Future Prepares For Games Explosion

Future Publishing is set to invigorate the video games market with the launch of Video Gamer. The title, which hits the newsstands on 1 November, will be the first in the sector to retail at a price of 99p.

With a print run in excess of 200,000 and an initial marketing budget of £300,000, the title is hoping to achieve the success of its French sister, Jeux Video, which sold over 120,000 copies in its first month.

The company has recently undertaken the largest piece of independent research into the video games industry in conjunction with BMRB. The UK Interactive Entertainment Consumer Research project revealed that 17.5m people in the UK have access to a games machine, of which 13.8m describe themselves as “active gamers”.

The games magazine sector is traditionally susceptible to trends as new games enter the market (see Feature: Changing Trends Affect Gaming Magazine Market) and Future’s latest launch is in preparation for 2001 when Sega, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo launch the next era of games and go head-to-head for supremacy.

“The response from the industry has been one of unanimous acclaim”, according to Richard Bean, games division publisher. “There is a belief that Video Gamer will help in generating a great deal of excitement about the next generation of video games machines.”

Future Publishing: 01225 442 244