When Jane folded I received a subscription to Glamour for the remainder. It just made me feel bad about myself and went into the trash. I'd rather have been able to refuse it, but I guess they have ti get new readers for their crappier magazines somehow

What are the demographics of EGM readership?

I'm curious what percentage of them are male. If it's an overwhelming majority, that may indicate why they chose to switch to Maxim.

I still think they should have offered subscribers a choice.

Also, what's left for a decent gaming magazine these days? Game Informer?

My Maxim came in the mail yesterday, and caused my wife to freak out and act like I had ordered Hustler. Thanks for the great night of fighting Ziff-Davis! At least I can send her this link and say "I told you so".

As much as I like looking at Olivia Wilde, I just want my video game magazine back.

Uhhhhh, Stuff went under. I know, b/c they converted the remainder of my subscription to Maxim, which I AM NOT complaining about. They have given me Ali Larter, Melissa Joan Hart, and others scantily clad, w/interviews! There's also some articles, but ALI LARTER!

I got a free year subscription to Maxim thanks to eHarmony (signed up for a month on there). I never understood that since I never requested the subscription and was never billed anything for it. I never even read the issues, just recycled them all.

Thats what I got yesturday in the mail. Me and my fiance had a good laugh. We figure, hot babes in the mail for a little while. Its not like I paid anything for the sub cause I got it when they were giving out free 1 year subs.

mmmm Maxim, the married man's Playboy :)

"Clearly, You Also Like Scantily Clad Women"

Can we at least agree that regardless of what else we like, e.g., video games, movies, mowing the law, etc. we all like scantly clad women.

Now, liking the crap published in Maxim... that's something different entirely.

Sorry folks, I have no time for anyone who complains about the photos in mags like Maxim. Get the $#%^ over it. There are few things that offend me as much as people who are offended by (or feign offense by) such images. I'm sure there's a nice cave somewhere very far away you can move.

@PrimeMovr: Oh, you got to have the Ziff/Davis-sponsored fight too!? Glad I wasn't alone on that one.

@dragonfire81: The only reason to get GI is if you decide you want an Edge Card from Gamestop, that's about it.
There's really no good gaming mags anymore, not compared to online options. If you want gaming news, IGN, Gamespot, and blogs (like Kotaku) should serve the purpose. Things like cheats are readily available via GameFAQs.

This is officially one "problem" that I do not take issue with.

@dragonfire81: A larger picture is that they assume most of their male demographic is straight as well? I don't read into this like they're homophobic or making stereotypes, but Maxim doesn't necessarily entice gay men or straight women, and yet all kinds of people play video games and there are no rules dictating the kinds of people who do (as exampled by Ally, a girl, subscribing to EGM). Are they making assumptions based on demographic, that if they have a majority of men who subscribe, they also must obviously be straight men?

@YouDidWhatNow?: Well, there's a non sequitur.

Nobody in this story is saying they were offended by the pictures.

@AngryEddy: Worst part is, I never even got to read the magazine :/

My friend had paid for three years of EGM, so when she got the note with Maxim she was a little ticked and called about the refund.

Now, if it had been me...? I would've enjoyed three years of scantily clad chicks. But it wasn't, so there you go.

I admit I'm a little amused that people employed (albeit perhaps indirectly) by a magazine don't know how these things work. I've worked for a few magazines that didn't survive various recessions, and when the decision is made to fold, the subscriber list is sold off to the highest bidder. That's it. There are no "marketing ploys" and there's no time to politely contact readers asking what they want a dying business to do. If you're independent, it's all about paying off as many creditors as you can as best you can; if you're not, like EGM, it's all about the corporation cutting its losses as quickly as it can.

If your wife freaks out because you got Maxim in the mail, I feel sorry for you.

Darn, my 8 year old autistic son's EG sub had already run out. Maxim would have been so useful for him.

Sharp, these publisher guys.

@dragonfire81: If their assumption was that Maxim would be a good "fit" for their demographic were true, wouldn't they be duplicating subscriptions for a lot of people? And if it were false, wouldn't they be sending a magazine a lot of people didn't want?

I don't think the issue here is so much that they chose Maxim (not really my cup of tea, but whatever) so much as that they decided to transfer people to a different magazine without asking instead of just giving them the prorated refund. THAT is what's wrong here, in my opinion.

I had an EGM sub a while ago but I get Maxim for free (wonder when my year is up) and other than some pictures there and there its a clean mag.

@YouDidWhatNow?: Then by your logic, readers wouldn't have a reason to complain were their EGM subscriptions were converted to say, Cosmo? After all, it has pages of scantily-clad women as well, and thus should fit the demographic?

When "Premiere", the movie magazine that was kind of like a more-serious "Entertainment Weekly" went under, those same geniuses decided that for the rest of my subscription period, I should get a publication of just such in-depth stories and gravitas: "Us Weekly". Because why would I want to read Meryl Streep's thoughts on roles for women when I can see four hundred thousand pictures of drunk Britney Spears?

@robotrousers: Agreed. I don't really have a desire to read it, but seriously, it's not that big a deal. It's just a magazine.

I highly doubt my wife would care about this. She probably wouldn't care about me getting Playboy or something either as long as I was open and honest about it.

"This could also be upsetting for some women who find this magazine waiting in the mail for their husbands"

It's Maxim, not Penthouse.

(And even then, it's Penthouse, not bestiality porn ...)

@jscott73: Married men really read Maxim? It's a pretty juvenile rag. Though I don't read it, Playboy is much classier.

