Did you miss us? We sure missed you. It’s been eight months since Sega Mania magazine made the massively difficult decision to hit the brakes, pull into the nearest motorway service station and have a cry, illuminated only by the neon glow of a McDonald’s sign.
But now, the Celine Dion playlist has ended, we’ve dried our eyes, and we’re ready to get back on the horse… or hedgehog!
We had an outpouring of support and well-wishes from our loyal readers and Sega Mania Podcast listeners after we shut up shop. In fact, you guys had been awesome to us from day one, so we figure we owe you an explanation about what happened and, more excitingly, what the future holds now that Sega Mania’s triumphant return has been announced.
Strap in. It’s going to get electrifying.
What is Sega Mania?
Sega Mania was (and now continues to be) a nostalgic, retro Sega magazine that was published from June 2021 until November 2022. The passion project of a few thirty-something blokes unable to move on from the glory days of their childhoods; it was jam-packed with Sega features, news, game reviews, and interviews.
We had everything from interviews with the man with the world’s largest Sonic collection and a retro gaming handheld specialist who restored and customised Sega Game Gears, to features on the best fan-made Sonic The Hedgehog games and huge amounts of reviews.
We even managed to get ourselves to a convention or two, including PLAY Expo in Blackpool, where we got to meet some of you.
So what happened to Sega Mania?
Publishing a magazine costs money… a lot of money. In fact, many laughed at us when we started up a physical print magazine. Well, who’s laughing now?
But yeah, it was getting to the point where we just couldn’t offset the printing costs with the number of magazines we were selling.
So we made the difficult choice to pull the plug, take stock, and let things settle for a bit… until now!
The Future of Sega Mania and what it holds
Anyway, here comes the exciting part. It’s baby steps at the moment, but we’re excited to announce that we’re back. We missed you guys and each other, so we want to get the band back together and start creating something we love again. Only this time without trying to go 100mph with it all.
The digital versions of Sega Mania are back on the proverbial shelves and the shop is open again. We’ll be looking at more sustainable ways to fund ourselves and generally be taking things a little slower. But we still want to pump out a high-quality Sega magazine that we’ll all love.
So here’s to the next chapter. We’d love it if you joined us.
FAQs
Where can I buy Sega Mania Magazine?
All issues of Sega Mania can still be ordered from our website and you can get the digital versions for free—you jammy so and so’s! Have a thumb through digitally and then if it tickles your fancy and you want the nostalgic hit of having a Sega magazine in your hands, go through our shop and all your dreams will come true.
Disclaimer: Your dreams may not be the same as Sega Mania’s.
Will Sega Mania magazine subscriptions return?
Probably not. Managing subscriptions is difficult in these unprecedented times due to fluctuating prices. In 2022 we actually lost a significant amount of money by honouring subscriptions that were financially viable when first taken out but were more expensive to fulfil after prices of printing and postage had gone up.
Never say never, but we want to keep everything as simple as possible this time around.
Is Sega Mania related to Sega Powered?
No. No, it’s not. Not in any way.