UK · 1993–present
The world's longest-running PC-dedicated gaming magazine, launched simultaneously in the UK and US and still in print, credited with professionalising PC games journalism and making demo discs a publishing standard.
PC Gamer launched in November 1993 from Future Publishing in the UK, with a US edition following in 1994 under a licensing arrangement that produced broadly independent editorial teams on each side of the Atlantic. The magazine arrived at a pivotal moment: CD-ROM was replacing floppy disks, Doom had just defined the first-person shooter genre, and PC gaming was becoming a mainstream proposition rather than a hobbyist pursuit. The covermount CD — first demo discs, then demo discs plus full games — was arguably PC Gamer's most influential contribution to games publishing: by 1995 the demo disc had become an expected feature across the PC press globally. The UK and US editions developed distinct editorial personalities over time, with the UK edition generally more irreverent and the US edition more technically focused, but both maintained reputations for rigorous hardware coverage alongside game reviews. PC Gamer UK is one of the only monthly games magazines from the 1990s still published in print form as of 2025.