Cabel, a fellow Portlander, made quite the discovery when examining his last three issues of "Electronic Gaming Monthly". It seems the magazine is suffering from "two guys with guns" syndrome:


This prompts Cabel to ask the question, "Where are the genres?". After all, we're presented with different kinds of films every weekend, why not games? This, of course, led to comments along the line of "That's why we're excited for the Wii". I agree. And, I do think gamers need more genres from which to pick, so I applaud the question. I do, however, want to remind people that the state of video games in America is slightly different from the state of video game magazines in America.




Cabel ends his post by asking, "I have to wonder: are there simply not enough gamers, non 15-year-old male gamers I guess, to financially support new and different gaming styles?". The answer to this question is, "Absolutely". However, the follow-up question needs to be, "Are there enough non 15-year-old male gamers buying video game magazines to support putting these different gaming styles on the cover of magazines?". The answer to that one is, "Absolutely not".

Adults don't buy these magazines like teenage boys do. I'm a gamer, and I can't think of a single video game magazine that I actually enjoy. They're all guns and glam...and they've been that way for a few years now. I'm not the video game magazine publisher's demographic. I am, however, the video game publisher's.

In other words, while I agree the "genre" question needs to be asked, I wouldn't read too much into what's on the covers of these publications...after all, they seem to lack any form of creativity on their own part, so how can they understand the desire for new and creative titles?