Gamepro is Dead.

I checked out a few issues of Gamepro after they got John Davison on board and overhauled the magazine. They were interesting, and the graphic design in particular was quite good for a games magazine, but GamePro ultimately felt like a poor man's Edge.
 
When I used to read tons of gaming mags (like 2005-2009) I always thought gamepro was one of the worst, paper-thin issues with really boring features and super bland reviews. Too bad though, now who will tell us how much Fun Factor a game contains?
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']Protip: GamePro has sucked for years and we're all better off with it's death.[/QUOTE]

No argument there... I used to love all these gaming magazines during the early/late 90s so it's kinda sad to see them fall one by one.

So what's left now? Game Informer, OPM and OXM?
 
[quote name='blueshinra']I checked out a few issues of Gamepro after they got John Davison on board and overhauled the magazine. They were interesting, and the graphic design in particular was quite good for a games magazine, but GamePro ultimately felt like a poor man's Edge.[/QUOTE]

I thought them picking up Davison was a good move because they certainly got better (though that shouldn't have been too hard). It's a shame they couldn't find their footing. Frankly, I'm surprised they survived at all prior to their overhaul.
 
[quote name='Jesus_S_Preston']When I used to read tons of gaming mags (like 2005-2009) I always thought gamepro was one of the worst, paper-thin issues with really boring features and super bland reviews. Too bad though, now who will tell us how much Fun Factor a game contains?[/QUOTE]


i agree i gamepro was never that great especially back in the 90s when egm was just dominating the magazine world not to mention their little code section was always laughable. sushi-x where are you !!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
[quote name='Twilight Sparkle']I thought them picking up Davison was a good move because they certainly got better (though that shouldn't have been too hard). It's a shame they couldn't find their footing. Frankly, I'm surprised they survived at all prior to their overhaul.[/QUOTE]
I had never really read pre-Davison GamePro, but from everything I had heard about it, I can see that. It's just that I had an Edge subscription before that, and was used to their high standards.

I think the audience they were going for were the types of gamers who already read Edge (or on the web, Gamasutra/Eurogamer/Edge).
 
I always saw Gamepro as targeting a younger audience, and thus never really followed it. I agree this was inevitable. Print media is really struggling to stay float in this new digital age. It was either evolve or fold, but still, it's sad to hear about job losses during the holidays.
 
[quote name='gunm']I always saw Gamepro as targeting a younger audience, and thus never really followed it. I agree this was inevitable. Print media is really struggling to stay float in this new digital age. It was either evolve or fold, but still, it's sad to hear about job losses during the holidays.[/QUOTE]


print is dead but many of these magazines could easily survive if they went digital especially with how popular things like the kindle and ipad are. i know a number of people would prefer a physical copy but id rather have the magazine continue than to lose it forever.
 
[quote name='lokizz']print is dead but many of these magazines could easily survive if they went digital especially with how popular things like the kindle and ipad are. i know a number of people would prefer a physical copy but id rather have the magazine continue than to lose it forever.[/QUOTE]


Digital magazines are still a new area. I'm not really sure how successful they are right at this moment (I'm guessing they are currently a money sink), but I agree that it is the direction everything is going. There's still obstacles to overcome before a magazine can actually "survive" on digital alone, but it's the future.
 
I remember when they were nothing more than tip books, and literally books. Kind of crazy they lasted this long because we're talking late 80's.
 
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I remember the awesome rating system. Games weren't good unless the guy's head was exploding.
 
[quote name='TheBigAndy']I had a gamepro subscription in the mid 90's. I liked it then, but never renewed, and I don't remember why.[/QUOTE]

I found Gamefaqs.
 
Ah good ole GamePro....I still remember when I liked that magazine, and then slowly grew to dislike it the further along the 90s went. The last straw for me was when Scary Larry came down hard on Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete but couldn't even get his facts straight by calling Nall a 'she'. It was at that point that I lost all respect for them since the original Lunar: The Silver Star on the SegaCD was my first ever console JRPG that I really got into, and when they can't even do something as simple as skim through the manual to find out that Nall was indeed a guy, not a girl (that was Ruby in the sequel), then I knew that they didn't put enough effort into their reviews giving me no reason to trust any of them anymore.

"ProTip: Press the A button to jump" NO WAY GAMEPRO!!!! I WOULD'VE NEVER FIGURED THAT OUT! THANKS A MILLION!!!

Sorry, needed to vent.
 
Gamepro was always the poor man's EGM. Funny how Davidson went from EGM, which fell apart a couple years ago, to Gamepro. It was too late for him to salvage the brand - which it should've been, a brand, because print w/o digital is worthless nowadays. Game Informer is really pushing digital now.

Gamepro and EGM up to the mid-90s were huge magazines in size. They were 200+ pages, tons of ads and content. It's strange how rapidly things changed - people only started complaining about the ads once the content dwindled, and the mags said it was too expensive to publish more content. Gamepro targeted the younger demographic while EGM started targeting the late teens-twenties demo around the late 90s. Still, Gamepro had some interesting sections, like Buyer Beware. You couldn't find that anywhere else. If Gamepro had better direction, someone who knew that the mag had to accept the social tech revolution and an older demo, then perhaps it would still be here.
 
