I Bought What They Say Is the Final and Worst Issue of Popular Software

Late last year I saw a webpage someone had shared on my feed, and it told me something shocking…

Popular Software (大众software) ceased publication back in 2017, and the final 2016 issue was running a crowdfunding campaign on Modian.

What shocked me wasn’t that Popular Software was dying. It was… “didn’t it already die back in 2014?”

If you’re any good with a search engine, you can easily find out that back in 2014 Popular Software had already announced it was closing. Later reports suggested it existed in name only. I didn’t keep following, and I’d always assumed Popular Software was dead. Now I was being told it was still alive — and before I could even be happy about that, I was told this was the last issue, and it was about to really die. I couldn’t help feeling conflicted.

As you’d expect, I backed the crowdfunding campaign and got the final issue. When it arrived, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

Disappointment one: the postal service was way too slow. Disappointment two: the magazine was way too thin.

I don’t have much to say about the slow post. As for the magazine getting thinner, I can speak to that. I dug out the 2002 Popular Software my family had kept, and this “November–December combined issue” in my hands is at absolute best two-thirds the thickness of that 15-year-old magazine.

Honestly, I didn’t have many demands for the current Popular Software. It was more about nostalgia than anything. So I opened it slowly and read it patiently, and it took me about an hour to get through it.

To be honest, getting me to read one cover to cover these days is hard. A lot of the hardware and software stuff in there I’d already seen on the internet ages ago. And since I don’t follow the game market much these days, most of the games I could only glance at the titles and skim the content. That was about it.

But there was one thing I didn’t expect: the editors “Demon Left Hand” (魔之左手) and “Cross” are apparently still around… I remember “Demon Left Hand” pretty well. What sticks with me most is that back in the reader-mail exchanges Lin Xiao used to run, he specifically called himself “Shou-shou”… felt pretty gross…

Before reading this issue, I’d already seen plenty of complaints about it online. Most said the content was hollow and boring, there were too many ads, and that for a final issue they’d been handed this piece of junk with zero sincerity, yadda yadda. Someone snarked that this was the last Popular Software and also the worst Popular Software.

But my personal impression after reading it was that there was still a hint of the familiar flavor.

I even dug out the old Popular Software at home to compare, to confirm what I was thinking.

The first half of the magazine was still hardware reviews, then software tips and tricks, then the news section. The second half was still game introductions and reviews, plus some game-culture and behind-the-scenes and spin-off articles, and finally there was still the game fan-fiction section, the reader-mail exchange, and the game rankings…

If you really had to point at differences, maybe the extra mobile-game content, and the fact that the back cover no longer had a Dell laptop ad?

But this was definitely still the old Popular Software style. I honestly don’t know what there is to complain about. I remember buying an issue of Popular Software around 2008, when I was in university. That one also took me about an hour to read, and my feeling afterward was the same as now.

Not good, not bad. In my mind, Popular Software’s content was probably always like this. It’s just that with the growth of online media, print media like Popular Software has less and less of an edge, and Popular Software’s usefulness has gotten smaller and smaller…

Think back to when Popular Software was hot. We were all students, our computer time was limited, and getting online wasn’t that convenient. A single copy of Popular Software could be easily stuffed into a schoolbag and read under the desk during class — way more interesting than listening to the teacher, right? So a copy of Popular Software would get passed around the class fast. In those young years when internet access and information were restricted, this magazine was practically the only channel to the outside world, like how a lot of us listened to the radio back then… It was a last resort, and there were circumstances of the time baked into it.

But things are different now. Want hardware, game, or app reviews and impressions? Just open a browser — you don’t even need a computer. Pull out your phone, open a few apps, done… 80% of what print Popular Software offered has no advantage against that. Most importantly, our generation, the one that grew up reading Popular Software, isn’t made of students anymore. We’ve gradually grown into the mainstream of society. We’ve started participating in this society, we’ve started influencing it, and our presence shows up in all the major media and news sources. The diversification of media means we can never go back…

Yeah, we can’t go back. Reading news you can’t comment on, can’t share to Weibo/WeChat/Guicheng/Twitter — that’s just painful. Watching a hardware review without some camgirl of a male streamer rambling at you on video feels kind of pointless. Gradually, in the exploding information stream, our attitude toward articles has gotten more and more restless. Open a site, find the section you like, look at the title, look at the header image, look at the gist, then close the tab and find the next one. If an article is even slightly long, people “want a summary.” If anyone actually reads carefully through the words you painstakingly typed, that’s already good. Most people just glance, or scan the key parts, then swipe on. Honestly, a few of the game impressions in this final Popular Software are still pretty good — at least above the average bar of that place that claims “anyone who plays games is a friend (except domestic gacha/mobile/LoL/browser games).” But who cares? Who’s going to read it? And besides, the intros and reviews of those games have been all over the internet a month ago. Nobody’s interested in reading them again.

