Tue, Apr 14, 2009 | 10:16 BST
Former Edge Online boss blasts Future over “fiddling with Excel spreadsheets”
Former Edge Online editor Colin Campbell has posted a withering explanation of his reasons for leaving the site, saying that Future’s “fiddling with Excel spreadsheets is a poor defense against revolution.”
Campbell finished a notice period with Future last Friday, having resigned thanks to Future’s decision to bring control of Edge Online from the US to the UK. Writers Kris Graft and Rob Crossley have also quit.
“Edge Online’s new bosses claim they want to ‘integrate’ the online and print facets of the magazine,” said Campbell, writing on the newly-launched GameBizBlog.
“I believe this to be an error. Although the Edge voice ought to be maintained throughout all its activities, any attempt to reshape a dynamic daily website in the image of a monthly print magazine is conceptually and practically highly problematic.”
Future’s insistence on nurturing paper products, Campbell said, was a refusal to accept the truth of today’s games journalism.
“The story of the game industry is now being told via lightning fast websites and blogs of phenomenal competence and editorial quality,” he added.
“The days when giant print brands dominated the mediascape are over.”
You go, girl. Colin’s now heading up Intent’s business in the US, based in San Fran. And just in case you were wondering, pop stars, GameBizBlog “is not competing with anyone for advertising dollars”.
And this one, right here, has bells on it. Good luck with it, dude!
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Posted in: America, Hot, Internet, Journalism, Trade, UK
Tags: Colin Campbell, Edge-Online, GameBizBlog, intent media
13 comments
#1
Shatner
14/04/09, 10:34 am
Rob’s a good guy and one of the few people I can tolerate on Xbox Live.
#2
Patrick Garratt
14/04/09, 10:38 am
Colin was my first editor. He’s a very driven individual. Not the brightest move by Future.
#3
Harry
14/04/09, 11:02 am
You piss off the Campbell at great danger to yourself.
#4
Patrick Garratt
14/04/09, 11:06 am
#5
absolutezero
14/04/09, 11:11 am
I love gaming magazines. I don’t see why they should just crawl away and die because the internet does things a little bit faster.
#6
Tonka
14/04/09, 11:47 am
…and better…
…and cheaper…
..and more..
#7
Kris Graft
14/04/09, 12:47 pm
This means no more graph wars between Matt and I, now that we write for the same place. Sorry Patrick!
#8
gorman
14/04/09, 1:08 pm
Well, as a former executive for Future plc… it saddens me to read this. On the other hand, the “Future’s insistence on nurturing paper products, was a refusal to accept the truth of today’s games journalism” lines sound eerily familiar to anyone that has spent time there.
I’m afraid that after Ingham’s departure… things have been steadily going down the drain at Future.
#9
Tiger Walts
14/04/09, 1:17 pm
“…and better…
…and cheaper…
…and more…”
Maybe the latter two but not always the first one. Print mags are still the best at big, well researched, features that internet revenue streams can’t fund. At least not on any large scale.
Also, the laptop burns my thighs when I want to read on the loo.:P
#10
Patrick Garratt
14/04/09, 1:34 pm
Kris – Seriously, that’s rubbish. You should do the graphs anyway. Just post them anonymously on an gaming news blog, or something.
#11
Michael O'Connor
14/04/09, 2:40 pm
“The story of the game industry is now being told via lightning fast websites and blogs of phenomenal competence and editorial quality,” he added.”
99% of which seem to believe one mantra – Quantity over quality. The current journalistic industry is little more than a constantly stock-piling cesspool of churnalism and misinformation; people simply copy-pasting the information and words they’ve been told with little regard for the context or validity of the information.
Show me a gaming news site with real competence, and one that actually understand the concept of “freedom of the press”, and I’ll show you a flying donkey.
#12
Tiger Walts
14/04/09, 3:02 pm
‘churnalism’
#13
Hero of Canton
15/04/09, 12:02 pm
There was always a huge gap in quality between Edge and its site, so for all that it’s sad that people feel they’ve been forced out, the quality should markedly improve.