PC ZONE TRIBUTE 32 MCV 17/09/10


WWW.MCVUK.COM


Zone out


IT WASN’T always the most popular (or profitable given its closure) of PC mags, but for many PC Zone was not just another games magazine.


It was a pioneer – the first mag to be dedicated to PC gaming and the longest- running publication of its type in the UK. PC Zone first appeared on shelves on April 1993 and quickly gathered a core readership of loyal fans. It was edgy – it drew in a faithful following drawn to the magazine for its well-crafted, informative and often brutally honest content.


PAUL MALLINSON


 News/Online Editor, 1996 to 1998  Reviews Editor, 1998 to 1999


Thinking back, my first two years was an exciting time. As editor


of the fledgling PC Zonewebsite (as well as the magazine’s news section) it was down to me to argue for the site’s website address to be used on the front cover. Unbelievably, there was quite a bit


of resistance to this internally at the time, though sense eventually


STEVE HOGARTY


 Staff Writer, 2005 to 2007  Section Editor, 2007 to 2008  Deputy Editor, 2008 to 2010  Editor, 2010


When writing about a dead magazine, it’s accepted practice to start with the moment you joined, before delivering a cheerful account of how it all fell to pieces. You’d attach a jpeg of Brooker, if one is to hand, and be done with it. I was at Zonefor five years, starting out as a staff writer, before the vacuum of responsibility created by departing senior staff tugged me upwards.


While it’s undoubtedly the Dennis


years that brought Zoneits notoriety and provoked these tribute features, I feel duty bound to defend the magazine’s last moments. The last years of PC Zoneproduced


some astoundingly funny, creative and outright brilliant writing. Stuff that I’m immeasurably proud to have been involved with. True, by the end we were shrivelled


and decaying, but we were standing on the shoulders of pissed-up giants, meting out just enough knob-jokes to produce huffy complaints, while never actually making too many jokes about knobs. Nothing like PC Zoneexists any more. I, along with so many others, will miss it.


prevailed and the URL was added. Now every magazine has their website address on the cover. My time as reviews editor was less


happy, I guess because the politics got to me a bit. Fighting with PC Gamer over exclusives, for example, was a bitter war of contracts, paranoia and fuck-overs. Kingpinwas my downfall. We gave that game so much coverage, then PC Gamergot the demo at the same time as us – even though we were supposed to have it a month before Future. Excuses were made, but in the end it’s why I got out of the industry.


It was uncensorsed – with passionate reviews and previews to lighter-hearted but no less focused features such as the highly popular Supertests.


In all, it was established as a British institution of games journalism, boasting at various points the in-house talents of Charlie Brooker, Steve Hill, Jon Blyth and Rhianna Pratchett. It never failed to deliver – even after it changed hands from Dennis Publishing to Future in 2004. With the final issue now in the hands of its devoted readers, previous PC Zone editors look back at the mag’s successes…


PAUL PRESLEY


 Freelance, 1993 to 2010  Section editor, 2003 to 2006


Every magazine shares a passion (the good ones, anyway) and a


sense of team, but Zonealways felt like so much more. No matter how the staff changed, everyone came in with the same attitude of togetherness and friendship. No matter how the gaming and publishing landscape changed, Zone’s team spirit never changed. We never took ourselves or the industry too seriously. We knew games were about having fun – not pretentious twaddle. But we were serious about the mag.


We never faltered in our efforts to get the thing out, to get it right and to give the audience something they could feel proud to have spent their money on. More than that, we were always honest.


“We were always honest. We never printed anything that would do disservice to our readers.”


We never printed anything we believed would do a disservice to our family of readers, even if it meant being ‘out there’ on some review scores or cover choices. And we were creative. The sheer imagination on display from editorial to art (and we had some fantastic designers who never get their share of credit – Wag, Jamie Malcolm, ‘Big’ John, Phil to name just four) at Zonewas beyond comparison. But the inevitable has happened; PC


Zonedies and with it dies a small piece of everyone involved with it. It’s perhaps because I knew the whole team from 1993 to 2010 that I feel more torn by its passing than most. Zonemeant more to me than perhaps


anyone knew. It was always more than a job for all of us I suspect. For me, it was my life and I feel more honoured, proud and privileged to have been part of it than I can possibly put into words. It’s not just a closed magazine – it’s the representation of an ideal that is being laid to rest.


JAMIE SEFTON


 Associate Editor, 2002 to 2005  Editor, 2005 to 2007  Editor-at-large, 2008


PC Zonewas more than just a magazine. It was a club for people,


both readers and journalists, who shared a passion for all sorts of things: PC games, stupid comedy, honest reviews, ridiculously entertaining features, headline-making interviews – and all the while taking the piss out of the industry and itself.


“PC Zone was a club for readers and journalists who shared a passion for all sorts of things.”


I was a PC Zonereader first, and was


lucky enough to join the editorial team when the mag was still at home with Dennis Publshing. Later on, I was given the true honour of editing Britain’s second best-selling PC games mag for two years. Highlights during my time there include


beating PC Gamerto the Half-Life 2first- look exclusive; our legendary E3 reports from the equally legendary Steve Hill; the hilarious reviews of bad games; and the playing-games-while-drinking feature. However, it was the folks who I met


and worked with on the magazine who really made it such a blast. Prezzer, Log, Sooze, Porter, Pavel, Woods, Wandy, Ponting, Hill, Holden, The Widowmaker, Planet Zitron, Irish Kid Hogarty, Clare, Mallo, Korgon, Rrrricheee, Phil, Dale, Wee Jim Lad, Big John and Rhianna. Apologies to anyone I’ve missed out. PC Zonewas my life for more than five


years and I feel enormously privileged to have been part of its history.


Funny. Scandalous. Terrible. Pioneering. Dead. PC Zone was many things to many people. As the long- running games mag bows out, James Batchelor caught up with some of the key editorial staff that helped make the publication so notorious to reflect on why the magazine was beloved by so many…


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80