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I remember the awesome rating system. Games weren't good unless the guy's head was exploding.[/QUOTE]
It always reminded me of the candy warheads lol. I swear they must've had some cross promotion going because it got me every time.
 
[quote name='Vinny']No argument there... I used to love all these gaming magazines during the early/late 90s so it's kinda sad to see them fall one by one.

So what's left now? Game Informer, OPM and OXM?[/QUOTE]
Don't forget about @Gamer at BB.;)

But I wouldn't count either GI or @Gamer as an unbiased source of gaming news. The @Gamer mag is only good for the gaming coupons and Game Informer is only really good for use as toilet paper if ya run out.;)

Speaking of which, they shorted me 3-6 issues of my GI sub(stopped showing up over the summer sometime), yet my PUR card is good till Feb of 2012. I gotta call their asses n get this straightened out, just in case I run outta Charmin again.:D
 
I loved the rating system with the guy's explosive head. lol

Ah well no surprise they died out, all but the top dogs of the gaming magazines are gone. I know I don't care about gaming mags anymore all the information you could ever want is online. But I do have fond memories reading them as a kid.
 
[quote name='Solid Scarecrow']I remember reading Gamepro first when they had fatalities for Primal Rage when it was in the arcade, still have the mag[/QUOTE]
I think I still have the issue of Tips & Tricks that detailed the moves for the 'hot upcoming fighter' known as Thrill Kill. That was in 1998 or so.:cry:

I also have a few 'compilation' magazines that included tons of cheats for tons of games, including one from 2002-2003 that had a map to show you where all 100 packages were in Vice City.:)
 
I never saw that as a head exploding. I saw it as a guy with spiky hair who was cracked out or something because the game was awesome.

Gamepro helped me complete Doom with this protip:

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[quote name='scorch']i never saw that as a head exploding. I saw it as a guy with spiky hair who was cracked out or something because the game was awesome.

Gamepro helped me complete doom with this protip:

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lmao
 
I have always been impressed with how early Game Informer gets it's info. Even with the internet they still manage to get exclusives. They got it figured out more than most over there.
 
[quote name='Calinks']I have always been impressed with how early Game Informer gets it's info. Even with the internet they still manage to get exclusives. They got it figured out more than most over there.[/QUOTE]
That's cuz they have Gamestop's billions of dollars in profits behind them, so they probably grease more than a few palms to get that info before everyone else.:roll:
 
They were interesting, and the graphic design in particular was quite good for a games magazine, but GamePro ultimately felt like a poor man's Edge.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']That's cuz they have Gamestop's billions of dollars in profits behind them, so they probably grease more than a few palms to get that info before everyone else.:roll:[/QUOTE]

How do you think most journalism outlets get exclusive info? Be it money or favors, someone is getting something for that info. It's not some guy in a hat and trenchcoat and a press pass.
 
[quote name='bigdaddybruce44']How do you think most journalism outlets get exclusive info? Be it money or favors, someone is getting something for that info. It's not some guy in a hat and trenchcoat and a press pass.[/QUOTE]


Though, that would be awesome...
 
[quote name='bigdaddybruce44']How do you think most journalism outlets get exclusive info? Be it money or favors, someone is getting something for that info. It's not some guy in a hat and trenchcoat and a press pass.[/QUOTE]
You mean Nintendo Power LIED about how they got top secret info? My childhood, ruined.
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I was walking out of a Toys R Us with my younger brother, grandma, and mom in 1989. On the way out an employee was handing out magazines for free. We took two copies of it. It was the first issue of Gamepro, which had a generic football/barbarian/soldier collage and simply said "NINTENDO - SEGA - ATARI" on it. I stuck with Gamepro for its first three years or so, still have all of them somewhere.

No, I don't know why I remember how I got the first issue of Gamepro, but I do.

Anyway, people shit on it now and probably deservedly so, but when it came out, to a kid it was pretty fucking awesome. At that point, Nintendo Power was all most kids knew - Video Games & Computer Entertainment was aimed at a slightly older (and PC oriented) audience, and everything else (ie Game Player's Strategy Guide) was cheap-looking, error-filled garbage.

Nintendo Power wouldn't even acknowledge Super Mario 3's existence, and Gamepro had a fairly detailed 3 page spread on it (the Japanese version obviously) in their very first issue. That was enough to win me over right out of the gate - I didn't even know it existed until that point.

EGM showed up not too long after Gamepro started, and around the 1-year mark of EGM I discovered that and slowly moved from buying both to only buying EGM, but those first few years of Gamepro were not bad at all.
 
GamePro was my video game magazine of choice in the early 90s, when I was in middle school.

Anyone nostalgic can check out scans of old GamePros (and other game mags) at retromags.com.
 
I guess that is what happens when you pump out a bunch of reviews with super high scores on poor games. I know even two years ago people were calling them corrupt for writing horrible reviews on games, yet putting an overall score of 4.5/5.0 at the end for some magical reason. Apparently gamers got fed up with it...recently, the only use a lot of people had for Gamepro was their news stories, which were typically not very exclusive or special.

A longtime publication though that I am sure will be missed. Its too bad they couldn't stay legitimate and well loved throughout the years, they were pioneers.
 
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