jeering at every award winner that took to the stage was beyond the pale. Stuart Dinsey was livid and issued an apology the following day, but not before the story was reported in The Sun newspaper. The episode was for Lisa Carter something of a low point. ”Annoyingly, I took over running the GMAs because Dave Roberts had moved over to Music Week” she laughs. “He blames me for their downfall.”
FRENCH CONNECTION It’s difficult to be precise with the timings, but there are broadly four discernible eras that make up MCV ’s quarter century: First were the early years from 1998 until 2002, where MCV was under the ownership of Computec, which ended with the founding of Intent Media and the closure of print rival CTW. Then a subsequent period of largely unchallenged growth, during which time MCV was jointed by number of other trade publications and the MCV and Games Media Awards were established. There followed a period of consolidation which
more or less began in 2008, around the time that Neil Long departed for Future (and Tim Ingham and Dave Roberts joined the music industry) and MCV and Develop were increasingly aligned under the guidance of newly promoted editor-in-chief Michael French. French first joined MCV back in 2002, first as a
lowly editorial assistant before becoming MCV’s deputy editor under Samantha Loveday. He then left to join Future, returning in 2005 thinking he’d be helming one of Intent’s recent acquisitions, BikeBiz, before discovering on the day before his restart that he’d be taking the reins of Develop due to Owain Bennallack’s unexpected departure. Over the next three years, there was a drive to
broaden the appeal of Develop magazine, which meant that when Neil Long had left for Future and Tim Ingham turned down the opportunity to replace him, French was asked to become the editor-in-chief of both MCV and Develop. “It was useful for me to take over both” says French.
“The worst of the industry downturn was during the next year, [2009], but there was a lot of change. 2008 was the year the App Store launched, Steam was disruptive and events were becoming increasingly important, so it was a natural step up to take over all the editorial content.” It was in this period that Chris Dring was on the
team, recently promoted to staff writer and soon to become MCV’s deputy editor. Other staff writers included James Batchelor and Dominic Sacco, with Will Freeman coming in to lead Develop. Ben Parfitt,
MCV’s longest-serving staffer, became the online editor across both titles. “Even though one was weekly and
the other monthly, we started to share things,” recalls French. “If there was a big story that Develop landed that was more time-sensitive, it would end up on MCV’s cover. Workflow- wise, we were all proofing each other’s stuff. In terms of tone of voice, it was ultimately me signing off the pages or throwing them to Stu as the final step, but it was about being more collaborative.”
WHAT A LOAD OF CUTS The beginning of the end of MCV’s third era arrived at the end of 2012, when Stuart Dinsey sold Intent Media to US publisher NewBay media. Dinsey stayed on as managing director, but it became increasingly apparent that his time leading MCV was coming to a close. “MCV was his child and he was the daddy, but
suddenly he became one voice in a room full of Americans and it was just very different” remembers Ben Parfitt, who by this time had worked under Dinsey for almost a decade. MCV’s former owner remained committed to the
cause, but when he left in October 2013 and NewBay hired a new managing director the following February, it felt like a green light had flicked on to make sweeping changes. “From that point on
it was kind of a death spiral, sadly.” Parfitt continues: “There was no transparency. Management were hopeless and the sole mandate seemed to be to reduce costs.” With the decreasing
importance of physical game sales over a number of years, while there had long been a realisation that MCV was by necessity moving away from its traditional focus on retail and would have to find a new niche for
September 2023 MCV/DEVELOP | 21
Alex Moreham and Lisa Carter just before offending David Ginola, apparently.
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