Back when I was a kid (which wasn’t that long ago), there were two game magazines. You had Nintendo Power, the official mouthpiece for all things Nintendo, and you had Electronic Gaming Monthly (or EGM) that represented all games, all systems, skewed to a slightly older demographic. Back then each issue of EGM was a godsend for a kid like me. This was before the widespread advent of the internet so in every issue was a treasureload of information, pages upon pages of previews for every game, reviews from editors and their personalities, and news from crazy distant places like “Japan” or “Europe”. Even the ads back heralding the Sega Genesis and what Nintendon’t were piece of information insatiably devoured.
Now with the death of EGM it really marks an end of an era in game history. EGM has been one of the longest running mags in the business. Operating since 1989, its covered consoles from the NES all the way to the current crop (and everything in-between). It was one of the magazines (along with GamePro and Game Players) that introduced gamer personalities like Sushi-X. And as far as I can recall it was one of the first publications to use the now ubiquitous 0-10 rating scale for games. Humorously enough, at the end of its life EGM has abandoned that scale for letter grades, but the influence lives on.
So here’s to EGM, another victim in the slow death of print media. We will miss you for better or for worse.
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