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[News] digital no more.ANN.lu
Posted on 09-Apr-2002 11:39 GMT by Christian Kemp33 comments
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Jack Stevens writes: According to the digital mailing list, after only four issues, digital magazine is no more.
digital no more. : Comment 1 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by DaveW on 09-Apr-2002 09:52 GMT
If true, sad but not surprising. :-(
digital no more. : Comment 2 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Hoggett on 09-Apr-2002 10:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (DaveW):
It's true. Neil Bothwick has confirmed this on the old AmigActive ML too. It seems the blame is put on having made the change too late, but IMHO the new format was a loser from day one. The two issues I've seen lack focus and seem to just cover material that other better established magazines already do to saturation.
Best of luck to David, Andrew and Neil in whatever they choose to do next.
digital no more. : Comment 3 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by catohagen on 09-Apr-2002 10:32 GMT
hmm....what about prepayed subscriptions ?
luckily i have 1-2 months left before my subscription expires, but what about
people with more.....heh...replaced with another linux mag i guess...
digital no more. : Comment 4 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Perver on 09-Apr-2002 10:46 GMT
I guess this was inevitable when you cut off your own customer base.
But even so, of all the shops I visited, I didn't even see one copy of Digital on the shelves.
digital no more. : Comment 5 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Robert Wilson on 09-Apr-2002 10:59 GMT
Well, well,
I was against it changing to Digital in the first place.
Don't want to sound cynical but is anyone even remotely surprised?
I had a look at a copy (admittedly, the only one I've seen) and while some of the "general interest" stuff was, well, generally interesting, I was surprised to find an amiga-specific tutorial in there.
The first thing that sprang to mind was: if their going to be amiga-specific, why change the fekkin name from amiga active!?! On the other hand, if they are trying to appeal to the general public, why the amiga-specific stuff?
I bought every issue of AA. I never bought a single "Digital". Doubtless there are may more like me.
Shame really, as I really liked the writing style of the journo's there.
Robert Wilson.
digital no more. : Comment 6 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Quantum-3 on 09-Apr-2002 11:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Chris Perver):
I saw an issue in my local newsagency (Australia) but it was in the photography section and was priced at almost $18.00AU !! or the same price as the origional Amiga Active but at least AA came with a cover disk.
Years ago an Australian Amiga Mag ACAR did a similar thing. They moved from Amiga to a digital type format and sunk without a sight. Pity really, they did a great little Aussie PC mag at around the same time and that too disapeared.
Cheers :-)
digital no more. : Comment 7 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Hoggett on 09-Apr-2002 11:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Chris Perver):
> I guess this was inevitable when you cut off your own customer base.
It should be pointed out that AmigActive's user base had shrunk to the point where it was no longer viable to continue with that magazine.
> But even so, of all the shops I visited, I didn't even see one copy
> of Digital on the shelves.
This was certainly a problem. In WH Smith's in the Trafford Centre, Manchester - a big high profile location - they only ever carried issue 4, and I suspect that was only because that issue had a cover CD. It didn't sell well.
I think the whole concept of "digital" was fatally flawed, but I guess they just ran out of time. The old Amiga market continued shrinking and the new AmigaDE/Anywhere market failed to arrive. The simple fact is that the publishers were caught in no-man's land, and there's no way either AmigActive or digital could have survived.
digital no more. : Comment 8 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by DaveW on 09-Apr-2002 11:35 GMT
The format was wrong, putting scantily clad bimbos on the front was a mark of desperation.
Perhaps they should have produced x-box format, that would have been a winner.
Dave.
digital no more. : Comment 9 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Phill on 09-Apr-2002 11:37 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (catohagen):
I think my subscription was coming up soon too.
I don't think I would have re-subscribed though.
Even with the move away from Amiga there was still too much of a bias for the main stream to pick up, bearing in mind how much it cost.
Phill
digital no more. : Comment 10 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Graham on 09-Apr-2002 11:46 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Bill Hoggett):
Maybe they should have just stopped doing things for a year until the Amiga market started picking up again? That would have stopped the losses from digital at least...
Or they could have released a PDA magazine that basically just expoused AmigaAnywhere products :) However there needs to be a heavier density or AA software before a magazine can be made around it. But a generic PDA magazine (Palm, PocketPC, Symbian) with lots of software reviews and hardware reviews, would have probably done reasonably well. And AmigaAnywhere could have been gently phased in each issue as products turned up.
Still, running a magazine is hard, and making a good selling magazine even harder in the days of the internet. If I want to buy a game (which I never do) I would just look online now, not buy a magazine.
digital no more. : Comment 11 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Anon on 09-Apr-2002 12:17 GMT
Only one thing to say.
