Mega Visions Magazine is a risky venture, both for backers and for those running it. A digital only magazine focused on a company like SEGA – which is far smaller than they were 15 years ago – is already targeting a very small and niche market. A paywall for digital content that is restricted to e-reader applications is an even smaller and niche market. Several SEGA fan sites exist online, outputting free content and releasing news and interviews as they are new and relevant (SEGAbits, SEGA Driven, Dreamcast Junkyard, SEGA Nerds, several Sonic focused sites). There are also several general retro gaming sites out there (HG101, Retro Collect, Racketboy) offering free content on a regular basis. You also, of course, have all the mid-level and big name commercial sites outputting news and original content. As for magazines, there is the excellent UK Retro Gamer magazine and the so-so Retro Videogame Magazine – both physical and covering SEGA happenings while also covering all other corners of gaming because why would they focus on one single company that is now just a third party developer and publisher. So I have to ask: Why report SEGA news and feature original content on a bi-monthly basis behind a digital magazine paywall?
On the topic of digital: Why is it that the Kickstarter description speaks to the nostalgia of having physical SEGA magazines, but the final product is not physical? Also, isn't it kind of deceiving that every tier after the $10 level omits the "digital" wording and claims to be "18% off the newsstand price" despite the product being digital and the magazine never being available on physical newsstands?
The Kickstarter description has the audacity to name drop The Official Dreamcast Magazine in its opening sentence, but Mega Visions itself only has ODCM designer Kevin Convertito as a consultant, and the examples shown of Mega Visions are a far cry from what ODCM looked like. ODCM was great because of its team, which Mega Visions does not have. Having a former designer who is probably just seeing the pages and giving some advice does not an ODCM successor make.
It is worth noting as well that the magazine's Art Director Kopke left SEGA Nerds before the Kickstarter went live and has since not shown any support for the magazine, leading me to wonder if he is even a part of the team any more or if his credit is due to Mega Visions retaining some of his art (logos, drawings) after his departure. I also have to point out that much of Mega Visions aesthetics are not original. Mega Visions = SEGA Visions, the tagline "Mega Visions Does." = "Genesis Does." Very little originality and no real look that makes the magazine its own.
There are also many questions about the quality of the writing. SEGA Nerds can be very hit or miss when it comes to the quality of their content. One writer, who the editor-in-chief of the magazine believes to be hilarious, has been given "free reign" in Mega Visions. Here is an example of this writer's work:
http://www.seganerds.com/2014/10/31/one-on-one-with-the-requiem-bayonetta/He primarily writes sophomoric fake interviews loaded with jokes about women and his and the character's sexual orientations. The jokes are horrible and the content adds absolutely nothing to the site or fandom as a whole. Read that whole "interview" and then let it soak in that this is writing that the editor-in-chief of Mega Visions believes to be high quality and this is somebody that has been given free reign. Would you really want to pay money for something like this?
Other staff members for Mega Visions have not written for Nerds for months, even years, and seem to be on the team simply because of their association with Nerds. Can such a team really be trusted to hit deadlines for a bi-monthly magazine? Other members were seemingly added because of their social media reach. A savvy tactic, as it promotes the magazine more, but I have to question if members were picked based on the quality of their writing or how many twitter followers they have.
I have many other questions, such as why are the Kickstarter tiers for ads so expensive when the readership is so small. The $13,000 goal divided by the standard $20 subscription price equals 650 readers. I know this is not how the end result will work out, should it be funded, but I also know that this is a high estimate for what their potential first year readership number would be. As of this moment a $250 half page ad sold and a $1000 full page ad sold. The total to date is $4,815 and ads sold total $1,250, so 26% of their current total is from two ads while their current number of potential subscribers is 145. Should more ads sell, which are the higher tiers, more of the total will be coming from ads while the readership remains low. It just seems like a broken system to me that has not been thought through.
Thankfully, the Mega Visions team have posted a helpful FAQ answering all these questions:
http://www.megavisionsmag.com/pages/faqs/Hilariously, I posted the above link because even a week in to the campaign it was dummy text. Thankfully they updated it, but the answers are not what backers will want to hear.
