Games solves cost puzzle by installing Mac network

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August, 1989 by James E. Strothman

Games solves cost puzzle by installing Mac network

New York City--Unlike most of Games magazine's puzzling contents, it wasn't hard to figure out that reducing crossword page production costs from $180 to $6 was worth the price of a few Macintoshes. "I, and the production director, saw the writing on the wall--how we'd be able to save costs," recalls art director Barry Simon. "It was just a matter of convincing the publisher that was the way to go."

Jerry Calabrese, president and publisher of PSC Games Limited Partnership, and a pioneer of selective binding, bought the idea--and the first Macintosh II--last November.

Today, the publication for puzzle enthusiasts has a network of four Mac IIs for design, layout and production, and an IBM PC/AT for text editing. Software includes Aldus Corp.'s PageMaker and FreeHand and Adobe Systems' Illustrator 88.

Many of Games' pages are packed with black-and-white or two-color crossword puzzles. Some puzzles have tiny clues printed in the grid itself. The correct solutions, of course, are printed in a compressed format on answer pages.

For the many crossword pages, a computer-savvy associate editor, Mike Shenk, created a program that can produce a crossword puzzle and output the entire page in PostScript to a laser printer or directly to film on a Linotronic 300. "The crossword pages had the great cost savings," agrees Barbara Smith stark, production director. Before the Macintoshes and Shenk's program came on the scene, crosswords were produced conventionally using an Atex typesetting system. Clues, anser letters and grid numbers were usually pasted in manually.

Costs, she says, averaged about $180 a page when output to RC paper, including about $174 for Atex programming and typesetting and a paste-up artist. Producting film, which required about $32 more for camera and additional hand work, boosted the cost to $212.

Today, she figures the cost per page, outputting to paper from the Macintosh, at $6. Going directly to film, "which we usually do," costs about $20--a $192 savings, Stark notes.

Simon, who trained assistant art director Todd Betterley and Games' production people on the Macs, says four-color art and halftones are still dropped in conventionally. However, headlines and text on those pages are done with the Macintoshes. The small amount of spot color Games does use is handled on the Mac.

Simon and others at Games looked into using Visionary, Scitex Corp.'s Mac II-based deisgn/layout system that front-ends Scitex color pre-press systems. While Simon "loved the options" as a page designer, it was determined not to be cost-effective because Games is not a heavy user of four-color. Visionary system prices generally range from $35,000 to $50,000.

Games staffers are hoping that PCs can be added to the network for writers--many of whom still use typewriters--in addition to more Macintoshes. "The hard part is trying to find a Mac that is available," says Simon. "Everyone is trying to get on them."