Today’s advanced technology can be a double-edged sword. It can provide us with tools and experiences unimagined in previous generations. But it can also deprive us of some of the things we’ve come to cherish. Technology has recently claimed another victim in games journalism, and we’re all the worse for it.

This week, UK-based publisher Future announced the closing of Playstation: The Official Magazine. The recently published Holiday 2012 issue is the magazine’s last, after more than five years serving the Sony gaming community. PTOM joins a lengthening list of print publications that have felt the deadly sting of the Internet, including Computer Games, Computer Gaming World (which rebranded itself Games for Windows: The Official Magazine before ending its run a year or so later), and most recently, the venerable Nintendo Power, which shut down a month or so ago. This leaves Future with only two significant print gaming products: Official Xbox Magazine and the Energizer bunny of games mags, PC Gamer, which continues to publish monthly after more than a decade.

This is the reality of the journalism game these days, but that doesn’t soften the blow for the dozens of talented people whose jobs have disappeared in a puff of virtual smoke. PTOM featured solid coverage of Sony’s various gaming platforms, a monthly roundup of the best available games for each device, select Blu-ray movie reviews (the PS3 is, after all, also a Blu-ray player), and news and letters sections that were worth the subscription price all by themselves. When other mags started to get thinner, PTOM almost always managed to be a meaty, substantial publication, which could be one of the reasons for its downfall.

We thank Playstation: The Official Magazine editor-in-chief Roger Burchill and his accomplished writing and editorial staff for five years of games journalism excellence. We’re sure that you all will hit the ground running at another outlet, and we look forward to reading more from you in the future (no pun intended).