Downhill all the way... {updated} (PC Plus)

Member Name: ronniec

Product:	PC Plus
Date:	10/11/00 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Soft porn advertisements at the back.

Disadvantages: Under very bad leadership, and awful cover CDs and content.

I first subscribed to PC Plus over two years ago, back in the days when it was just about the only serious UK computer magazine on the market. That was the sole reason I bought it - I've been using computers for fifteen years, and consider myself beyond the level of "PC How-To" and all the other new, newbie magazines. PC Plus offered a lot more than these. In comparison to the other trashy offerings, aimed 90% at absolute beginners, it was the only real choice. It offered great programming articles and inventive and entertaining editorial content.

But, and this is the big but, it's gone way downhill since then. After two editorial changes in the last year or so, the magazine has been redesigned and is now exactly the same as it's competitors in almost all respects: design, content, advertisements and so on. It has supposedly been rebranded to concentrate on the net, but there is little content to back this up. All that has discernably changed is that there's less interesting content worth reading, the programming tutorials have deteriorated in quality and the design is plain awful.

Let me elaborate on the editorial content as an example of the magazine's rapid fall from grace. When I first bought the magazine it was run by a superb editor - his name eludes me, but his own work was always interesting and thoughtful and the rest of the magazine naturally followed suit. Sadly, he left shortly afterwards to a position "upstairs" in Future Publishing, and for me this was the beginning of the end. A trendy young editor was brought in from one of Future's sister magazines, and this marked a distinct change in direction.

Articles in the news section now seem much shorter and simpler. The features have been cut back and it appears to me at least that they have been deliberately "dumbed down". Chris Bidmead is a superb writer on many computing subjects but he has been woefully underutilised. Mea
nwhile, the other writers brought in have been serving up unappetising dishes of Klingon proportions.

The programming tutorials used to be the magazine's forte, but sadly this can no longer be said to be true. Covering languages as diverse as C++ to Lisp, the pages of old were always genuinely useful for anyone into programming. I know I passed my Computing A-level thanks to their Delphi tutorials (my lecturer was... liberal in his teaching style). Recently, however, they have become shallow and simplistic, concentrating on introductions for newbies and the most basic guides, much of which has been covered many times previously.

The worst aspect, though, is the cover CDs/DVDs, which have gone from being consistently excellent purchases at great value (especially on subscription), to the epitome of the awful magazine cover CD - endless free encyclopaedias, trashy reference works and free/shareware junk. I bought my first copy of PC Plus on the strength of it's cover CDs, but there is no chance I would do the same today. Almost every issue has yet another free encyclopaedia, perhaps a movie about a computer conference somewhere (always deadly dull and irrelevant), and three or four outdated programs that perhaps 5% of the readership will find useful. I used to enjoy scanning through the CDs, but alas, no more can I enjoy this simple geek pleasure.

PC Plus' problem is simple - it is restyling itself and trying to move into a market that is already saturated, while still offering content that will not appeal to the newbie market it wants to attract readers from. It is caught inbetween two worlds, and apparently doesn't know which one to choose. A succession of new editors constantly shift it's direction somewhat, with the result it now has lesser and lesser appeal to both the newbie and programmer markets. It should choose one (ideally the experienced market, as it has an excellent reputation in this field), and stick to it
.

I no longer subscribe to PC Plus and would not recommend it to anyone else, at least until it decides where it is going and returns to it's roots. At present, it is a shambolic and amateur effort not worthy of your money.

Summary: