GamePro

Last updated
GamePro
GamePro logo.png
GamePro Cover May 2010.png
Vice President, Content Julian Rignall
Categories Video game journalism
FrequencyMonthly
First issueMagazine: April 1989;34 years ago (1989-04)
Website: 1998;26 years ago (1998)
Final issueMagazine: Winter 2011
Website: 2011
Company IDG
CountryUnited States
Based in Oakland, California
LanguageEnglish
Website Gamepro.com (archived)
ISSN 1042-8658
OCLC 19231826

GamePro was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software. The magazine featured content on various video game consoles, personal computers and mobile devices. GamePro Media properties included GamePro magazine and their website. The company was also a part subsidiary of the privately held International Data Group (IDG), a media, events and research technology group. The magazine and its parent publication printing the magazine went defunct in 2011, but is outlasted by Gamepro.com.

Contents

Originally published in 1989, GamePro magazine provided feature articles, news, previews and reviews on various video games, video game hardware and the entertainment video game industry. The magazine was published monthly (most recently from its headquarters in Oakland, California) with October 2011 being its last issue, after over 22 years of publication. GamePro's February 2010 issue introduced a redesigned layout and a new editorial direction focused on the people and culture of its gaming. [1] Despite the shutdown of U.S. operations, the magazine continues to operate internationally in France, Germany, and Spain. [2]

GamePro.com was officially launched in 1998. Updated daily, the website's content included feature articles, news, previews, reviews, screenshots and videos covering video games, video game hardware and the entertainment gaming industry. The website also included user content such as forums, reviews and blogs. In January 2010, the website was redesigned to reflect the same new editorial changes being made in the print magazine. [1] The website was based at Gamepro's headquarters in San Francisco from 1998 to 2002 and then in Oakland, California from 2002 to 2011.

History and establishment

First issue (April 1989) Gamepro april 1989 premiere issue.png
First issue (April 1989)

Gamepro was first established in late 1988 by Patrick Ferrell, his sister-in-law Leeanne McDermott, and the husband-wife design team of Michael and Lynne Kavish. They worked out of their houses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area before leasing their first office in Redwood City, California at the end of 1989. [3] Lacking the cashflow to be able to sustain growth after publishing the first issue, the founding management team sought a major publisher and in 1989 found one with IDG Peterborough, a New Hampshire-based division of the global giant IDG. Led by a merger and acquisition team comprising IDG Peterborough President Roger Murphy and two other [4] executives, Jim McBrian and Roger Strukhoff, the magazine was acquired, then a few months later spun off as an independent business unit of IDG, under the leadership of Ferrell as president/CEO. The later addition of John Rousseau as publisher and editor-in-chief Wes Nihei, as well as renowned artist Francis Mao, established Gamepro as a large, profitable worldwide publication. [5] Francis Mao, acting in his role as art director for the nascent GamePro, contracted game illustrator Marc Ericksen to create the premiere cover for the first edition of the magazine. Ericksen would go on to produce five of the first ten covers for GamePro, eventually creating eight in total, and would continue a secondary role creating a number of the double page spreads for the very popular monthly Pro Tips section. The magazine had a monthly circulation of 300,000 [6]

Over the years, the Gamepro offices have moved from Redwood City (1989–1991) to San Mateo (1991–1998) to San Francisco (1998–2002) and lastly Oakland. In 1993, the company was renamed from Gamepro Inc. to Infotainment World in reflection of its growing and diverse publication lines.

The magazine was known for its editors using comic book-like avatars and monikers when reviewing games. As of January 2004, however, Gamepro ceased to use the avatars due to a change in the overall design and layout of the magazine. Meanwhile, editorial voices carried over to the community on its online sister publication, www.gamepro.com.

Gamepro was also most widely famous for its ProTips, small pieces of gameplay tips and advice depicted with game screenshot captions. It also features a special corner section known as Code Vault (formerly Strategies Weapons and Tactics or S.W.A.T. Pro), where secret codes are all posted. These particular features have since gradually vanished. Code Vault was also published in print format and sold as a quarterly cheats and strategy magazine on newsstands.

There was also a TV show called GamePro TV . The show was hosted by J. D. Roth and Brennan Howard. The show was nationally syndicated for one year, then moved to cable (USA and Sci-Fi) for a second year.

