User blog comment:Drop Zone mk2/Scanned in Robot Wars Magazines/@comment-25770073-20160706200032/@comment-1532710-20180619212533

I have been thinking about this recently, along with why the other magazine lasted just 7 issues. I find it interesting both versions of the magazine ended as they were starting to report on the new series. The most likely reason for the cancellations was due to sales being too low. This is the biggest reason for magazines ending, and it is a particular problem for specialist interest magazines. However, what caused this lack of sales?

In terms of the first magazine, it's possible that the decline in sales had something to do with the gap between Series 4 and Extreme 1, between February and October. Then again, the magazine was able to build a firm fanbase in the gap between Series 3 and 4, so that's probably not the main factor. Personally, I feel the quality of the original magazine declined, starting when they had House Robots as "guest editors". By getting rid of informative parts such as the "robot report" news section and team interviews and increasing the amount of things like comics and "How to draw" sections, perhaps this put off older readers, which may have caused the decline in sales. I don't think it's a coincidence that after the end of this magazine, it was decided to make the next version more informative and aimed at older readers, with no comics.

As for the second run, it seems likely that the magazine never really got off the ground in terms of sales seeing how few issues there were. However, it's interesting to note that issue 7 had a "next issue" preview, whereas the last issue of the original run didn't. Maybe issue 7 was seen as a "last chance saloon", and they decided to end it after sales didn't improve? There is a theory it was due to the repeated spoilers, especially given that the last issue would have featured results of three episodes that wouldn't have aired on BBC 2 on its intended release, but I don't think this is the reason, because they could have just put spoiler warnings on the pages.