• Future Games delivers global reach of 14.6m
• Digital edition ABC increases for Xbox: The Official Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine and Edge
13/02/14 Future, the international media group and leading digital business, today unveils the latest round of ABC figures for its portfolio of Games brands for the period ending December 2013.
Future’s Games portfolio delivers a global reach of over 14.6 million every month*. Future Games holds a unique position in the global Games media market, combining the strongest games industry partnerships with an innovative multi-channel approach. Future is the only Games media owner to engage with its audience across online, print, digital editions, social media, video, mobile, on-console and events.
Lee Nutter, Head of Future Games, says: “We continue to invest online, on tablet & smartphone and in print, delivering content where and when our consumers want it. We have delivered a solid set of ABC results in these changing times and it’s extremely encouraging to see digital edition growth for PlayStation: The Official Magazine, Xbox: The Official Magazine and Edge. We are always looking to respond to our consumers and drive innovation, and video is a central part of that strategy, so it is fantastic to see the rapid growth of our YouTube channels.”
PlayStation: The Official Magazine, the UK’s biggest-selling PlayStation magazine, posts a 67.8% year-on-year increase for its digital edition. The brand revealed a refresh in June 2013 in preparation for the launch of PS4. Online, OfficialPlayStationMagazine.co.uk recorded a 134% year-on-year increase in traffic to 994,230 unique users for January.
Xbox: The Official Magazine increases its digital edition circulation by 13.9% year-on-year and remains the UK’s biggest-selling games magazine. The brand, which underwent a new look to coincide with the arrival of the Xbox One in November last year, recently re-launched oxm.co.uk as totalxbox.com. Leveraging the heritage of Future’s long-term official relationship with Microsoft and integrating Future’s editorial teams in the UK, US and Australia, the site delivers breaking news 24/7. The site now reaches the largest pure-play Xbox audience in Europe. In January, the site delivered 1.4 million unique users, a 44% year-on-year increase.
Edge increases its digital edition circulation by 68.7%, resulting in a year-on-year combined ABC figure of 20,485. Edge was named Specialist Magazine of the Year at last years Digital Magazine Awards.
PCGamer.com is the world’s biggest PC gaming website, reaching over 5.3 million monthly unique users and increasing its traffic by 7% year-on-year.
CVG, Future’s flagship games news website, unveiled a major re-launch in May last year and was the first mainstream UK gaming site to feature adaptive design, enabling users to access all of CVG’s functionality regardless of the device being used – laptop, tablet or smartphone. This presents partners with new advertising formats, a bigger audience reach and increased commercial opportunities. Since its re-launch, mobile traffic doubled in the first month alone and advertisers now have access to an additional 1.4m mobile unique users a month. In October, as CVG celebrated the Golden Joystick Awards, the site delivered record-breaking uniques, with a 33% year-on-year increase in traffic to 3.8 million.
GamesRadar, the premier source for everything games, goes from strength-to-strength recording a 53% increase in traffic year-on-year, reaching over 6.6 million unique users for January.
Official Nintendo Magazine continues to offer enthusiasts unrivalled access to the games, people and opinions that matter in the world of Nintendo, while GamesMaster remains the UK’s favourite all-format games magazine.
Future Games has a dedicated video studio and racks up over 5.8 million views across its YouTube sites every month. It regularly produces bespoke video content for games publishers and commercial partners, including a recent series for Battle Recon which generated over 160,000 views. CVG’s YouTube channel has grown from 46,000 subscribers in 2012 to over 220,000 now. CVG’s specially curated GTA V videos, including the phenomenally successful ‘GTA 5 O’Clock’, generated over 20 million views between November 2012 and November 2013.
Elsewhere, the Golden Joystick Awards, recognised as the world’s most popular and credible Gaming awards, delivered a record-breaking 10 million votes last year. With Green Man Gaming signed up as headline sponsor and the awards live-streamed worldwide through YouTube, for the first time in the Golden Joysticks 31 year history an individual was honoured for their lifetime’s work. BioShock Creative Director and Co-Founder of Irrational Games, Ken Levine was in the room to pick up the special Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ends
*Figures are global and contain duplicates. Brand reach measured by ABC + unique users + paid digital copies + social media + newsletters + free container apps + YouTube
For more information please contact: Ben Bolton, Senior Communications Executive, at ben.bolton@futurenet.com or 020 7042 4034 and 07940 530424
About Future plc:
Future plc is an international media group and leading digital business, listed on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR).
Future has been named Consumer Digital Publisher of the Year for three years in a row by the Association of Online Publishers (2011, 2012, 2013) and has been named the Professional Publishers Association Digital Publisher of the Year for two consecutive years (2012, 2013). Future is also the British Media Awards Media Company of the Year.
We have operations in the UK, US and Australia creating more than 200 publications, apps, websites and events.
We hold market-leading positions in Technology, Games, Guitar, Creative and Sport & Auto sectors.
We attract more than 57 million monthly global unique users to our websites, which include techradar.com, gamesradar.com, bikeradar.com and musicradar.com.
Future sold more than 19 million magazines last year, that’s 37 magazines sold every minute. Our most well-known brands include T3, Cycling Plus, Total Film, Mollie Makes and Xbox: The Official Magazine.
Future has developed its own app-creation software, FutureFolio. We produce over 100 digital editions, and have sold over 5 million digital issues in the last year.
Future exports or syndicates 218 publications to over 92 countries, making us the UK’s number one exporter and licensor of magazine content.
Follow Future plc on Twitter at www.twitter.com/futureplc and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/future-publishing