In 1993, Patrick Ferrell sent Debra Vernon, VP of marketing, to a meeting between the games industry and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Realizing an opportunity, the team at the now-entitled Infotainment World launched E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The industry backed E3 and Ferrell partnered with the IDSA to produce the event. It was one of the biggest trade show launches in history.

Early in its lifespan, the magazine also included comic book pages about the adventures of a superhero named Gamepro who was a video game player from the real world brought into a dimension where video games were real to save it from creatures called the Evil Darklings. In 2003, Joyride Studios produced limited-edition action figures of some of the Gamepro editorial characters.

Gamepro also appeared in several international editions, including France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Brazil and Greece. Some of these publications share the North American content, while some others share only the name and logo but do feature different content.

Early in 2006, IDG Entertainment began to change internally and shift operational focus from a "Print to Online" to "Online to Print" publishing mentality. The first steps; build a large online network of web sites and rebuild the editorial team. Enter: George Jones, industry veteran.

In February 2006, Gamepro's online video channel, Games.net, launched a series of video-game related shows. The extensive online programming is geared towards an older and more mature audience.

In August 2006, the Gamepro online team spun off a new cheats site, GamerHelp.com. It was shortly followed by a video game information aggregation site, Games.net, and a dedicated gaming downloads site, GameDownloads.com.

Under the new leadership of George Jones, Gamepro magazine underwent a massive overhaul in the March 2007 issue. While losing some of the more dated elements of the magazine, the new arrangement focused on five main insertions: HD game images, more reviews and previews per issue, www.gamepro.com community showcase, user contributions and insider news. However the German Gamepro website is still run, however this time, by "GameStar" as their partner, as that website have a message at the top of the screen saying "Partner of GameStar" (Note: This is written in German)

In 2009, Gamepro's 20th anniversary coincided with 20-year industry veteran John Davison joining the newly named Gamepro Media team in October 2009 as executive vice president of content. [7] Under Davison's direction, the magazine and website were redesigned in early 2010 with an editorial shift toward focusing on the people and culture of gaming. The redesigned magazine and website were met with an enthusiastic audience response. [1]

In addition to announcing the hire of Davison in October 2009, the company also announced an "aggressive growth plan throughout 2009 and beyond, with numerous online media initiatives to deepen consumer engagement and create new opportunities for advertisers." Plans included partnering with sister company IDG TechNetwork to build a "boutique online network of sites." [7] The result was the introduction of the Gamepro Media Network.

In September 2010, Gamepro Media announced a new alliance with online magazine The Escapist offering marketers joint advertising programs for reaching an unduplicated male audience. [8] The partnership was named the Gamepro Escapist Media Group.

In November 2010, Julian Rignall joined Gamepro Media as its new vice-president of content, replacing John Davison, who resigned in September 2010. [9]

Gamepro ended monthly publication after over 22 years with its October 2011 issue. Shortly after that issue, the magazine changed to Gamepro Quarterly, which was a quarterly publication using higher quality paper stock as well as being larger and thicker than all of the previous standard magazine issues. Gamepro Quarterly hit newsstands within the first half of November 2011. [10] The quarterly endeavor lasted for only one issue before being scrapped. On November 30, it was announced that Gamepro as a magazine and a website would be shutting down on December 5, 2011. Gamepro then became part of the PC World website as a small section of the site covering the latest video games, run by the PC World staff. [11]

Content

Main sections

In February 2010, the magazine's main sections were:-

Retired sections

Rating scale

At first, games were rated by five categories: Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, FunFactor, and Challenge. [12] Later the "Challenge" category was dropped and the "Gameplay" category was renamed "Control". [12] The ratings were initially on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0, in increments of 0.5, but a possible 0.5 score was later added. The first game to receive such a score was Battle Arena Toshinden URA for the Sega Saturn. Starting in October 1990, each score was accentuated with a cartoon face (The Gamepro Dude) depicting different expressions for different ratings. [13] The ratings faces remained in use until about 2002. GamePro's reviews became esteemed enough that some games would display their GamePro ratings on their retail boxes.

After 2002, the category system was eliminated in favor of a single overall rating for each game on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 stars. A graphic of five stars were shown alongside the written review. The number of stars a game earned was indicated by the number of solid stars (e.g., a game's 4-star rating was represented by showing 4 solid stars and one hollow star). No game ever received less than one star. An Editors' Choice Award was given to a game that earned either 4.5 or 5.0 stars.

