Aimed at a reader with an age of around 30,
PCF was far more irreverent and opinionated than its competition, edging it towards being a lifestyle magazine as well as a computing one. In its earlier days, it promoted itself as a PC entertainment magazine - meaning it was not aimed at the business market, and it was not aimed at solely games. This included content such as
video editing, animation,
web design, and others - many of which were not very common on the PC at the time.
PC Format included a cover disk or cover CD, similar to many other computer magazines. Initially these were in 5¼" and 3½" inch
floppy disk formats; this standard progressed to
CD-ROM and
DVD-ROM as technology advanced.
PC Format prided itself on being unbiased with its reviews, and frequently gave low scores to blockbuster games its reviewers considered poor quality. It used the full range of 0-100% for its game reviews, rather than having 50% for a bad game and 100% for a great game. The magazine rarely awarded anything between 30% and 50%, showing radical scores for games with the belief mediocre games are difficult to review. Scores over 90% were very rarely granted. If a game scored above 90% it received a PCF Gold award. Before the magazine was redesigned in January 2007, the magazine also awarded 80% plus scores with a high score or top gear award. Immediately prior to
PC Format's launch, the
Format series encompassed three platforms -
Commodore Format,
ST Format and
Amiga Format. The magazines in the 'Format' series on the date of its last publication were
MacFormat (launched 1993),
Linux Format (launched 2000), and
PC Format; as of 2025 only
MacFormat is still published. PCFormat's website was part of the
TechRadar.com network of sites, Future plc's technology portal. ==Content==