Nintendo Power, the gaming magazine most likely to give older gamers a blast of nostalgia, is halting publication after 24 memorable years, with its last issue coming to stores in early December, it was announced last week.

The announcement comes five years after Future US, a magazine publishing company responsible for other tech and gaming magazines such as the Official Xbox Magazine and MacLife, took over Nintendo Power. The announcement also reveals an ongoing transition, where videogame magazines are slowly phased out in favor for online gaming news. At this time, however, Nintendo has not expressed interest in continuing the magazine online.

Many of the drawing points of the magazine—most gaming magazines can be found now online. Walkthroughs, previews, leaderboards, lists of release dates, even videogame awards are a click away on the Internet. And, seeing as Nintendo Power was made mainly to hype fans up (what with Nintendo games getting higher reviews than other games and Nintendo games almost always winning Game of the Year), it comes as no surprise that now that more unbiased sources are more readily available the magazine has slowly been loosing its readership.

Still, many are mourning the magazine. After its debut in 1988, the kid-friendly Nintendo Power quickly became for many the sole source of videogame information. The magazine chronicled the early days of the Nintendo Entertainment System, reported on the console wars when the Sega Genesis challenged the Super Nintendo, and served as a bastion for diehard Nintendo fans when gaming shifted from 2D to 3D and the PlayStation was trouncing the Nintendo 64. It covered five gaming generations, from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Wii, over 24 years and almost 300 issues. Even the New Yorker published an article reminiscing about the magazine.

As the New Yorker notes, gaming has become more and more mainstream over the years. A magazine such as Nintendo Power closing, one that premiered on the scene when gaming was still just for nerds, shows how far gaming has come. Guitar Hero was for a time a favorite activity at parties, and first person shooters are now just as popular.

For better or for worse, gaming is definitely out of its ghetto. While hardcore gamers bemoan the current state of the industry, there is no denying gaming is doing better than ever. And, in a world where information is as readily available as air, where hardcore gamers can effortlessly search for the hardcore games that satisfy their needs, is this really such a bad thing?

As for those who still rely on Nintendo Power for news, refunds will be given for subscriptions that run past December. Although Nintendo Power’s popularity has waned these past years, the warm memories many harbor of it ensure its place in videogame history.

For those now looking for a place to get their gaming news fix, there are still plenty of other sites, like, for example, IGN, Gamespot, or, say, Toonari Post.

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The People’s Republic of China is know worldwide as upholding strict censorship rules on all publicized material in the country. The country has also proved itself capable of censoring foreign opinions from penetrating national debates and to serve harsh punishment to anyone suspected of dissidence towards the state. Hong Kong was officially handed back to China from British colonial rule 14 years ago, but the city is still one of two special administrative regions, the other being Macau, which enjoys some form of autonomy. In the period of 50 years after the handover in 1997, Hong Kong will retain its citizen privileges, including less restriction on freedom of speech, while its system is being reformed for full incorporation into mainland China.

Jes Randrup, Danish correspondent for Jyllands-posten, took a look at one of the interesting side effects of Hong Kong’s status. He found that the special freedom enjoyed by the region has made the peninsula’s publishing companies an important mouthpiece for alternative viewpoints, controversial political material and other written material that are banned by Beijing. In an interview with Bao Pu, a political commentator and veteran human rights activist, he reported about the work that publishers are able to do under the ‘safety’ of Hong Kong law.

Mr. Bao is the owner of New Century Publishing and has since 2005 been one of the city’s most prominent publishers of non-fiction. “We contribute to a niche in Hong Kong which has been created by Chinese censorship,” Mr Bao explains, “Some subjects and writers are banned in mainland China and there is a range of things you know will not be tolerated so what do people do? They come to Hong Kong to look for publishers.” The best selling book from his repertoire was the sensational ‘Prisoner of the State’ – a memoir written from secret recordings of the former Premier Zhao Ziyang who was purged politically and put under house arrest following an internal dispute with the party leadership in 1989. Mr Zhao remained under house arrest until his death in 2005 and his name has been taboo since his ousting. Bao Pu secured the recordings from his father, Bao Tong, who was once the right hand of Mr Zhao and still lives under house arrest in Beijing.

Despite the book’s sensitive subject, it sold 120.000 copies and it is especially tourists from mainland China who take advantage of the market in Hong Kong, buying a lot of their otherwise banned political literature in the airport book stores. “We know that it is the buyers from the mainland who purchase many of the nonfictional books in Hong Kong. They constitute a significant market segment,” says Mr Bao.

But Bao Pu and others in his trade are also not afraid to admit that their business is not only to publish. Equally important is the message of their work – to challenge the Chinese state. “The censorship provides us with a form of mission. We exist to undermine the censorship. As long as it exists we will too.”

Mr Bao describes Hong Kong as a haven of information which is considered secret in the mainland. Under the 50-year agreement, Chinese leader have found it politically useful to feed the political discourse through Hong Kong during internal power stuggles. “The most important information comes from insiders in the party,” Mr Bao explains. “A number of articles are based on information which has been leaked by one of the wings in the party. It is leaked to writers in Hong Kong where control over the media is nothing like in China. It is very difficult to leak anything to the media in China.”

Despite the special freedom of speech enjoyed in Hong Kong, there are limitations. When Bao Pu announced his plan to publish a secret diary, said to be written by China’s most hated politician, former Premier Li Peng, Beijing mobilized a stop of the printing and seized the material under copyrights. Mr Bao is reluctant to talk about the incident but acknowledges that the future of freedom of speech in Hong Kong is bleak once the implementation of the Chinese mainland system is complete. “I am not sure how long the current situation can last,” the publisher asses.

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