Game Informer Shuts Down After 33 Years

Ralfakick

J. Max's Chauffeur,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2001
Posts
4,291
Have I read it in 15 years no. I think I’ve been in a GameStop once with @Jon in the past 10+ years but from 2005-2010 I think I got it just because I bought some games from GameStop around then. It was always bathroom reading material lol. They even wiped the website clean according to the article.

Maybe this foreshadows more things to come from GameStop

 

LoneSage

A Broken Man
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Posts
46,211
This is downright bizarre. Last night, I visited www.gameinformer.com for the first time in years, out of the blue for no reason whatsoever. Then I saw the message and figured oh, Game Informer must have closed down a couple years ago.

Fast forward 24 hours and I see this thread. Serendipity.

I guess, the best thing Game Informer did was their forum. I joined it in 2003, and finally got permabanned by one of their editors (who himself unfortunately passed away a few years later) in December 2004. What did I do then? I joined neo-geo.com/forums.

I would have wound up here anyways, but getting banned there lead me to getting here earlier.
 

Ralfakick

J. Max's Chauffeur,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2001
Posts
4,291
I kind of miss gaming magazines. I used to buy Retro Gamer but I would have to drive to Barnes and Noble which isn’t super close and then hope they have the new issue. The Barnes in a Delaware had movies and I would go there and Best Buy as they were basically next to each other. They moved the Barnes and Best Buy sucks now so I don’t bother I stopped trying to get RG during the pandemic.
I actually still get it digitally for free on the Libby App but I’ve only read it once.

Still Next Generation, Gamefan, Tips N Tricks etc was a great period.
 

Neodogg

Dogg-Father,
20 Year Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Posts
6,065
I still have a milk crate with EGM, GamePro & NPower mags somewhere...
 

fake

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
15 Year Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Posts
11,604
I usually give magazines the benefit of the doubt regarding bias toward their ownership. I’ve been in that situation and have had complete autonomy. But the GS / GI thing was just too close of a connection. One less print mag is not a good thing though.
 

100proof

Insert Something Clever Here
10 Year Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
Posts
3,984
The agonizing slow death of print sucks but I don't really mourn video game magazines in the slightest. Even when they were "good", the writing was always amateur hour and the entire industry was a glorified propaganda arm wholly dependent on the subjects they covered. Game Informer in particular was always a joke... owned by a company that sells video games and famous largely for purchasing exclusive puff pieces from big publishers.

Sorry those people lost their jobs but they're probably better off finding better careers while they're still young enough to shift gears.
 

LoneSage

A Broken Man
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Posts
46,211
EGM was king partly because you got to know the reviewers somewhat. You know what they looked like and got their humor.

That was Game Informer's biggest problem. They did not have a single likable person working there.
 

wyo

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
10 Year Member
Joined
May 22, 2013
Posts
11,324
The agonizing slow death of print sucks but I don't really mourn video game magazines in the slightest. Even when they were "good", the writing was always amateur hour and the entire industry was a glorified propaganda arm wholly dependent on the subjects they covered. Game Informer in particular was always a joke... owned by a company that sells video games and famous largely for purchasing exclusive puff pieces from big publishers.

Sorry those people lost their jobs but they're probably better off finding better careers while they're still young enough to shift gears.
Yes, the 90s American mags were far too cozy with the publishers. Bloated page counts full of ads and you couldn't rely on them for honest reviews.
 

yagamikun

Galford's Poppy Trainer
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2000
Posts
2,647
Nah fam, Diehard Gamefan.
Gamefan was the shit. I purposely didn't get a subscription so I could go in and chat about the latest issue with the nerds that worked at Walden Software in my local mall every month. Hell, if it weren't for Gamefan I probably would have never got a Neo in the 90's - their adverts in the back of the magazine for GameDude and Tomoe (I think was the name) were droll worthy.
 

LoneSage

A Broken Man
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Posts
46,211
It's a shame those weirdass Gamefan comics aren't on the internet anywhere. You know, the guy with the TV head and the other mascot guy. There was some bizarre storyline they had going on.
 

HellioN

, What The Fuck Is This Shit?
20 Year Member
Joined
May 10, 2004
Posts
6,084
Yes, the 90s American mags were far too cozy with the publishers. Bloated page counts full of ads and you couldn't rely on them for honest reviews.
Gun magazines are the same way.
Literally an ad coincidentally placed smack in the middle of a glowing review for said product.
Reviews would have lines in them like "The barrel flew down range on the very first shot out of the box but the manufacturer sent a replacement so it was no problem."
Anyway, hijack over, just made me think about it right there.
 

fake

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
15 Year Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Posts
11,604
How do you guys think magazines make money? It’s not through sales to their readers.
 

famicommander

Tak enabled this rank change
15 Year Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Posts
14,492
How do you guys think magazines make money? It’s not through sales to their readers.
They don't. That's why they're dying. They're even more obsolete than newspapers with the internet being widespread.
 

fake

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
15 Year Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Posts
11,604
They don't. That's why they're dying. They're even more obsolete than newspapers with the internet being widespread.
I said that in response to the posts about putting video game ads in video game mags. The magazines themselves are sold at or near cost of manufacture and shipping. Ads are the source of revenue.
 

famicommander

Tak enabled this rank change
15 Year Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Posts
14,492
I said that in response to the posts about putting video game ads in video game mags. The magazines themselves are sold at or near cost of manufacture and shipping. Ads are the source of revenue.
All the reviews and previews were ads too.
 

StevenK

ng.com SFII tournament winner 2002-2023
10 Year Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2012
Posts
11,136
It's been said before, but growing up I think I enjoyed video game mags at least as much as the actual games. I'm thinking of the british ones really, and yes the writing had an amateur feel to it, and stories sometimes ended mid sentence, and you would see screenshots for the wrong game in the middle of a review, but I just loved the idea of 10 or so guys, maybe a decade older than you, playing at being grown ups when it was clear they were just dicking about like kids.

Jazza Rignall, Ed Lomas, Radion Automatic etc etc. They were like a version of the Young Ones to me.
 

wyo

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
10 Year Member
Joined
May 22, 2013
Posts
11,324
The British mags were indeed great. We are just shit-talking the American ones.

Clarification: the independent ones were great. Anything official was paid advertising.
 

Ralfakick

J. Max's Chauffeur,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2001
Posts
4,291
I mean how deep are video game magazines supposed to be? I think the best ones as said were the ones that gave the writers some personality and touched on unattainable at the time without paying alot imports or the latest Neo releases.

Going back to Tips N Tricks they had a lot of codes and such but from what I remember they would do blurbs on things like the Chinatown Fair arcade scene, and how to host a goob gathering for your friends.

And Gamefan did picture of writers trips to Japan, Anime Cons, and the latest review of Metal Slug 3.

All of that to me went beyond just game reviews and created a “scene,” something like Game Informer never did.

Next Generation to me was the weirdest as it was more of a business trade publication than a teenage gaming magazine. Something for adults that were into video games.

At the time video games didn’t have the history they have now and a lot of what I like on YouTube are retrospectives, but at the time there wasn’t as much history, and things like anime were still very fringe.
 
Top