PSW has an average net circulation of 17,132 per issue (12 issues in total per annum), which may not sound a lot, but considering that this is a third party magazine with no inside people that work at SCEE, it is pretty strong in terms of sales figures although not quite as good as the official PlayStation Magazine (PSM) which has an average net circulation of 44,356 per issue.
The front cover of this month’s PSW showcases the latest PlayStation 3 racing game, SEGA RALLY, showing an almost realistic, vivid and colourful image of three rally cars racing brutally off road making it appealing to off road racing fans. The colours are successful in attracting attention as there is a variety of different colours on the page and everything has been well synchronised to work with each other; for example, the cars in the image are slightly tilted to allow space for the white headlines which have also been adapted to suit the brutal mood created as they are covered in mud. The colours build up the mood from a very calming blue sky coming down to lots of red fonts and colours at the bottom of the page. Red is used as it has a special connotation for dangerous situations and also excitement.
The fonts used on the front page are quite simple block writing fonts similar to those previously used to promote the PlayStation 2 which in my opinion makes it easy to read and therefore easy to distinguish from the other magazines when looked at from a distance.
Emphasis is put into the text describing the content inside the magazine using tilted text with bright red backgrounds or bright red font colours. Again red is used to emphasise on how exciting the articles inside are. The size of the font used also plays a big part in emphasising the content as the most important headlines are in bold whereas less important texts are written in smaller sizes; for example, the piece of text showing which consoles this magazine covers. This is so that the main ‘sell lines’ can be read from a distance. In this issue of the magazine, the magazine is mostly targeted at racing game fans as it has two exclusive reviews of the two upcoming racing games and of course, it has no problems showing just that. SEGA RALLY and JUICED 2, both of which are racing games, are written in a very eye-catching bold writing.
There are a lot of exclamation marks used to make the buyer be more alive and enthusiastic about going on to read the articles inside. It is very informal and energetic to match the target audience of the magazine.
Editorial pages are usually written in the same manner as the font page of the magazine aimed at that particular target audience. So in PSW, the editorial page is also informal as it is written in a conversational manner (colloquial) to involve the reader.
Colloquial tone gets the reader involved which is further backed up, in PSW, with direct address such as “The magazine controlled by you!” and the use of present tense such as “Spoil yourself!” to give a sense of immediacy and therefore getting the reader to follow them as if they are there and feeling as if they are being spoken to. This is one of the deeper appeals of PSW known as a substitute for personal contact. It guarantees the reader someone to talk to when they are feeling a bit down or isolated.
Most editorial pages have a warm feel to them as they try to create a family by getting the reader to know each and every person on the team and PSW’s editorial page is no exception. There is a ‘Meet the Team’ section with pictures of happy people and an informal, humorous description of that member of the team next to their picture. For instance: “Chris - Art Editor -- Chris has just moved into a new house, so all we’ve been hearing about is new curtains and matching rug. He did however manage to get his PS3 online again, so you’ll catch him on the network sucking at Resistance”
Language is very important in the editorial page as using the right sentence types and wordplays to make the text informal, humorous and informative at the same time can be a bit challenging. To achieve this goal, many different sentence types are used throughout the editorial page; interrogatives are used to get the reader thinking the same way as the editors are such as “What a months, eh?”, followed by declaratives telling the reader what they should be thinking of: “We’ve had loads of…” and exclamatives: “coming your way!” to excite the reader about the statement they’ve just read.
Slang is also used to tone down the level of seriousness and make the editor seem like a friend to the reader.
Overall I think that this month’s issue of PSW is quite successful in targeting and reflecting the interests of the reader although I think it could have targeted a wider audience and not just the gamers interested in racing games since over half of the PSW readers prefer First Person Shooter (FPS) games, so in my opinion the articles targeting those of a FPS nature, could have been shown a bit clearer on the front page.
On the other hand, I think the editorial page does an excellent job in targeting the targeted audience of the magazine since it has welcoming and friendly but masculine feel to it which reflects the average reader of this magazine plus it also talks about a wider variety of games and not just racing games unlike the front page.
