The Escapist: Killed on its own Birthday

With this week, notable online game magazine The Escapist starts it's third year of publication! Unfortunately, part of the celebrations of this anniversary have included killing what made it so unique.

When The Escapist first started back in June 2005, it was available in two editions for each issue. The first was the online edition, with each page designed to resemble an actual magazine page (although with a different shape, wide where a paper magazine page is tall). As long as you used a 1024x768 (or better) monitor with the browser maximized, there wouldn't be any scrolling, and you could just "turn" to the next page to continue reading. The other was a PDF, with each page matching that of the online. You could use this to print for reading away from a computer, or to avoid rendering problems with smaller monitor resolutions.

Having the internet access that I did (and do), I've always favoured the PDF edition of each issue. And from issue 1 through 104, that trusty PDF has always been there for me to download and read at home.

However, for The Escapist's birthday, the minds in charge have not only redesigned the magazine's website, but have also eliminated the old style and the PDF edition. While the website could have use the face lift (it wasn't a pretty website before now) the loss of the magazine layout has eliminated its most unique quality and reduced it to little more than any other game news site out there.

So while some may be celebrating this milestone of The Escapist's history, I'll be mourning the loss of the once great publication of game design.