HA!
digital no more. : Comment 12 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by sami cokar on 09-Apr-2002 12:21 GMT
a bit of unneeded venom? Hats off to those who made an effort in something they believed in.
digital no more. : Comment 13 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Mikey C on 09-Apr-2002 12:49 GMT
Excuse me (puts on Total Amiga promo hat)
Don't forget that there is still Total Amiga Magazine. Issue 11 is due
out soon, and unlike Digital/(formerly Amiga Active) the magazine is
purely non profit making.
All the latest news, opinions and reviews from the Amiga world for a
mere £4.00(ukp)
Total Amiga Magazine is available via subscription to your door at
http://www.totalamiga.org. Or from, Fore-Matt Home Computing
and Kicksoft.
You can also obtain individual copies from Eyetech (UK) and Computer
City (Netherlands)
If you are an Amiga Vendor and would like to stock Total Amiga
Magazine, please visit our website.
Total Amiga Magazine.
(We don't do anything else)
digital no more. : Comment 14 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by DaveW on 09-Apr-2002 12:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (sami cokar):
I respect what they tried to do. I wish them all the best in the future.
digital no more. : Comment 15 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Mikey C on 09-Apr-2002 13:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anon):
(Just noticed this comment. - Speaking on a personal capacity now)
You know, you should try to be a bit more chariable, Amiga Active had
to close because they were losing money on the project, these guys
have to eat too.
I have nothing but the up most respect for the Amiga Active team,
Andrew Korn, Neil Bothwick and David Stoud, etc. The did a great job
for as long as they could given the market conditions then and now.
I would love to see them contributing to Total Amiga Magazine, but
these guys have to worry about where the money is coming from in
order to keep a roof over their heads.
Do you know how tough it is to produce an Amiga Magazine on top of
a 9-5 job?
Good luck to everyone at Active Media, may they find employment
elsewhere soon.
Regards
Mikey C
digital no more. : Comment 16 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Daniel Allsopp on 09-Apr-2002 13:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Mikey C):
>I would love to see them contributing to Total Amiga Magazine, but
>these guys have to worry about where the money is coming from in
>order to keep a roof over their heads
They couldn't have been that hard up and under-paid! When CU Amiga went belly up the last thing I saw Andrew Korn spouting off about was where he was gonna park his brand-new Audi TT Coupe!!
They brought it on themselves. I bought EVERY issue of AA, very good to start with, absolutely pants by the last few issues. None the wonder why people stopped buying it. MHO of course! :-)
digital no more. : Comment 17 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by DaveW on 09-Apr-2002 13:38 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Daniel Allsopp):
But wasnt Andrew freelance? Thats not the same as the owning company or direct employees.
Audi TTs arent that expensive.
digital no more. : Comment 18 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Jack Me on 09-Apr-2002 14:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 17 (DaveW):
Buy me one then.;)
digital no more. : Comment 19 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 09-Apr-2002 14:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Daniel Allsopp):
The reason AA may have been porer in the end was that there really was and is very little in the Amiga world to report about. It's not like huge amounts of interesting new products are arriving each month. The next generation has taken far longer than they anticipated (not entirely Amiga Inc.'s fault of course, they did start during the Gateway era), and that can certainly put a little strain on the quality of your content...
They probably used far more ingenuity and went into far more trouble to get new material for the magazine than your average top-selling PC magazine which get flooded with review copies, press releases and other material every day but with the current market as it is. And for that, I sincerely thank them. It was fun while it lasted.
It is sad to see digital have this faith. I wish it could've been otherwise. Anyway, thanks guys for a job corageously done. And good luck to people like Total Amiga, I hope you do well. Sadly it seems the current market doesn't really support commercial magazine production at the moment.
digital no more. : Comment 20 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Matthew Leaman on 09-Apr-2002 14:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Mikey C):
I've subscribed to Total Amiga Magazine and have been very suprised at
how good a read it is.
I can well appreciate the hard work that goes into it every month on
top of a 9-5 job.
The Amiga market has a lot of dedicated individuals... perhaps not as
appreciated as they should be...
Matthew
SWAUG
www.swaug.freeserve.co.uk
digital no more. : Comment 21 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by DaveW on 09-Apr-2002 16:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Jack Me):
Tell me why you deserve it first, and if Im convinced there isnt a more deserving case Ill buy you one ;-)
digital no more. : Comment 22 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 09-Apr-2002 16:48 GMT
hmmm... I think they owe me about 10 issues of digital magazine... I wonder what will be the replacement, AGAIN... most likely not Linux Format (not again)...
digital no more. : Comment 23 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by THE_Editor on 09-Apr-2002 17:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Graham):
>
>Maybe they should have just stopped doing things for a year until the Amiga market started picking up again? That would have stopped the losses from digital at least...
