PC PowerPlay

*PC PowerPlay*
Editor	David Wildgoose
Categories	PC gaming
Frequency	28 days (13 times yearly)
Circulation	14,527
Publisher	Next Publishing Pty Ltd
First issue	1996
Company	Next Media Pty Ltd
Country	Australia
Language	English
Website	Official website
ISSN	1326-5640

PC PowerPlay (PCPP) is Australia's only dedicated PC games magazine. Also available in New Zealand, PC PowerPlay focuses on news and reviews for upcoming and newly released games on the Microsoft Windows platform. The magazine also reviews computer hardware for use on gaming computers. The magazine is published by Next Media Pty Limited.

The magazine comes with a DVD which includes game demos, freeware games, teaser trailers, patches, mods, maps, utilities and computer wallpapers. A CD version was also available until September 2005 where it was replaced by a cheaper no CD or DVD version.

1 Main sections
2 Scoring system
3 Associated media
4 DVD version and discless version
5 Competition
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

Main sections

The main sections, most of which are included in each months magazine, include:

Inbox. Letters to the editor; also contains Snippets, a small section where a sentence of a writer's letter is used in a comical fashion. Currently snippets have been removed from the section.
FRONTEND. Usually opened by a two-page screenshot of a game with bits of text scattered around the page pointing out interesting things.
Out To Play. James Cottee discusses issues of a general gaming nature. Past contributors have included Darren Wells, Timothy C Best and Nathan Cocks.
Guerrilla Gamer. A fictional writer, Guerrilla Gamer, discusses a topic to which he usually has dislike towards.
INCOMING. A round-up of soon to be released games.
PLAYTEST. A section where games are reviewed and given a rating out of 10, based on graphics, reliability, etc.
TECH. The tech section includes reviews on new hardware products such as videos cards, motherboards, and monitors. An interesting section included in Tech is MyPC, where a reader has submitted a photo of their workstation and 10 funny things are pointed out by the magazine.
Hotware. Includes commercial products, some computer related, others not, which a gamer may find interesting. Usually, there is at least one product that costs a substantial amount of money.
Reshuffle. A review of several products, always video cards, where the frames per second and 3DMark points are stated along with a rating out of 5.
POWERTEST. Powertest is where several hardware items are reviewed for their pros and cons and given a rating out of 10.
The Menagerie. All the components need to make a super commercial computer for crazy amounts of money. There is also "The Beastie". The Beastie is the cheaper version of the Beast using low to mid range parts which are chosen on a "bang for buck" basis. As of early 2008, there are also three cheaper, "core" systems: the coupe, the roadster and the GT.
The Vault/Flashback. This section of the magazine alternates between two types of retrospective examinations. The Vault looks at an older game, greater than 10 years, where a key developer is interviewed and their thoughts are included on how the design process and the time after the game's release went. Examples include the original Doom, the original Ultima, and Commander Keen. Meanwhile, Flashback is a more casual look at a similarly older game, usually approached in a style seen in the Playtest reviews. Examples include The Last Express, Spycraft: The Great Game and Gabriel Knight.
Yellow Boots. An occasionally amusing last page where a non-computer related topic is discussed, from the point of view of a man with a pair of apparently sentient yellow boots, with these tales often involving the author's "Crazy Ex-third flatmate" Victor Ninox.

A number of notable sections that used to appear in the magazine included:

Tutorials. A lengthy article describing in relatively simple terms how something can be done. Usually starts with a paragraph or two why the change is good.
Briefing. An article which explains the history or use of a specific computer part.
On the Discs. Usually a two-page description of the software on the DVD. A short summary is given for each demo included.
dr claw. A parody of the online gaming/IRC community written in Leet speak from the perspective of an early teen gamer.
Hack. A short lived comic about the antics of a PC games magazine writing team.
Flotsam and Jetsam. A roundup of the all latest budget releases that often gave the reviewers a chance to showcase their writing skills by denigrating some of the more crappy titles on the market.
Generation XX: Meghann O'Neill provided a look at gaming from a female perspective.

