I’ve worked on Next Generation, on and off, for 13 years, a far longer span of time than anyone else. So it feels weird that I was the one who brought it to an end. It all began with a phone call I made to an old friend, a few months ago.
But first, some background… Future, the publisher of this website, is a global entity. So is the media. So is the game industry. And yet Future publishes two products aimed at the same audience - that being game industry professionals and highly knowledgeable, opinion-forming, well-educated game consumers. Two great products; Edge, crafted in print and Next Generation, made out of pure golden Internet.
That’s what we call an anomaly.
Edge was launched in 1993, in Britain. Quickly it gained global recognition as the most influential, best-written, best-crafted games magazine in the world. It remains so today. There is no argument about this. Go into the offices of a senior game industry executive or game creator anywhere in the West. Edge will be there.
Next Generation was launched as a North American spin-off print publication in 1995. Because of the commercial environment of the time, and a bunch of stuff that no-one can recall, the Edge name wasn’t used. Splintering a brand would, today, be seen as crackers. But in 1995, it seemed to make sense. The U.S market needed an upmarket games magazine, but some weird commercial realities demanded something that was like Edge but that wasn’t actually called Edge.
Next Generation was a very fine magazine, still recalled with fondness today. It innovated way beyond its original remit and it was fearless. It was written by people who really understood games and, in fact, almost all of its alumni are now senior game industry players.
It had a website. Next Generation Online was my launch, along with a character called Christian Svensson (now Capcom) and, later, another called Aaron Loeb (now Planet Moon). It too was pretty good.
Anyway, by about 2002 the world had moved on. There was this doom-flux in the universe called the Great Internet Implosion and a bunch of people who were previously really rich suddenly were merely quite rich while a bunch of people who had jobs, suddenly didn’t.
Next Generation, someone noticed, was no longer profitable. It was very quietly and very carefully wrapped up in an old pair of socks and put away in the cupboard where we keep such things.
Forward to 2005.