The History of Games Journalism and Game Informer

WACO, Texas (KWTX) -

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On August 5th, 2024, Game Informers parent company GameStop abruptly closed the publication, shuttering its website and laying off its entire staff.

After 33 years of games media excellence, one of the pillars of the industry, has fallen. You may be asking, “hey Andrew, who cares? Why does this matter?” Because since the 70′s we’ve seen a massive jump not only in the popularity of games themselves but in the media surrounding them.

As with any industry this big there are bound to be issues specific to it, issues that need to be investigated, addressed and most importantly publicized. Much like Chris Pratt’s Star Lord, games journalists have been both the vanguard and the guardians of the industry.

Now to be clear I think there is a distinction between games writing and what can really be classified as games journalism. Games journalism spends less time just talking about and analyzing games, instead choosing to focus on the people and organizations behind them. Because despite the vivid stories, realistic graphics and goofy concepts, the industry of making games is full of complicated and sometime dark stories.

Which is why we need reporters out there, covering everything from endless cycles of crunch time, to the messy business of mergers and layoffs. Reporters like Jason Schrier and Wesley LeBlanc are the lifeblood of this medium, a lifeblood that may dry out if we aren’t careful. So, while many kids are heading back to school, I want to teach you some history you won’t find in a classroom, I’m Andrew Hamilton from Hardwired and this is a brief history of Video Game Journalism.

A brief history of Game Journalism:

The early days of games media begins in THE neon, clad pixelated era of the 80′s. Where consumer-facing magazines began to pop up amid the rise in home entertainment and arcades. This early era can be split into two writing types, journalistic industry news found in business for big tech bois (not a real magazine) and the more enthusiast oriented colorful magazines. In November of 1981 a British publisher called EMAP launched Computer and Video Games Magazine, which judging by its super fun and creative name was a blast to read. Following suit just two weeks later in 1981, journalists Bill Kunkel and Arnie Kats launched Electronic Games. This would be our first magazine completely dedicated to the gamer life. While traditional press scoffed at the nerds and their games for babies, the games media industry was seeing a drastic rise both in circulation and competition. These magazines were for sure more entertainment focused, featuring information of upcoming or recent games and what appeared to be screenshots of games. Fun fact the screenshots on these pages aren’t pictures, they’re drawings. The more games released the more the public interest grew, resulting in a meteoric rise in new publications using gamers who aspired to be journalists to write for them. This lets the people participating in the culture speak right to the 1UP of the readers. Unfortunately, all the enthusiasm in the world couldn’t save the game industry from an oversaturated market, which eventually led to the video game crash of 1983. Many magazines shut their doors between 1984 and 1985. But even the crash would be short lived, thanks to the power of the NES. Nintendo’s explosive home console had almost single-handedly revived interest in gaming allowing publications to ride that blast into the early 90′s.

The 90′s

Only 90′s kids will remember the weirdness that was video games in the media. Because now this once niche hobby was everywhere. Commercials, theatres and even DUN DUN DUN politics. This is where publications began to cross more into the modern games journalism we know. Politicians spent weeks on the capitol hill decrying the evils of video games, leading to the establishment of the ESRB rating system. Unfortunately for those elected representatives this would backfire, creating a surge of interest in every sector of gaming. This frenzy led more publishers to embrace a gaming beat and most notably for our purposes, led Funcoland to launch their Game Informer newsletter that would change the games journalism space forever. Helping to skyrocket them into mass circulation was the heavily marketed nature of their publication appearing in all Funcoland stores. Game Informer’s subscription service meant it was free to do what it pleased with the contents of the magazine. In the late 90′s game journalism made a leap, to the digital space of the internet. Spawning places like IGN in 1997 to offer a more wide-ranging one-stop shop kind of media coverage available in more forms. The 2000′s saw Game Informer take on more clout and they firmly established their position at the top in 2002 when they began to use each issue to deep dive into a newly revealed game. Like a nitrous boost to the magazine, this one move would create the arms race to get exclusive reveals that still exist today. But eventually they would need to fully embrace the chronic onlineness. This was their biggest hurdle and one they needed to handle quickly. As video essays, blogs, podcasts and shows populated the web it became clear; any print publication that didn’t adapt would go on to die.

Game Informer, a history of excellence, now a lost library of knowledge:

As I said at the beginning of this video, after 33 years of being a gold-standard in video games GameStop has killed the industry titan. And for what? Well, it wasn’t because they failed to adapt to the digital age as embraced a digital side and began to offer videos, digital editions and maintain a fantastic website. Their team was able to bring their direct-to-consumer model out while still covering the dark sides of the industry mergers and acquisitions, layoffs, deplorable working conditions, crunch and the reality behind multimillion dollar games. This important human element allowed the spotlight to shine on the more difficult to look at parts of gaming. It wasn’t because they had lost their clout, having recently featured big hitters like Dragon Age Veilguard and Final Fantasy on their covers. No, I suspect the reason comes from a verifiably consistent string of poor choices from everyone’s favorite memestock GameStop. But I wanted to know more about what happened, so I sat down Zoom style with Brian Shea, former digital content manager and lead at Game Informer to discuss the abrupt closure, the legacy of the historic magazine and why this is a sign we need games journalism now more than ever.

Video games are an ever-changing format and so is the world of journalism. Where content creators become parasocial relationships we attach too much of ourselves to, an independent games media brings us the truth, no matter how hard it is to face. Without reporting on the culture of places like Riot Games, the industry would be a more toxic, less vibrant place. Without constant scrutiny, corporations could get away with whatever nonsense they wanted but journalists put that in the public eye. Is every game journalist a master of the controller? No. But they sure do care about every person who picks one up. Game informer is the latest attempt to erase games media, costing us massive amounts of knowledge and most importantly eyes on the industry. I understand that it can be hard to see the difference between those who do games writing and those who do games journalism but trust me when I say we need both. Support your favorites game news site, publication and people. Locally and globally, we need every one of them. You can start by checking out All Things Nintendo, Brian Shea’s Nintendo themed podcast and by continuing to support work like ours. Because the only way to beat cold corporations is with unified consumers. For Hardwired, I’m Andrew Hamilton

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