Like everywhere else in the world, Australian gaming mags are dying a slow, agonising and painful death. No swift guillotine action for them, oh no. With the yearly readership figures now in, it's grim reading:

• Hyper - 56,000 (down from 66,000 last year)
• PC Powerplay - 89,000 (down from 115,000)
• Official PS2 - 148,000 (down from 190,000)
• Official Xbox 360 - 92,000 (up from 91,000, but down from the 140,000 the original Xbox mag used to pull)
• Australian GamePro - CLOSED (down all the way to ZERO)

Can't say I'm shedding too many tears. Most Aussie mags (aside from Hyper and PC Powerplay) rely/relied too heavily on regurgitated press releases, boring features and, if applicable, purile fanboy baiting, sometimes to the point of lifting entire series of articles from the American or European editions of their magazine. That worth paying money for? Nuh uh.

If you're getting news from the internet and you don't need a coverdisc for demos anymore, the only reason you're going to throw change on the counter for a magazine is if it's got quality editorial content (see Edge for reference). Screen Play's Jason Hill sums it up nicely:

Quality is the only attribute that can combat the internet juggernaut. Content lazily licensed from overseas publications or slapped together from a rag-tag band of underpaid freelancers is not going to help ensure our last few precious gaming mastheads survive.

More paper cuts [Screen Play]

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