Role-Player's Realm

GamePro had a "Role-Player's Realm" section dedicated to the coverage and reviews of role-playing video games. In the January 1997 issue, they published a list of "The Top Ten Best RPGs Ever" which consisted of the following games: [14]

  1. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Super NES)
  2. Final Fantasy 3 (Super NES)
  3. Lunar: Eternal Blue / Silver Star (Sega CD)
  4. Breath of Fire II (Super NES)
  5. Phantasy Star IV (Genesis)
  6. Secret of Mana (Super NES)
  7. Chrono Trigger (Super NES)
  8. Super Mario RPG (Super NES)
  9. Might and Magic II (Genesis)
  10. Final Fantasy 2 (Super NES)

Later in 2008, GamePro published another list of "The 26 Best RPGs of the All Time", the top ten of which consisted of the following games: [15]

  1. Final Fantasy VII
  2. World of Warcraft
  3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
  4. Chrono Trigger
  5. Fallout 3
  6. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
  7. Ultima series
  8. Xenogears
  9. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
  10. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

ProTips

GamePro is credited with coming up with the concept of "Protip", a short piece of advice as if spoken by an expert usually attached to an image, which was explained by former writer Dan Amrich that as part of their editorial process, they were encouraged to caption the three-to-seven images used in an article with such advice.

One purported image from a GamePro review of Doom (1993) had a caption for an image of one of the game's bosses as "PROTIP: To defeat the Cyberdemon, shoot at it until it dies". The apparent advice, which is common sense and self-evident for players of first-person shooters like Doom, was widely mocked and created a meme of similarly obvious ProTips added as captions to pictures. However, the image was revealed to be a fake, created as an April Fools' joke for a fansite doomworld.com. [16]

Lamepro

Every April until 2007, as an April Fools' Day prank, Gamepro printed a 2-5 page satirical spoof of the magazine called Lamepro, a parody of Gamepro's own official title. The feature contained humorous game titles and fake news similar to The Onion, though some content, such as ways to get useless game glitches (games getting stuck, reset, or otherwise), was real. The section parodied GamePro itself, as well as other game magazines.

PC Games

What was called a "sister publication" to GamePro, PC Games, was published by IDG until 1999. [17] It was founded in August 1988, but changed its name to Electronic Entertainment in late 1993 and PC Entertainment in early 1996. The title reverted to PC Games in June 1996. [18] Its PC Games Online website was merged with several other IDG properties, including GamePro Online, to form the IDG Games Network in late 1997. [19] The print version of PC Games was the fourth-largest computer game magazine in the United States during 1998, with a circulation of 169,281. In March 1999, it was purchased and closed by Imagine Publishing; [17] [20] its April 1999 issue was its last. [21] Following this event, Imagine sent former subscribers of PC Games issues of PC Gamer US and PC Accelerator in its place. [18] [21] According to GameDaily, the move came as part of IDG's rebranding effort to lean more heavily on the GamePro name: coverage of computer games was thereafter centralized at PCGamePro.com, and in the "PC GamePro" section of GamePro's print edition. [21]

Related Research Articles

PC Gamer is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries. The magazine features news on developments in the video game industry, previews of new games, and reviews of the latest popular PC games, along with other features relating to hardware, mods, "classic" games and various other topics.

GameStar is a monthly-released PC gaming magazine in Germany. It is the best-selling German-language magazine focused on PC gaming and it also hosts the largest video gaming-related portal in the German-speaking internet.

PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online-only publication.

<i>Electronic Gaming Monthly</i> American video game magazine

Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews.

<i>Computer Gaming World</i> American computer game magazine

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<i>PC Zone</i> British video game magazine

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<i>GMR</i> (magazine) Defunct video game magazine

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<i>PC PowerPlay</i> Australian magazine

PC PowerPlay (PCPP) is Australia's only dedicated PC games magazine. PC PowerPlay focuses on news and reviews for upcoming and newly released games on the Microsoft Windows platform. The magazine also reviews computer hardware for use on gaming computers. The magazine is published by Future Australia.

<i>PC Format</i> Former UK computer magazine (1991–2015)

PC Format was a computer magazine published in the United Kingdom by Future plc, and licensed to other publishers in countries around the world. In publication between 1991 and 2015, it was part of Future plc's Format series of magazines that include articles about games, entertainment and how to get the most out of the platform. Despite the occasional mention of alternatives, PC Format takes the term 'PC' to mean a Microsoft Windows-based computer.

