The news that PC Zone magazine is to close was no real surprise, given the low ABCs (11,000) and general decline in PC games sales.

That won't stop many shedding a nostalgic tear or two, of course. Zone was especially relevant in the mid 90s. The games industry was increasingly becoming the professional gargantuan beast we know today, but Zone's tone and humour harked back to the more anarchic – at least in the UK – industry of the 80s and early 90s.

Writers like Charlie Brooker – actually, shouldn't he be writing this? – made their names on Zone, but the internet and the growth of console gaming saw sales rapidly decline.

PC Zone's launch publisher, Tim Ponting, who is now director of the videogame PR company Renegade, told us he was incredibly sad to see the magazine fold.

"It's magnificent that it lasted 17 years given that this is predominantly a market now dominated by the internet, and has been for some time," he said.

"There were some great writers who got their start on the magazine, like Charlie Brooker and David McCandless, who have gone on to bigger and better things. It always managed to have that distincitve voice, like all great magazines."

Brooker had this to say: "PC Zone was a cross between Viz and Which? magazine. It never took anything too seriously, least of all itself. It was also where I learned to write, so if you hate my flippant, manic-depressive 'style', blame PC Zone.

"Often the reviews were quite long: you'd have to write four or five pages on Tomb Raider, say, which offered plenty of scope for going off on tangents or penning lengthy nonsensical screeds. There was an attitude of 'anything goes provided it's funny'. It was as much comedy mag as games mag.

"I guess its demise is inevitable. Actually, I'm impressed it lasted as long as it did, given the dominance of consoles, and the sheer wealth of reviews and so forth you can find for free online. The mag itself may have died, but the general tone and character of PC Zone lives on in British gaming sites and forums, and in Ben Croshaw's Zero Punctuation pieces and the like."

The sad thing is that the PC mags generally are probably more interesting now than they have been for at least five years. With PC releases less plentiful than they once were – although rumours of the death of PC gaming are hugely exaggerated – there tends to be at least one or two features a month worth reading.

The console magazines, on the other hand, tend to be dominated by reviews – understandable given their younger audience and the sheer volume of releases.

I'll miss PC Zone. What about you? And what about games mags generally – do you still read them?