GamePro magazine, May 2010 issue |
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| Vice President, Content | Julian Rignall |
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| Categories | Video game journalism |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| First issue | Magazine: April 1989; Website: 1998 |
| Final issue | Magazine: Winter 2011; Website: 2011 |
| Company | IDG |
| Country | United States, Canada |
| Based in | San Francisco, California |
| Language | English |
| Website | GamePro.com |
| ISSN | 1042-8658 |
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console (e.g., PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii), a computer, and/or a mobile device (e.g., PSP-PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, iPhone). GamePro Media properties included GamePro magazine and GamePro.com. The company still exists as a subsidiary of the privately held International Data Group (IDG), a technology media, events, and research company.
First published in 1989, GamePro magazine provides feature articles, news, previews, and reviews on video games, video-game hardware, and the gaming industry. The magazine is published monthly from its headquarters in San Francisco, California. The February 2010 issue introduced a redesigned layout and new editorial direction focused on the people and culture of gaming.[1]
GamePro.com was launched in 1998. Updated daily, the website’s content includes feature articles, news, previews, reviews, screenshots, and videos on video games, video-game hardware, and the gaming industry. GamePro.com also includes user forums, reviews, and blogs. In January 2010 the website was redesigned and the editorial direction shifted toward the inclusion of more stories regarding the people and culture of gaming.[1] GamePro.com is published from its headquarters in San Francisco, California. GamePro.com is also published internationally in countries such as Germany (GamePro.com.de) and France (GamePro.com.fr).
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GamePro magazine was first established in Redwood City, California in 1988 by Patrick Ferrell, his sister-in-law Leeanne McDermott, and the husband-wife design team of Michael and Lynne Kavish. 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 acquin team comprising IDG Peterborough President Roger Murphy and two other IDG 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 magazine worldwide.[2]
Over the years, the GamePro offices have moved from San Mateo to San Francisco and Oakland before arriving at their current location in downtown San Francisco. In 1993, the company was renamed from GamePro Inc. to Infotainment World in refection of its growing and diverse product lines.
The magazine was known for its editors using comic book-like avatars and monikers when reviewing games. As of January 2004, however, GamePro has ceased to use the avatars due to a change in the overall design and layout of the magazine. Meanwhile, editorial voices carry over to the newly redesigned and highly active community on its online sister publication, GamePro.com.
GamePro was also known for its ProTips, small pieces of gameplay advice used as screenshot captions. It also has a section known as Code Vault (formerly S.W.A.T.Pro), where secret codes are posted. These particular features have since gone the way of the personas, and slowly disappeared. Though, Codevault exists in print format, sold as a quarterly cheats and strategy magazine on newsstands only.
Despite the demise of the term in GamePro itself, the term "ProTip" has been resurrected as a pop culture meme used to expressing obvious advice with extreme sarcasm, as in, "Protip: Don't call the cops to report your weed stolen."[3]
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 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 has appeared in several international editions, including Germany, Turkey, Australia, Brazil, and Greece. Some of these publications share the U.S. content, while others share only the name and logo and generate original material.
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.
August 2006, the GamePro online team spins off a new cheats site, GamerHelp.com. Shortly followed by a video game information aggregation site, Games.net and a dedicated gaming downloads site GameDownloads.com.
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.
Under the new leadership of George Jones, GamePro magazine undergoes a massive overhaul in the March 2007 issue. While losing some of the more dated elements of the magazine, the new arrangement focuses on five main insertions: HD game images, more reviews and previews per issue, GamePro.com community showcase, user contributions and insider news.
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, content. "GamePro presents a tremendous opportunity," said Davison. "We have the chance to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this significant marque with some exciting editorial changes, and to reshape it as a thoroughly modern integrated media brand." [4]
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. "GamePro is very much about the people and culture of gaming, rather than just the products," said Davison, executive vice president of content at GamePro Media. "With the redesign of both the print and online versions, we've placed strong emphasis on telling stories about games and the people associated with them; not just game creators, but also fans and people inspired by games." 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." [4] 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.[5] 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. Rignall brings 25 years of publishing experience to the group.[6]
The monthly run of GamePro ended after over 22 years, with the October 2011 issue. After that issue, the magazine changed to GamePro Quarterly, which was a thicker quarterly publication using higher quality paper stock as well as being larger than a standard magazine. GamePro Quarterly hit newsstands in the first half of November 2011[7]. The quarterly endeavor only lasted one issue. On November 30th, it was announced that GamePro as a magazine and a website would be shutting down on December 5, 2011. GamePro would become part of the PC World website as a section of their site about video games run by the PC World staff.[8]
Reviewed games are rated on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 stars with fractions of 0.50. Five graphical stars are shown alongside the written review. The number of stars a game has earned is indicated by the number of solid stars (e.g., a game's four-star rating is represented by showing four solid stars and one hollow star). No game has ever received less than one star. An Editors' Choice Award is given to a game that earns either 4.5 or 5.0 stars.
In the past, reviewed games were rated in four categories: Graphics, Sound, Control, and Fun Factor. The ratings were initially on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0, 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. Until about 2000, each score was accentuated with a face (The GamePro Dude) depicting different expressions for different ratings. This cartoon gamer's head wore an exaggerated expression based on the number of stars a game received. Some games that received five-star ratings subsequently featured the graphical stars with the cartoon head on their retail boxes.
Every April as an April Fools' Day prank, GamePro prints a 2-5 page satirical spoof of their magazine named LamePro, whose title is a play on GamePro's title. The spoof contains humorous prank game titles and fake news, similar to The Onion. It seems that no one is safe from the LamePro satirical arm, even themselves. Many other game magazines have been the butt of the joke of LamePro.
LamePro, however, is not without its own controversy. While some game magazines have taken LamePro as a chance to laugh at themselves and each other, others have been very offended at the types of jokes that it prints. In 2000, a spoof ad in the satire made reference to a then newer (and short-lived) game magazine called "Incite: Videogames". At an industry charity auction, Incite bid and won on advertising space within GamePro; in the spirit of charity, GamePro agreed to advertise its own competition, even though it could be considered vaguely tasteless (a mailman delivering a copy of Incite to a female's door, with the legend "It must be that time of the month"). However, in the next LamePro, a fake ad for a magazine named "In spite" was used as bird-cage lining, with the white-background ad saying "You get what you pay for," making reference to the first Incite issue costing 99 cents on newsstands. The following month, Incite responded in their Letters To The Editor section, spouting off in their subwords "Get it, GamePROSE," and many supposed fans of their magazine defending them against the spoof ad. During the remainder of the magazine's 10-month lifespan, Incite ran the "GamePROSE" quote in every issue.
In 2005, another spoof advertisement had a similar effect, and also had an even greater controversy. The spoof was on account of gaming supersite IGN. Once again, on a white background, the ad showed a phony game site screenshot, with a logo similar to IGN's, spelling out "GNO.com" and the phrase "You can't spell ignorance without GNO." This sparked a letter to one of IGN's staff members who does a weekly feedback column on the site, and, in answering to one's e-mail concerning the spoof, mentioned humorlessly that GamePro wasn't mature at all for taking such a shot at IGN.
However, that was not the biggest concern in the 2005 edition. Just a few weeks after the issue hit newsstands, word came out that there was an actual site on the internet that had the address GNO.com. The site was actually an internet publishing site, and GamePro a few months later ran an apology in their letters section, saying that they had no prior knowledge about the site existing before the issue had been released. It is apparent that the two sides had made peace, as no civil suits of any kind were filed (it is unclear if such was even being planned).
LamePro has been dropped altogether as of the April 2007 issue during the magazine redesign.
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