Although the publication has since lost its Official PlayStation Magazine (OPSM) status, it has continued to be published as an intellectual continuation of the magazine, but that is now over.

Print video game magazines in the UK are also in pretty short supply. This time Play is gone. In a short announcement on Twitter, the magazine’s demise is announced with a heavy heart: the next issue will be the last to be published, and anyone who still has an active subscription will be contacted by the subscription team to make sure they don’t run off with their money.

With a heavy heart, we have to let you know that the next issue of PLAY will be the magazine’s final one. For current subscribers, the subs team will reach out before long with next steps. More details here: https://t.co/gpG2rlNs9v

— PLAY Magazine (@PLAYgamingmag) October 2, 2024

OPSM was launched in the UK in 1996 and ran for 25 years, with a change in May 2021 when publisher Future Publishing replaced it with Play. This was essentially just a name change, as the editorial team remained the same, and all that happened was that the official Sony branding was dropped from the magazine. The magazine was relaunched with the name change, but was essentially an intellectual continuation of OPSM, which thus ran for about three and a half years, or a total of 29 years, before its demise.

“We all love to play – but the unfortunate truth is that all games must come to an end, whether it’s because you get crushed by a rolling boulder, throw the controller away in frustration, or simply hit the credits. That time has come for Play as well. I always saw this version of the magazine as a combination of the legacy of Official PlayStation Magazine, OPSM and Play,” editor Oscar Taylor-Kent wrote on GamesRadar, the future website. He thanked the last team members (Jessica Kinghorm, Miriam McDonald, Milford Coppock) for their work and said they made his job a lot easier during his years at OPSM and Play.

In August, one of the oldest gaming magazines in the US, Game Informer, closed its doors after 33 years (and even the online archive was removed…). It’s hard to keep a magazine like that afloat these days.

Source: Gamesindustry, Gamesradar