Scoring system

Each review of a game or product is given a score out of ten. PCPowerPlay has given 10/10 scores to Psychonauts, Civilization IV, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Medieval II: Total War, BioShock, Crysis, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, Far Cry 2, the Fallout Collection (featured in the 'Bargain Bin' section of the mag), and most recently to Mass Effect 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. A 10/10 game is connoted not as a perfect game but as a masterpiece with flaws. The 10/10 system is a system which replaced the old system of percentages. PCPP states "what was the difference between a game which gets 95% and a game that gets 96%? Yet this was precisely what people argued about". Under the previous percentage system, only Wolfenstein 3D ever received 100% (actually a 10/10 but converted to 100% when printed in review score summaries in later issues), while the next closest, 98%, were given to Deus Ex, Falcon 4.0, Half-Life, System Shock 2, Total Annihilation, and Unreal.

Associated media

In addition to the magazine itself there are several websites that are closely linked with it. The official PC PowerPlay website was launched in 2001, was taken offline following the collapse of the online division of publishing company Next Media, then lay dormant until July 2006.

The current website includes features and news, but most traffic on the site goes to the PC PowerPlay forums.

The forum database has been largely preserved across a number of technology migrations. It first began on a ColdFusion-powered site in 2001, then moved to phpBB and was converted to vBulletin in 2007.

The forums provide an environment for the discussion of gaming and computer related software and technology. Within the forums there are also sections dedicated to general chat and banter, serious discussion regarding Australian national, regional and international issues and a section for discussion of TV shows, films and music. This site is designed to allow the organization of multiplayer games amongst the PCPP readers and forum members.

The "general chat" section of the PCPP Forum is titled "Rhubarb", because of editor Anthony Fordham's love of the old British joke of having extras in movie crowd scenes say "rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb" to simulate incidental conversation.

A website re-launch occurred on the 22nd of April 2009, consisting of a customised Joomla install and layout and featured regularly updated blogs, news and features. The site again entered a period of disuse shortly thereafter.

On Wednesday, March 12, 2010, the PCPP website and forum software were replaced with a CMS provided by CyberGamer. This software also powers the cybergamer.com.au website. PCPP is now listed as a 'Media Partner' of CyberGamer whilst CyberGamer now receives advertising space within PCPP and PCPP's sister magazine, Hyper. A press release was issued on March 18 detailing the arrangement between both parties. As part of this online merger, PCPP's established community were incorporated within the CyberGamer Network. The CyberGamer Network acts as a single-sign on service for all CyberGamer-powered sites. Hyper Magazine was due to migrate their web presence to a CyberGamer network powered system on April 8, 2010.

The transition to the CyberGamer forums have generally been considered to have been handled badly by many short and long term forum participants and it remains to be seen if the level of forum participation will return to its former heights.

On the 12th August, 2010, PC Powerplay's then-editor, Anthony Fordham, announced that the PCPP Forums would be reverted back to the old vBulletin software, stating that the PC Powerplay community were not happy with the current CyberGamer software.^[1]

This conversion has stopped, as of the start of 2011, and community support continues to dwindle.

DVD version and discless version

The magazine publishes two versions each issue. One is a plain magazine, while the other more expensive version includes a double-sided DVD10 disc, totalling 9GB of demos, mods and other content.

The magazine launched with a 640MB CD coverdisc, which was upgraded in 2000 to a double-CD. The DVD edition joined the lineup in 2002 alongside the CD version, and the CD version was finally dropped in 2005.

The November 2005 edition included the first discless magazine at a little over half the price of the DVD version. While sales were not spectacular, dropping the CD did slow the rate of decline of the non-DVD version of the magazine. May 2008 saw subscriptions being offered for the discless version at half the price.

The Bunker was a section of the DVD originally compiled each month by ROM, a respected member of the PCPP online community. However, following his retirement from the position (announced in issue #143), the Bunker undertook a drastic transformation and became the PCPP Community Bunker. Readers and members of the online community produced and were actively encouraged to submit to the section.

The Bunker was replaced in 2009 with a streamlined Application and Utilities section.

Competition

PC PowerPlay has no direct competition in the Australian market in that there is no other Australian PC games magazine. However, there is indirect competition from technology enthusiast magazine Atomic.

Various PC games magazines from the UK and US are sold in Australia (such as PC Gamer and PC Zone), but their circulations are minimal.

An Australian version of PC Gamer launched shortly after PC PowerPlay but was shut down in 1999 following a dispute between the publisher and printer.

Australian publishing company Derwent Howard launched a competitor called PC Games Addict in 2002, using some Australian content filled out by licensed content from PC Gamer in the UK and PC Format. The magazine closed in 2005.

External links

References

^ Conversion-to-VBulletin - PCPP Forums