Ziff Davis Cancels CGW, Hints at Buyouts

[Russ Pitts]

Ziff Davis Cancels CGW, Hints at Buyouts

Ziff Davis Game Group, the "largest integrated gaming media publisher in the United States," announced today via press release that it will be closing the doors on its storied Computer Gaming World magazine, after 22 years, and replacing it with a magazine and website devoted to Windows-based computer games called Games for Windows.

This, barely two days after Yahoo published ZD's second quarter '06 report, which quite clearly indicated that a number (if not all) of ZD Media's "groups" may be on the auction block.

(Click the link above for the whole story.)

 

[Kross]

*cries a single tear*

The only print Gaming magazine I ever subscribed to (well, Early Nintendo Power as well, but my parents payed for that ). Think I was a subscriber for about 6 years.

Depressing news indeed.

 

[Ian Dorsch]

There's a good discussion on the fate of CGW over at the Quarter to Three forums, [http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=28124] including some perspective from CGW's Jeff Green and Jason Cross. Really, it sounds as though the change won't affect the magazine's content. What I want to know is if my free subscription to CGW will carry over. I'll be totally pissed if it doesn't!

As for the rest of Ziff's gaming publications, who knows. In a perfect world EGM would be irrevocably destroyed.

 

[Archon]

Did anyone else catch the news that Ziff had hired investment bankers to review strategic options? A re-branding of CGW is really minor news compared to the possibility that Ziff might soon be a whole new entity.

 

[Russ Pitts]

Did anyone else catch the news that Ziff had hired investment bankers to review strategic options? A re-branding of CGW is really minor news compared to the possibility that Ziff might soon be a whole new entity.

Yeah. Considering that ZD and some of its properties have been through a number of hands already, I see the possibility of some of all of its current groups being spun off a very real one. So did my source, BTW.