Feature: The Hsu Drops: EGM Editor Dan Hsu on the gaming industry and media Subscribe to this RSS feed
EGM Editor-in-Chief Dan Hsu has seen it all in his decade-plus gaming media career. We spoke to him about some of the biggest issues concerning the industry and the media that covers it, including console wars, covers for sale and standing up to the big guns.
David Rudden, Games.Net Editor: What's your take on the current console war and the fact that people are still fighting and taking sides online? Are you surprised it is still going after all the time?
EGM Editor-in-Chief Dan Hsu
Dan Hsu, EGM Editor-in-Chief: It's just human nature to feel loyalty toward one system because there aren't many gamers who can afford every system that is out there. They get emotional attachments to certain products; you get a team mentality to have to root for one or the underdog. You can find plenty of people who own PS2s or PS3s and love playing games on those platforms, but they just hate Sony because they are the big corporate giant who kind of came in and kicked Nintendo and Sega's butts. There are people who just don't like EA just because they are EA... I think it's human nature. It's really annoying to do it because we're a multi-platform magazine and we're trying to cover the business as fairly as possible, but at the same time we are not going to back away from sharing our opinions. If we think this system is or we don't like something else, we are going to say so. It's impossible to be completely equal to everybody at all times because then you are just going to be sitting on the fence the entire time.
With our cover story we just did one a couple of months ago, PlayStation 3 vs. Wii., we made a stand-- we had the editors vote on which one they liked better and it was a unanimous decision. Who wants to read "They both have their pros and cons, so let's just call it a draw!" We don't want to do stuff like that. When you do make a stand on something like that and you say your own opinion that will inevitably piss off a group of gamers who don't see it that way and are loyal to the other guy, but that just goes with the business. I have been doing this for 10 .. almost 11 years. I am just used to seeing that. I've seen it since the Super Nintendo vs. Genesis days.
DR: Concerning your magazine, you did a redesign of it last year and there were some pretty striking differences to be more in tune with 1UP. Can you explain how that came about?
Hsu: Backing up a little bit--when I came back to EGM in April 2001, one of the things that I looked at was the Internet was becoming more and more prevalent so we had to recognize that and evolve the magazine accordingly. We couldn't be the same EGM from 10 years ago when game magazines were the only source of information for all gamers, and you didn't know anything about anything until that magazine came in the mail. It's not like that anymore. We decided to evolve what we are doing and started working with online. It's a growing process with a lot of bumps along the way and we are still trying to figure it out. You can't fight online. You get your EGM and you read it in a couple of days and if you are a hardcore gamer, you are going to find some other way to fill in the other 28 days of the month, so we had to work with online and recognize what they do. When we redesigned the magazine, we integrated with 1UP using the same design elements and some of the same fonts so that you have a more cohesive feel. When you go to 1UP you see EGM's website. When you go to read the EGM, you get the magazine from the 1UP side so you feel like the two complement each other more.