<i>Edge</i> (magazine) UK video game magazine

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<i>GamesTM</i> British video games magazine

GamesTM was a UK-based, multi-format video games magazine, covering console, handheld, PC and Arcade games. The first issue was released in December 2002 and the magazine was still being published monthly in English and German up until the last edition was published on 1 November 2018.

<i>GameFan</i> Former video game magazine

GameFan was a publication started by Tim Lindquist, Greg Off, George Weising, and Dave Halverson in September 1992 that provided coverage of domestic and imported video games. It was notable for its extensive use of game screenshots in its page design, contrasting other U.S. publications at the time. The original magazine ceased publishing in December 2000.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Rignall</span>

Julian "Jaz" Rignall is a writer and editor. He has also produced content for corporate websites such as GamePro Media, publisher of GamePro magazine and GamePro.com, marketing collateral and advertising campaigns.

<i>Mega</i> (magazine) Defunct video game magazine 1992-1995

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Gamepro Media Redesigns Print and Online Editions to Enthusiastic Response". Archived from the original on 2011-07-28. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  2. Hardawar, Devindra (November 30, 2011). "So long childhood: GamePro magazine has been shut down". VentureBeat . Retrieved July 10, 2023.
  3. "100 Issues... Over 200 Writers!". GamePro. No. 100. IDG. January 1997. pp. 38–39.
  4. IDG [ permanent dead link ]
  5. "Industry Leading Video Gaming Magazine Delivers Authoritative Gaming Editorial To Over 3 Million Male Teens Each Month". Business Wire . September 23, 2002. Archived from the original on March 27, 2010. Retrieved 2002-09-23.
  6. "Magazine aimed at video game users". The Boston Globe . January 1, 1990. p. 56. Retrieved January 30, 2023 via Newspapers.com.
  7. 1 2 "Leading Game Media Executive Tapped for Top Editorial Slot at IDG's Gamepro Media". Gamepromedia.com. October 6, 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-01-03. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
  8. "GamePro and The Escapist Alliance Changes How Marketers Reach Male Gamers". Gamepromedia.com. September 8, 2010. Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2010-09-07.
  9. "IDG Gamepro Media Appoints Seasoned Publishing Executive to Vice President, Content". Gamepromedia.com. November 8, 2010. Archived from the original on 2011-01-03. Retrieved 2010-11-08.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  10. Editor's Letter, Gamepro Issue #267 (erroneously labeled 277 on the cover) October 2011
  11. "Gamepro is Closed".[ dead link ]
  12. 1 2 "Cart Queries". GamePro. No. 78. IDG. January 1996. p. 17. ... back then the Control category was called Gameplay ...
  13. "The Magazine Biz". GamePro. No. 100. IDG. January 1997. p. 24.
  14. "Role-Players Realm", GamePro, issue 110 (January 1997), page 144
  15. GamePro Staff (November 5, 2008). "The 26 Best RPGs of the All Time". GamePro. Archived from the original on 2011-02-15. Retrieved February 14, 2011.
  16. Matulef, Jeffrey (June 27, 2016). "The truth about Doom's "ProTip" meme". Eurogamer . Archived from the original on June 28, 2016. Retrieved June 27, 2016.
  17. 1 2 Asher, Mark (March 10, 1999). "Imagine Shuts Down PC Games". CNET Gamecenter . Archived from the original on August 17, 2000. Retrieved August 8, 2018.
  18. 1 2 Gifford, Kevin (January 31, 2010). "COLUMN: 'Game Mag Weaseling': PC Game Mag Obscurity". GameSetWatch . Archived from the original on February 6, 2010.
  19. Brown, Janelle (November 20, 1997). "IDG Prepares Gaming Info Network". Wired . Archived from the original on April 13, 2018.
  20. Fost, Dan (May 20, 1999). "Gaming Magazines Dig In for Showdown in S.F." San Francisco Chronicle . Archived from the original on January 5, 2015.
  21. 1 2 3 Staff (March 8, 1999). "Gain a Portal, Lose a Magazine". GameDaily . Archived from the original on May 25, 2001. Retrieved August 8, 2018.

GamePro Media international websites