Ltd
Country Australia
Language English
Website Official website
ISSN 1326-5644

PC PowerPlay (PCPP) is Australia's only dedicated PC games magazine. Also available in New Zealand, PC PowerPlay focuses on news and reviews for upcoming and newly released games on the Microsoft Windows platform. The magazine also reviews computer hardware for use on gaming computers. The magazine is published by Next Media Pty Limited.

The magazine comes with a DVD which includes game demos, freeware games, teaser trailers, patches, mods, maps, utilities and computer wallpapers.
A CD version was also available until September 2005 where it was replaced by a DVD edition.
(Although for a brief time, both editions existed while gamers made the transition from one technology to the next.)

Main sections

The main sections included in each month's magazine include:

Deleted Sections

A number of notable sections that used to appear in the magazine included:

Scoring system

Each review of a game or product is given a score out of ten.
PC PowerPlay has given 10/10 scores to a number of games including:

A 10/10 game is connoted not as a perfect game but as a "masterpiece with flaws". (The 10/10 score system replaced the old system of 0% to 100%.)
PCPP once stated "What was the difference between a game which gets 95% and a game that gets 96%?". This was precisely what readers argued about.

Under the previous percentage system, only Wolfenstein 3D ever received 100% (that 100% converted to 10/10 when printed in review score summaries in later issues), while the next closest score ever given, 98%, was given to:

Associated media

In addition to the magazine itself there are several websites that are closely linked with it.
The official PC PowerPlay website was launched in 2001, but was taken offline following the collapse of the online division of publishing company Next Media, then lay dormant until July 2006.

The current website includes features and news, but most traffic on the site goes to the PC PowerPlay forums. The forum database has been largely preserved across a number of technology migrations. It first began on a ColdFusion powered site in 2001, then moved to phpBB and was converted to vBulletin in 2007.

The forums provide an environment for the discussion of gaming and computer related software and technology. Within the forums there are also sections dedicated to general discussion and banter, serious discussions regarding Australian national, regional and international issues and a section for discussions of TV shows, films and music. This design also allows the organization of multiplayer games amongst the PCPP readers and other forum members.

The general discussion section of the PCPP Forum is titled "Rhubarb", because of editor Anthony Fordham's love of the old British joke of having extras in movie crowd scenes say "rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb" to simulate incidental conversation. (Which may or may not originate from the British short film "Rhubarb", the remake in 1980, or The Goon Show.)

A website re-launch occurred on the 22nd of April 2009, consisting of a customized Joomla install and layout and featured regularly updated blogs, news and features. The site again entered a period of disuse shortly thereafter.

On Wednesday, March 12, 2010, the PCPP website and forum software was replaced with a CMS provided by CyberGamer. This software also powers the cybergamer.com.au website. PCPP is now listed as a "Media Partner" of CyberGamer whilst CyberGamer now receives advertising space within PCPP and PCPP's sister magazine, Hyper. A press release was issued on March 18, detailing the arrangement between both parties. As part of this online merger, PCPP's established community were incorporated within the CyberGamer Network. The CyberGamer Network acts as a single-sign on service for all CyberGamer-powered sites. Hyper Magazine was due to migrate their web presence to a CyberGamer network powered system on April 8, 2010.

The transition to the CyberGamer forums have generally been considered to have been handled badly by many short and long term forum participants and it remains to be seen if the level of forum participation will return to its former heights.

On August 12, 2010, PC Powerplay's then-editor, Anthony Fordham, announced that the PCPP Forums would revert to the old vBulletin software, stating that the PC Powerplay community were not happy with the current CyberGamer software.

This conversion has stopped, as of January 2011, community support continues to dwindle.

CD-ROM version, DVD-ROM version and Disc-less version

Currently the magazine publishes two separate versions each issue.
One is a plain magazine, while the other more expensive version includes a double-sided DVD-ROM disc, totalling up to a possible 9.4 gigabytes of demos, mods and/or other content.

The magazine launched in 1996 with a 640 Megabyte CD-ROM cover disc, which was upgraded in 2000 to a double CD-ROM set.
The DVD-ROM edition joined the lineup in 2002 alongside the CD-ROM version for three years, the CD-ROM version finally ceased production in 2005.

The November 2005 edition included the first discless magazine at a little over half the price of the DVD-ROM version.
While sales were not spectacular, dropping the CD-ROM did slow the rate of decline of the non-DVD-ROM version of the magazine.
This saw subscriptions being offered for the disc-less version at half the sale price.

The Bunker was a section of the DVD-ROM originally compiled each month by "ROM", a respected member of the PCPP online community. However, following his retirement from the position (announced in issue #143), The Bunker undertook a drastic transformation and became the PCPP Community Bunker. Readers and members of the online community produced and were actively encouraged to submit to the section.

The Bunker was replaced in 2009 with a streamlined Applications and Utilities section.

Competition

PC PowerPlay has no direct competition in the Australian market (with no other dedicated Australian PC games magazines existing).
However, there is indirect competition from technology enthusiast magazine Atomic.

Various PC games magazines from the UK and US are sold in Australia (such as PC Gamer and PC Zone (now defunct)), but their circulations are minimal.

An Australian version of PC Gamer launched shortly after PC PowerPlay but was shut down in 1999 following a dispute between the publisher and printer.

Australian publishing company Derwent Howard launched a competitor called PC Games Addict in 2002, using some Australian content filled out by licensed content from PC Gamer in the UK and PC Format. The magazine ceased publication in 2005.

Target Audiences and Readership

PC Powerplay’s core target audience ranges from the ages of 14 to 34, with an approximate readership of 91,000.[1]
In terms of online audiences, PC Powerplay boasts over 43,200 unique online users – of these, 17,421 are email subscribers.[2]

See also

External links

References

  1. "2012 Gaming Titles Media Kit" (PDF). NextMedia. Retrieved 19 July 2013.
  2. "2012 Gaming Titles Media Kit" (PDF). NextMedia. Retrieved 19 July 2013.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, February 13, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.