As of 2019, gaming magazines have ceased to exist as part of the gaming industry. Accessible and high-speed internet in every home has replaced almost all previous forms of information delivery, and gaming magazines have not been spared. But for 25 years, magazines were the main source of news about computer games. Let’s remember how it was.
The history of the development of gaming magazines
It all began back in 1993. The 8-bit Dendy console (a Chinese clone of the Nintendo Entertainment System) appeared in Russia. To promote the console, the first Russian video game magazine, Video-Ass Dendy (later renamed The Great Dragon), was launched. Computer and video games began to gain popularity in the country.
Then, only two years later, a second magazine appeared – “Toy Store” (later renamed “Game.EXE”). And so it went, with magazines being published one after another: “Strana Igr” (Country of Games) from Gameland, “Navigator” from Navigator Publishing, “Igromania” from Technomir, and a host of other second-tier magazines that no one remembers now. All of this formed the first wave of gaming magazines.
A chronology of the emergence of gaming magazines in Russia and the CIS countries
The rising tide was halted by the August 1998 default. Publishers of major magazines struggled to find a way to survive, but smaller publications went bankrupt and ceased to exist.
The situation only improved several years later. In 2002, a regional edition of the popular global magazine “PC Gamer” was launched (but its presence in Russia was short-lived). And starting in 2003, a new surge in the domestic industry, including gaming journalism, began. Circulation of the old, time-tested magazines soared to unprecedented heights, increasing severalfold. A couple of new magazines from the same publishers appeared: “Best Computer Games” from Technomir and “PC Games” from Gameland.
Following the second wave in 2003, a few years later, another downturn occurred in 2008, due to the global financial crisis. This was a serious blow, but not fatal.
Magazines remained active until around 2013. Throughout this time, sales were in a slow but steady decline. Expensive print publications gradually lost their relevance as more and more players gained access to high-quality internet connections, allowing information to be free and news to appear not once a month, but daily, almost instantly.
Beginning in 2013, gaming magazine sales began to plummet. The internet had penetrated almost every home, and competing with it was futile. Some particularly staunch members of the gaming press continued to resist for several years, while the more savvy ones transferred all their work to their own websites, shutting down the outdated print formats for good.
All gaming magazines
| Logo | Name | Publishing house | Year of creation | Year of closure | Max. circulation | |
| 1 | Video-Ass Dandy Great Dragon |
AST | 1993 1995 |
1995 2004 |
50,000 | |
| 2 | Game.EXE toy store | Komputerra | 1995 1996 |
1996 2006 |
45,000 | |
| 3 | Land of Games | Gameland | 1996 | 2013 | 197 128 | |
| 4 | Game World Navigator | Navigator Publishing | March 1997 | published by subscription | 65,000 | |
| 5 | Gambling addiction | Technomir | Sept. 1997 | 2018 | 240,498 | |
| 6 | PlayStation: The Official Magazine | Gameland Mediasign |
1997-2004 |
2002 2008 |
99,000 | |
| 7 | MegaGame | Fantasy | 1998 | 2001 | 10,000 | |
| 8 | PC Gamer | Gameland | 2002 | 2008 | 59,000 | |
| 9 | Best Computer Games | Technomir | 2003 | 2012 | 61,500 | |
| 10 | PC games | Gameland | 2004 | 2012 | 85,000 |
“Great Dragon” magazine was the first Russian magazine about video games and anime. Until 1995, it was published under the name “Video-Ass Dendy.” Initially, this publication was an informational and advertising project of the company “Steepler,” which distributed Dendy video game consoles in the Russian Federation. Later, the magazine became independent and was handed over to enthusiastic authors.
Game.EXE magazine is considered the founding father of Russian gaming journalism. Initially, from 1995 to 1997, it was published under the name Games Magazine. In 1997, it changed its name to Game.EXE. Game.EXE’s creative writing stood out from the formulaic copy of its competitors.
The magazine “Country of Games” examines the gaming industry as a whole, covering both computer and console games. It explores computer games as a part of modern popular culture.
The magazine “Navigator of the Game World” specializes exclusively in computer games and is somewhat overly hostile to gaming consoles. It has a distinctly patriotic slant: it covers numerous domestic and Russian-language games and criticizes the plots of foreign games that distort the role of Russia and the Soviet Union in world history.
Igromania magazine is the most famous and popular magazine about computer games in Russia. It gained popularity thanks to its Videomania app. The magazine’s core principle is accessibility: its texts are written to be understandable to the widest possible audience.
PlayStation: The Official Magazine
MegaGame Magazine
PC Gamer Magazine
Best Computer Games Magazine
PC Games Magazine
Additionally, there were numerous gaming magazines that failed to gain widespread popularity and soon folded. Among them:
| CompAs (January – May 1995) Pro-Games (January 1995 – October 1996) Sega Pro (March 1996) Junior (April 1996 – 1997) Video Games (January – June 1998) |
Videogames Inside (September-December 2004) Console (January 2005 – June 2006) Guide: Country of Games (January 2003 – July 2004) XS Magazine (2005 – 2006). |
Learn more about less popular and forgotten gaming magazines here:
coeavg.ru/blogs/logovo-knizhnogo-chervja
Gaming magazines in the CIS countries
| Logo | Name | Publishing house | Year of creation | Year of closure | Max. circulation | |
| 1 | Spire! | LLC “Networks-Ukraine” (Ukraine) |
2001 | 2015 | 30,000 | |
| 2 | GamePlay | ITC Publishing (Ukraine) |
2005 | 2010 | 20,000 | |
| 3 | Virtual joys | Nestor LLC (Belarus) |
2000 | comes out | 32,900 |
Amateur gaming magazines
Alongside professional magazines, small amateur gaming magazines were also created. Of course, these aren’t exactly what’s typically called magazines—they aren’t printed in a printing house or sold at newsstands, but exist solely as PDF files and are distributed exclusively online.
It would seem there’s nothing complicated about creating a computer gaming magazine: just write a few articles, take a sufficient number of screenshots, layout it all, and design it graphically. And you don’t even have to spend a single penny, investing only your time. The internet has made many interesting pursuits more accessible to ordinary people, including journalism. But the apparent simplicity of journalism is deceptive. Most amateur attempts at creating magazines abandon them immediately after the release of the first pilot issue. They can’t compete with older, more established sources of information.
But there are exceptions to this sad statistic:
| Logo | Name | Year of creation | Year of closure | Number of rooms | Number of downloads | |
| 1 | Emu Machine | 2004 | —- | 10 | no data | |
| 2 | Consulgia | 2005 | 2008 | 5 | no data | |
| 3 | Game Bit | 2005 | 2011 | 10 | 12,000 | |
| 4 | Romomania | 2006 | 2009 | 13 | 11,900 | |
| 5 | TOF | 2006 | 2009 | 11 | 7 100 | |
| 6 | Re-Player | 2009 | —- | 10 | 3,900 | |
| 7 | Naby’s Roms | 2012 | 2012 | 4 | 700 |
