WASD and What Print Gaming Magazines Were Always Capable Of

Print gaming magazines saved me as a kid. Not metaphorically—they were the main channel through which games felt like culture rather than product. German gaming magazines like Total! and MANIAC!, later GEE: each had its own personality, its own editorial voice, its own way of making the act of reading about games feel like participation in something larger. The screenshots were blurry. The prose was sometimes more excited than precise. But someone had thought carefully about what to say and how to say it, and that counted then and still does.

Most of what replaced those magazines online is worse. The format changed, the economics changed, and thirty-second video takes filled the space where considered criticism used to live. Something got lost in the translation to clicks. Which is why WASD feels genuinely important. Christian Schiffer, Ina Seidl, and Markus Weißenhorn have been making this thing—200 pages, book-thick, illustrated with real care—that operates where the old magazines operated: treating games as worthy of sustained, serious attention.

It got called the best gaming magazine in Germany by Nerdcore, a tech and culture blog worth trusting on this, and the credential fits. The format is called a "bookazine"—half book, half magazine, fully both—which is a slightly awkward word for a genuinely interesting hybrid. The design is unusual. The writing is serious. It looks good on a shelf, which matters more than people admit.

In 2017 they attempted an English edition—the ambition was right, since the magazine’s real subject doesn’t speak German specifically. It didn’t happen at scale, which is a small and specific loss. Back issues are still available through their site. Some things are worth the effort of translation.