In the end, this final issue of Popular Software still has the old flavor. It’s just that we, the readers, aren’t the “we” we used to be.

Someone joked: “This last issue is all ads. Tear off the last page and you can throw the rest away.”

Why bother? Honestly, there aren’t that many ads in this issue. I flipped through the 2004-ish magazines I had on hand, and the ads in the middle were even more rampant — and it was because of those ads that the magazines back then were so thick.

Someone sneered: “Popular Software died in 2014. What’s out now is false advertising.”

Why go that far? I read the articles in this final Popular Software, and at least I saw Cross and “Demon Left Hand” still there. Most of the articles aren’t bad quality at all. The description of the origins of the Civilization series was more rigorous than some internet talk-show I’ve seen. It’s just that people can’t be bothered to read anymore, since there are more convenient and more interesting channels. The part I felt a bit uncomfortable with was the abrupt “mobile games” section — but that’s the trend. Why pretend to be above it all? Are mobile gamers not gamers?

I know why so many people were disappointed. Everyone knew this was the final issue of Popular Software, and everyone’s internal default was that this final issue would look back over Popular Software’s past. Maybe it’d be a tearjerker, maybe it’d retrace the series from birth to the end, yadda yadda. Then they got it and found nothing — just an ordinary magazine, and one that those of us used to internet resources can no longer stand. Of course it felt instantly disappointing.

But think about it: the final issue never said during crowdfunding that they were making a “special issue.” After I finished reading, I went back to Modian and looked over the campaign statement. It didn’t seem to mention anything about this being a “special issue.” It only said they’d collect signatures from all the editors who’d ever been associated with Popular Software. And indeed I saw familiar names in there — “Darwin,” “Walker,” “Lin Xiao,” “Ice River,” “Beautiful Life” and so on.

So I guess they delivered what they said. There was no deception. Maybe we really did overthink it. Popular Software is still the same Popular Software as before — it’s just that, as print media, its original content and structure genuinely no longer fit this era.

As I said when chatting with someone last time, Popular Software could have successfully transformed, moved away from reporting news and updates, and become a magazine of high-quality criticism and game culture. In the end, it probably never took that path. There are many reasons along the way. Since the magazine has reached its end, let it rest.

Afterword:

Popular Software represents our youth.

That line is corny and has been said many times, but it’s true. Actually, plenty of things can represent our youth — WCG, Game Things (游戏东西), Warcraft, Nokia, the Famicom, I Love My Family (我爱我家), etc., etc… Sometimes we miss the past not just because we miss the people and things of the past. What we miss is our own younger selves, and those good times we can never go back to.

When I think of Popular Software, what comes to mind most is middle school, and a certain newsstand I used to buy from often. It sat on my way to school, run by an old grandpa and grandma (not actually that old — probably about the age my parents are now). Honestly, all the magazines I bought in middle school came from there. Because I bought so often, I got familiar with the old couple. They’d specially hold a copy of Popular Software for me, and even when a new issue arrived they’d greet me when they saw me coming and say it was in.

A really nice old couple. Their stand moved several times, and each time they’d let me know. But after I graduated middle school, I never went back to that newsstand. A few years before graduating university, on a whim, I wanted to go look again — and it was gone…

Starting around 2012, Zhengzhou completely banned newsstands… Since then I’ve never seen a newsstand again, and I lost the chance to see that old couple again. I don’t know how they’re doing now.

I often dream that I wake up and I’m still at my middle school desk, still talking with friends about unit counters in Warcraft III, discussing the latest Popular Software content, and after school walking past that newsstand together to buy magazines, remembering that old couple, remembering the blazing summers and snowy winters of middle school. That was probably the best time of my life.

I quietly put away this last copy of Popular Software and wiped the tears from the corner of my eye. So many things can never be gone back to. One final magazine brought back so many memories — maybe that’s a kind of value too.