>
>I remember Amiga User International saying they were "Suspending ops" for a year ....................... Tick Tock .. Tick Tock
> Ooh.................About 5 years has past
No AUI .......... shame, I really liked that mag.
Paul
digital no more. : Comment 24 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 09-Apr-2002 17:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Jack Me):
Sod the Audi's & BMW's (crappies).. Buy me the new CV8 Monaro (a REAL car)
*****************
Monaro is Back *************** "GAME OVER"
digital no more. : Comment 25 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by 3seas on 09-Apr-2002 19:02 GMT
Well I guess that Explains why I never received issue #4 though I got a confirmation email.
It's truely realy very funny, as commodore went belly up after I tried to buy an A4000 from them.
Who'd thunk that tryoing to buy something would cause the product developer to go bust....
Only Amiga makes that possible.
digital no more. : Comment 26 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Seehund on 09-Apr-2002 19:33 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (3seas):
Now that would explain a lot of things. It's not the Amiga Curse - it's the Tim Rue curse.
digital no more. : Comment 27 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Gareth Knight on 09-Apr-2002 19:35 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (3seas):
I compel you, for the good of all mankind, to purchase Windows XP. Maybe your bad luck will sink a whale. If not, you still have a new doorstop! :)
digital no more. : Comment 28 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Amigan Software on 09-Apr-2002 22:09 GMT
This shows the unwiseness of the staff's actions in killing of AmigActive. In their last issue, they admitted it was viable for at least another 6 issues. And digital could only be done for 4 issues, what this suggests is that they made a bad mistake on economic grounds, not to mention their betrayal of the Amiga community.
It irks me that the Warp3D masterclass from AA25-26 was not continued into digital. If you look at AA26 it has many references to part 3 of the masterclass, however digital never published the third (and later) installments, so they were just dropped disgracefully.
I wonder if the author would now be willing to submit those Warp3D tutorials to the Amiga community, given it does not appear they will otherwise be published.
digital no more. : Comment 29 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Amigan Software on 09-Apr-2002 22:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Amigan Software):
If they weren't willing to publish the tutorials they should have either posted the tutorials to the AA site, or put them on the AA26 or digital #4 cover CD.
digital no more. : Comment 30 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Andrew Korn on 09-Apr-2002 23:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Daniel Allsopp):
>They couldn't have been that hard up and under-paid! When CU Amiga went belly
>up the last thing I saw Andrew Korn spouting off about was where he was gonna >park his brand-new Audi TT Coupe!!
Pfft! That's Tony Horgan you're thinking of. He'd been made redundant after 11 years at EMAP - what would you have done with that redundancy cheque?
Believe me, writing for Amiga magazines was NOT a financially efficient use of my time! ;-)
Sorry to disappoint the naysayers by the way, but apparently sales of Digital have been increasing, as has interest from advertisers. Maybe the jump should actually have been made sooner?
digital no more. : Comment 31 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by DaveW on 10-Apr-2002 04:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Amigan Software):
Amigan,
> This shows the unwiseness of the staff's actions in killing of AmigActive. In > their last issue, they admitted it was viable for at least another 6 issues.
My speculation is that even though they had gradually increasing sales ( no idea why - sorry! ) the increased production costs of Digital would have offset the revenue brought in by increased sales.
> made a bad mistake on economic grounds, not to mention their betrayal of the Amiga community.
They were in a bad situation and took a risk, you have to admire them for that. As for betrayal thats a bit harsh, do we have to run ourselves into bankruptcy in order /not/ to be considered betrayers? The ones that "betrayed" in this instance are those that put their Amigas up on Ebay, left the marketplace and stopped buying Amiga Active. Even then I wouldnt call it betrayal I would call it market economics.
Would six issues have been enough to hold on, get a resurgance on the back of amigaone, amigaanywhere and os4? I seriously doubt it but now we will never know.
Dave.
digital no more. : Comment 32 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Daniel Allsopp on 10-Apr-2002 05:41 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (Andrew Korn):
I do apologise Andrew, I knew it was someone from CU Amiga :-)
I wouldn't have bought an Audi TT though, more like a Rover 220 Turbo Coupe and a wall of Marshall Amplifiers :-) Haha.
-
Daniel
digital no more. : Comment 33 of 33ANN.lu
Posted by Amigan Software on 10-Apr-2002 21:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (Andrew Korn):
So Andrew, could we please have the Warp3D tutorial uploaded somewhere as a service for the Amiga community? I can host it on my site if you can't find anywhere else to send it :-)
Anonymous, there are 33 items in your selection
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