Журнал об играх Edge: История и эволюция

UK video game magazine

Edge is a multi format video game magazine published by Future plc. It is a UK based magazine and publishes 13 issues annually. The magazine was launched by Steve Jarratt. It has also released foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

The magazine was launched in October 1993 by Steve Jarratt, a long time video games journalist who has launched several other magazines for Future. The artwork for the cover of the magazine's 100th issue was specially provided by Shigeru Miyamoto. The 200th issue was released in March 2009 with 200 different covers, each commemorating a single game; 199 variants were in general circulation, and one was exclusive to subscribers. Only 200 magazines were printed with each cover, sufficient to more than satisfy Edges circulation of 28,898. In October 2003, the then editor of Edge, João Diniz Sanches, left the magazine along with deputy editor David McCarthy and other staff writers. After the walkout, the editorship of Edge passed back to Tony Mott, who had been editor prior to Diniz Sanches. The only team member to remain was Margaret Robertson, who in 2006 replaced Mott as editor. In May 2007, Robertson stepped down as editor and was replaced by Tony Mott, taking over as editor for the third time. Alex Wiltshire was the magazine's editor from May 2012 to March 2013, followed by Nathan Brown. Jen Simpkins took over the editor's role from Nathan Brown in April 2020. Between 1995 and 2002, some of the content from the UK edition of Edge was published in the United States as Next Generation. In 2007, Future's US subsidiary, Future US began re publishing selected recent Edge features on the Next Generation website; the Edge website and blog were subsequently incorporated into the NextGen site. In July 2008, the whole site was rebranded under the Edge title, as that was the senior of the two brands. In May 2014 it was reported that Future intended to close the websites of Edge, Computer and Video Games and their other videogame publications; in December 2014, it was confirmed that the C&VG website would close and its content would instead be published at GamesRadar, and in January 2015, it was announced that the same would happen to the Edge website. Between 2015 and 2018, Edge articles were occasionally republished on Kotaku UK. Edge has been redesigned three times since the magazine launched. The first redesign occurred in 1999; the second in 2004; and the third in 2011. The first redesign altered the magazine's dimensions to be wider than the original shape. The latest design changes the magazine's physical dimensions for the second time, and introduces a higher quality of paper stock than was previously used.

Each issue includes a "Making of" article on a particular game, usually including an interview with one of the original developers. Issue 143 introduced the "Time Extend" series of retrospective articles. Like the "making of" series, each focuses on a single game and, with the benefit of hindsight, gives an in depth examination of its most interesting or innovative attributes. "Codeshop" examines more technical subjects such as 3D modelling programs or physics middleware, while "Studio Profile" and "University Profile" are single page summaries ("like Top Trumps, but for game dev") of particular developers or publishers, and game related courses at higher education institutions. Although an overall list of contributors is printed in each issue's indicia, the magazine typically has not used bylines to credit individual writers to specific reviews and articles, instead only referring to the anonymous Edge as a whole. Since 2014, some contributed features are credited with a byline. The magazine's regular columnists have been consistently credited throughout the magazine's run. The current columnists are James Leach, Clint Hocking and Tadhg Kelly. In addition, several columnists appear toward the beginning of the magazine to talk about the game industry as a whole, rather than focusing on specific game design topics. They are Trigger Happy author Steven Poole, Leigh Alexander, and Brian Howe, whose parody article section "You're Playing It Wrong" began with the new redesign. Previous columnists have included Paul Rose ("Mr Biffo", the founder of Digitiser), Toshihiro Nagoshi of Sega's Amusement Vision, author Tim Guest (whose column on MMOs preceded the publication of his book Second Lives), N'Gai Croal, and game developer Jeff Minter. In addition, numerous columns were published anonymously under the pseudonym "RedEye", and several Japanese writers contributed to a regular feature called "Something About Japan". James Hutchinson's comic strip Crashlander was featured in Edge between issues 143 and 193.

An Australian edition was briefly published in early 2004, for less than six months. The Australian edition consisted mostly of content from the UK edition, along with news on the local games industry.

The Brazilian edition was launched in Brazil in May 2009. It includes articles translated from the UK magazine alongside original local content. The magazine was cancelled in November 2010, with 18 issues.

A translated selection of articles are published with the French magazine Joypad (magazine). In 2017, La Financière de Loisirs licensed the title for France, starting with a 200 pages special issue about popular games that changed the gaming industry, as well AAA as indies.

In November 2005, a German translation was launched by the publishing house Computec Media AG. The German edition was thinner than the English original, the covers were slightly changed and the ratings raised. In January 2007 it was changed to a bi monthly schedule and in July 2007 it was finally shut down.

In October 2004, an Italian localised edition was launched under the name Videogiochi and published by Future Italy. In December 2006, Future Italy was sold to Sprea Editori which renamed it Game Pro in May 2007. Last issue: September 2009.

A localised edition of Edge was launched in Spain on 15 April 2006 by publisher Globus, which shares some staff from the On/Off editorial, a Globus magazine about DVD video and consumer technology, not in any way related to video games. It lacks some articles contained in the UK edition, such as the Virtua Fighter 5 story which was omitted from the corresponding Spanish edition. At the end of May 2009, a post in the official Edge Spanish forums made by the main administrator, stated that Globus was about to close its video game division, which meant the closure of the Spanish edition of Edge and NGamer. In October 2017, a new official Edge Spanish edition is released. A new number comes every two months.