At the end of last year GMWeekly became the latest in a long series of Game Maker publications to join Game Maker magazine graveyard.
Much to the surprise of many the magazine was released on-time every Friday for its first 11 weeks. Things however started to slip with two missed release dates and then a switch to a release ‘most Fridays‘ which lasted just four more issues culminating with a Christmas Special.
The magazine won the “Most exciting launch of the year” category at GameMaker Blog’s 2008 awards with 56% of the vote and came third in the “Best periodical publication” category behind MarkUp and GameMaker Tech.
On the content front GMWeekly was very different from previous established magazines focusing mainly on community news and later in its life game reviews and was much shorter in length. And far more similar to GMB!
Robin Monks and Dan Eggers (of GMB) discussing GMweekly in Episode 4 of GMKing’s podcast
[audio:http://gamemakerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/gmking-podcast-gmweekly-cut.mp3]
I have not seen Darren Poole online since the magazine stopped producing. When I asked him in November where he thought GMWeekly would be in three months (this month) he said “Hopefully the publication should be still around. Maybe people will become bored of it, but we’ll just have to see. I’m becoming increasingly busy now, with GCSE tests looming and A-levels on the horizon. Though I still think that my determination will carry the magazine forward. Crikey – in three months, I would be releasing Issue #27 or there abouts!”
Am proud to have registered a domain on behalf of another failed Game Maker magazine, although I should point out that Darren did pay me for it. Here’s a tip – if you set up a Game Maker magazine don’t ask me to get a domain for you – it will inevitably fail.
With the announcement from Tom Russell last month that due to real life issues he will no longer be publishing his Quarterly (yes GMB missed this news) that leaves just MarkUp and GameMaker Tech as (once again) the only producing GameMaker magazines. Lots of tried but so far no one has succeeded in creating a successful long term competitor to these two established publications.
Related articles on GameMaker Blog:
- Interview with GMWeekly creator Darren Poole (November 2008)
- 2008 Review: Game Maker Magazines
- A look at the different Game Maker magazines (from April 2008)
Hardcoregamer, you are a loser. Your magazine is horribly made and contains countless spelling errors. Very unprofessional, especially the religious messages.
Go to hell.
Wouldn’t want to forget PGM, from what I’ve heard, there going the best out of all the GM mags…. slight bit of sarcasm there.
I still might release issue 6, I have some free-time this weekend.
Aw :'( I loved Russel’s Quarterly. What happened to him?
Yes, we won’t count out PGM… … …
Yeah, it’s tough because it’s hard to get a good team backing and to get enough community support. Kudos to GMTech and MarkUp, for that.
Aw… I loved GmWeekly so much. Too bad it didn’t work out. I want another experienced individual with enough time to take up the job. 🙂
Well the PGM is still alive, don’t count us out.