The news that Highbury House - publishers of games magazines including Play and GamesTM - has gone up for sale only confirms Future's dominance of the UK games mag market. The Bath-based publisher essentially owns the market and it would be a brave company who decided to launch a new games mag in the current climate. Should this bother you?
PC games fans still get a choice of a couple of mags - PC Zone is always a good read - while PlayStation 2 owners have a number of titles to chose from. Those who want to play can grab one of the official mags with their exclusive discs and loyal copy, while Edge is now the only choice - assuming GamesTm is finished - for gamers old enough to remember tapes and psychedelic loading screens. Does this matter though? Are we getting less choice because of one company's dominance or are there simply not enough readers to support more competitors? Isn't it all just about the official license anyway? Or, in fact, are we all too busy blogging these days?
