Electronic Games (1992)

Electronic Games is a magazine devoted to all realms of the video-game spectrum, with emphasis placed on the "next-generation" systems of the era (particularly the 3DO and the multimedia PC platform). It is a resurrected version of the original Electronic Games magazine and shares the same main editorial team and general layout.

History

The original Electronic Games fizzled out in 1985, but the three people largely behind it -- Arnie Katz, Bill Kunkel, and Katz's wife Joyce Worley -- still wrote about video games long afterwards. Although their most notable work was in VideoGames and Computer Entertainment, they also wrote content for Electronic Gaming Monthly and a wealth of computer magazines.

The idea to resurrect Electronic Games had been in their minds for a while, but it received a jump start when Kunkel ran into EGM publisher Steve Harris during a Consumer Electronics Show. Harris hooked up with Katz soon afterward, and eventually a scheme was set up where the trio would provide editorial content for the magazine while Sendai headquarters in Lombard, IL would handle the book's design. (The Decker Publications name was established simply to differentiate Electronic Games' finances from the rest of Sendai's.)

Layout

The original idea behind the new Electronic Games, as outlined by Arnie Katz in his first editorial, was to provide comprehensive game coverage to a more adult audience than Sendai's other magazines at the time. In practice, this meant that Electronic Games looked quite a bit like VG&CE and the old EG -- large, text-heavy preview features, a great deal of industry-insider interviews (even putting Sega head Tom Kalenske on the cover at one point), and coverage on non-traditional topics like fanzines. Reviews were also text-heavy and similar in style to VG&CE, with only small screenshots accompanying each game.

The magazine is notable for being the fourth title with a Game Doctor column (the others being VG&CE, EGM, and the first Electronic Games), as well as introducing The Kunkel Report, a monthly commentary on the industry that is still updated online at Digital Press.

Although each issue of EG was well written, the design was frequently haphazard (the magazine changed art directors several times), and the title had trouble finding a very large, steady audience. This situation continued until 1995, when the EG deal ended and the magazine was renamed Fusion and brought entirely in-house, although Katz and Worley remained on as contributing editors.