@YouDidWhatNow?: Chill, friend. Nobody is going to take your PG-13 stroke magazine out of your grubby little hands. You can have Maxim if you want it.

@robotrousers: As a wife, I think I'd be freaked out that I suddenly started getting a magazine that was addressed to me, without knowing why. And also, some wives may wonder why their husbands are subscribing to Maxim. Good thing they actually provided an explanation, but they needed to do that before they sent the magazine so they could give people the option.

@johnva: I would care if my husband got Maxim, not because of the pictures but because of the articles. Naked hot babes, okay. Sneering, juvenile, pretentious writing? Uh, dear, you know there's porn on the internet?

I had my subscription fulfilled by LATINA magazine even though I am a white male living in Toledo.

...subscription runs to May 2010.

I've tried to write/call etc. to no avail. I'm dropping the magazines off to the guys at work (I work as a contractor) with the address portion ripped off. At least I get the amusement factor.

@pecan 3.14159265: I have a friend from college who worked for Maxim. At the time of his interview with Maxim, he was engaged (now married), and one of the questions the interviewer asked was, "Your fiancee isn't one of those annoying feminazis, is she?" Because apparently they've lost staff when staff members were forced to choose between their employment and their extremely pissed-off significant other over something Maxim had them do in the course of employment (visit and rate strip clubs, or get shitfaced and have embarassing pictures taken, or whatever).

He figured the right answer was "no," even though his now-wife is a super-feminist. But not all that worried about her fiance going to strip clubs.

So, yeah, straight women not so much Maxim's target demographic. ;)

I had a subscription to a video game magazine that covered all of the consoles (Next Generation). The magazine went under and they replaced it with a Nintendo only magazine! Does me no good if I don't have a Nintendo.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): *any women, not just straight women. :)

@spanky:

Was responding to comment entries, not the article itself. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

To that point though...it does baffle me that you'd substitute a men's entertainment mag for a video game mag. Even if the demographic overlaps considerably...it's not even close to the same thing.

@GMFish: Only for pretty limited values of "we."

It's not an error, this is apparently what they do with dead magazines now. When the print version of Radar went under a few months ago, they tried to fulfill the rest of our subscription with the worthless paparazzi-photo and celeb gossip mag Star. There was no choice offered.

This is obviously a "problem" no one should take "seriously".

Customer: "You're delivering Maxim to my door technically for free!"

CSR: "And...?"

Who the hell is this magazine publisher to not offer a refund for the balance of the gaming subscription or a choice of another magazine vs. sending Maxim to all of these people instead? The magazine is not appropriate for everyone and is understandably distasteful to some.

The people who don't want it now have the additional hassle of trying to get their money back or get switched to a magazine they actually want.

I don't think it really matters what they "convert" the subscription to--it's still keeping people's money without giving them what they paid for. If I order a pizza, you don't get to say "We're out, but we've brought you $20 worth of Coke instead. Bye."

@jscott73: lol I don't get the difference. If my wife will get mad at Playboy, she'd get mad at Maxim. Thank god she cares less and sometimes reads both herself.

I'm not surprised, considering I recently heard a game producer say "I want to make more games for the Maxim demographic." (Because there aren't enough!) That's the big huge thing right now - because apparently kids don't play video games anymore, and women never did. (And never will, if this kind of marketing keeps up. I know I'm not impressed by it.)

EGM's publishers (and some editors) definitely perceived it, at the end, to be aimed at the straight male ages 18-24 who wanted some "edginess" with his game reviews. I hear it didn't used to be like that. As a former industry source has told me, game journalism used to be less about the attitude and more about the games.

The amount of pointless macho in the video game industry astounds me. Or maybe that's just Xbox Live.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Yeah, I find Maxim pretty ridiculous and slightly revolting. I'm not a huge feminist, but I can think of better ways of getting attention than posing half naked in a magazine designed to pose women as objects of desire. Charitable contributions, museum benefits, photo shoots by Annie Leibovitz involving feathered headresses and $6,000 dresses...you may be half naked in those as well, but Annie Leibovitz is hardly one to promote the peddling of women as objects. What she does is art.

@PrimeMovr: Your wife sounds tremendously rational.

@floraposte: ...a little over half the population is a limited value of "we"? hehe

@johnva: I think that's the reason why some wives would freak out...that this just showed up, and there was no discussion.

@PrimeMovr: I own (I think) an issue of Maxim with Jolene Blalock, a Playboy with a korean playmate, and I *think* a Stuff mag. My girlfriend has ended up reading them more than I have. In particular, the Playboy issue had an excellent retrospective on James Bond, and an interview with Daniel Craig, or so she tells me.

@superhumanben: No Maxim is not a big deal around our house but Playboy is not allowed, not that I would want that stuff around anyways with a 5 year old daughter, but Maxim is entertaining here and there but my subscription expired a couple years ago and I didn't renew it, but I pick it up at the news stand every now and then, along with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. There is no way she would freak out or anything if I started getting it again, especially in the case from this story.

When COMPUTE! magazine dived under, I got it replaced with Omni. (This was like 20 years ago.) That's even more odd than this switch, which, while offensive, makes some remote level of sense. COMPUTE! -> Omni was like swapping out Monster Truck Weekly with U.S. News and World Report.

SirWired

@pecan 3.14159265: I think it's safe to assume that most groups of males selected by affinities apart from sexual preference will be majority straight, owing to the fact that gays are a statistical minority in the general populous. Now, women constitute a majority on their own in the US, and straight women + gay men probably also constitute a majority in the US, but probably not in the subscribership of most gaming mags.