Next Generation · #1 · The 32-bit generation
Launched in January 1995, Next Generation covered the games industry rather than individual games, ran interviews with developers instead of hype, and refused bylines on the grounds that the whole staff shared responsibility for every word.
Next Generation launched in January 1995, initially under GP Publications and, from May of that year, under Imagine Media — the company that would become Future US. Published by Jonathan Simpson-Bint and edited by Neil West, who had left his post at MEGA to take the job, it arrived at the precise moment the 32-bit era was beginning, covering the 3DO, the Atari Jaguar, and the then-unreleased Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. What set it apart was its readership and its posture. Where GamePro and Electronic Gaming Monthly addressed themselves to players hungry for tips, scores, and screenshots, Next Generation aimed at readers interested in the industry itself — its economics, its strategies, its technologies, and above all its people. Nearly every feature and preview carried extensive commentary and input from the developers actually making the games, and the magazine's interviews with industry figures became its signature, treating game creators as serious professionals with ideas worth interrogating rather than as sources of promotional quotes. One of its most distinctive editorial decisions was the abolition of bylines. Apart from a handful of regular columns, articles and reviews ran unsigned, and the editors explained the policy plainly: they believed the magazine's entire staff should share the credit — and the responsibility — for every piece it published. This gave Next Generation an unusual institutional voice, one that presented its judgements as the considered position of a publication rather than the opinion of an individual, and it lent the reviews a peculiar authority. The magazine ran until January 2002, and its influence on games writing considerably outlasted it. By demonstrating that a mainstream newsstand magazine could take the industry seriously — treating game development as a craft and a business worth analysing rather than merely celebrating — Next Generation helped establish the intellectual register that later publications such as Edge would refine, and that much of today's more thoughtful games journalism still inhabits. It was, for many readers, the first gaming magazine that felt genuinely grown-up.
Proving a newsstand games magazine could take the industry seriously, establishing the analytical register that later shaped Edge and modern games journalism.
Next Generation's founding insight was that there was an audience for coverage of the games business, not just the games. Arriving as the 32-bit generation dawned — 3DO and Jaguar on shelves, PlayStation and Saturn imminent — it wrote about strategy, technology, and economics, and built its identity around interviews in which developers were treated as serious professionals rather than sources of promotional soundbites. Nearly every preview and feature carried substantial input from the people actually building the games. For readers who had outgrown tips and high-score tables, it was the first magazine that seemed to assume they were adults.
Perhaps its most striking policy was the near-total absence of bylines: outside a few regular columns, articles and reviews were published unsigned. The editors justified this on the grounds that the whole staff should share both the credit and the responsibility for everything the magazine printed. The effect was to give Next Generation a single institutional voice — verdicts arrived as the considered position of the publication rather than one writer's opinion, lending them an unusual weight. The magazine ran until 2002, and its serious, analytical register directly shaped the tone that Edge and much of today's more thoughtful games writing would adopt.