GameAxis changes gear to make way for L33T

Singapore - Hardware Zone publication GameAxis has rebranded the flipside section of its magazine from GearAxis to L33T, changing its title from the existing GameAxis and GearAxis to GameAxis/L33T - the new mag debuts July.

The new title is an electronic shorthand slang term that denotes experts in internet culture and online gaming. While GearAxis - which was introduced in August 2005 - focused on consumer electronics, L33T will cover entertainment, lifestyle and pop culture topics, following an in-house subscriber survey that revealed internet users and gaming readers keen on content that covers cultural trends and gaming news among their peers. The rebranding will see editorial space for a wider range of topics and ad opportunities for a variety of products and services other than gaming-related ones. L33T's targeted readers are primarily tertiary youths and young professional working adults.

"The revamp is a reflection on our product maturity and L33T marks a new direction to emphasise the vibrant lifestyle-centric elements that our readers are passionate about," Ismet Bachtiar, editor of GameAxis said.

"Brand owners today are beginning to realise the importance of starting their branding exercise early with a younger target audience. Having amassed a group of such an audience over the years, we are constantly refining our content to increase our pull factor to satisfy both the readers as well as advertisers," Jackie Lee, CEO, Hardware Zone said.