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Nintendo Power is a monthly magazine devoted to Nintendo consoles and games on Nintendo platforms. It is the longest-running US console game magazine still in existence, and at its peak in 1993 it was the largest kids' magazine in North America. Its hold on the Nintendo-owning gamer populace (and, for much of its existence, video gamers in general) is such that no other US publisher has successfully launched any directly competing magazine against it. History Nintendo's first in-house publication, the Nintendo Fun Club News, launched in early 1987 as a free 12-page black-and-white newsletter. It quickly grew into a full-color magazine with a subscriber base of over one million as NES mania swept the US in late 1987. With over half a dozen magazines covering video games in Japan by 1988, Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa decided early that year to get a leg up on its rivals and launch a full-sized magazine before any rival publisher could. Two decisions Arakawa made at this point had a huge influence on the magazine -- he decided to not accept any outside advertising, and he invested $10 million to mail Issue 1 of the new magazine to the millions of gamers on Nintendo's Fun Club mailing list for free. (Sources disagree on how large this list was by summer 1988, but the number lies between 3.5 and 5 million addresses.) Approximately 1.5 million readers sent $15 for a charter subscription, and Nintendo Power was instantly the biggest games mag in America. Structure Nintendo Power is unique for more than breaking circulation records -- its international design scheme has also never been duplicated. Although Nintendo seeked to monopolize the game-mag marketplace in America, it teamed up with an outside Japanese publisher to come up with its mag's design. Tokuma Shoten, one of Japan's largest publishers, was the outfit behind Family Computer Magazine, Japan's first console-specific magazine and the largest in the country throughout the 1980s. Nintendo of America hired some of Tokuma's game editors to contribute to the visual design of Nintendo Power, and the result was a very Japan-like magazine, with lots of spot illustrations, colorful backdrops, and bits of text dotted everywhere, making each page worth poring over for gamers. This publishing agreement also granted Nintendo access to Tokuma's extensive stable of writers and artists, allowing them to enlist Shotaro Ishinomori (one of Japan's most famous and influential manga artists) to draw a Legend of Zelda comic for several issues in 1993. (This agreement with Tokuma continued until 1995, when Nintendo of America brought all magazine production in-house.) In the early years, editorial coverage was decided upon by editor-in-chief Gail Tilden (a former NOA advertising manager) and Howard Phillips, contributing editor and "president" of Nintendo's Fun Club. The actual text was written by an in-house staff, most of which were plucked from NOA's stable of telephone support and game counselors. All coverage received final approval from Arakawa and vice-presidents Peter Main and Howard Lincoln. Effect The magazine was an immediate success, breaking 2 million readers in 1989 and having a total audience of over 6 million by the end of 1990. As David Sheff wrote in his 1993 book Game Over, "there was something bordering on the insidious" about the magazine -- its editorial voice was a perfect match for the young gamer populace of the time, and Nintendo's unique control over the magazine made it an incredibly effective advertising tool, both for Nintendo themselves and for its assorted third parties. Even as competition from other consoles encroached on Nintendo's business, Nintendo Power's status as the de-facto source of Nintendo information remained (and still remains) unchecked. Its circulation was still over a million before the launch of the Nintendo 64 in 1996, but readership has dropped extensively in recent years as its audience aged and its "kid-friendly" image came to backfire on them. The editorial team addressed this in 2005 with an extensive redesign that eliminated the last vestiges of the Tokuma-era design and turned Nintendo Power into a truly modern-looking game magazine. Circulation Numbers are taken from the United States Postal Services's Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (PS Form 3526) unless otherwise noted. Figures are for Total Distribution with paid subscriptions in brackets. Click on the links to see the full Statement of Ownership table. 2005: 435,000[a] 2009: 184,662 (156,904) 2010: 158,057 (133,009) 2011: 124,014 (100,881) [a]: Guaranteed subscription rate base at the end of 2005 according to Nintendo Power.

Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (usually abbreviated to OPM) is a monthly magazine devoted to entirely to Sony game platforms, including the PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PSP systems. Reflecting the magazine's mature and hardcore readership, the magazine also features coverage on new technology and classic nerd pursuits, including anime. On November 14, 2006, Ziff Davis announced that the U.S. OPM would close with its January 2007 issue. History Despite its position in the marketplace, Sony's PlayStation did not have an official magazine in the U.S. until two years after it debuted in the region. In its place, there were two unofficial magazines covering the PS exclusively: Sendai's P.S.X., and Dimension Publishing's PSExtreme (originally titled Dimension P.S.X.). Over in the UK, meanwhile, Future Publishing signed an agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in 1995 to publish the Official PlayStation Magazine across the European continent, beginning with the UK edition in November 1995. This magazine included a Sony-sanctioned demo disc from the very first issue, and the UK edition was the highest-selling magazine in the country for nearly half a decade, only being supplanted by its successor, the Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine. (The PS1-oriented OPM continued independently of the PS2 mag in the UK, running for over eight years until its final issue in March 2004.) In 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America saw Future's success with OPM in the UK and decided to sanction a similar magazine for the US marketplace. Curiously, Future's US division (still called Imagine Publishing at the time) was not awarded the rights to publish the magazine; instead, the honor went to Ziff Davis Media, which had made P.S.X. a monthly magazine in 1997. (Imagine launched its own unofficial PlayStation magazine PSM a month before OPM debuted in the US.) The Disc OPM's main sell is the disc included with each issue, which includes game demos, preview movies, and other bits of game coverage. This disc was made for the PlayStation 1 at first; the first PlayStation 2 demo disc debuted with issue 49 in October 2001. The magazine then alternated between PS1 and PS2 discs for the next half-year; issue 54 (March 2002) was the last one with a PS1 disc included. Since OPM's newsstand sales traditionally live and die by the content of this disc, OPM's editors have more leeway on the cover design and internals of their magazine, giving it a sleek, avant-garde design unique among Ziff publications. Despite the disc, however, OPM's circulation has always lagged behind the lower-price PSM. OPM's average paid circulation for the period between January-June 2006 was 252,267.

Tips & Tricks was a monthly video game magazine devoted to the subjects of video game cheat codes, strategy guides and lifestyle content. Unlike most video game magazines, it did not include critical reviews of video games and was not a primary source of video game industry news. Instead, it focused on gameplay instructions and hidden "Easter eggs" relating to games that its readers might have already purchased. Editorial content Often referring to itself as "The #1 Video-Game Tips Magazine," Tips & Tricks was known for its strategy guides or walkthroughs for contemporary console and portable games. Each issue also included an index of button codes and passwords, alphabetized by game title and sorted by console. The magazine was also noteworthy for its "lifestyle" content, in which a particular aspect of video game culture would be discussed at length by a regular columnist. Some of these were devoted to a specific game or game series (e.g. Armored Core, Pokémon, Halo, Animal Crossing), while others spotlighted video game-related action figures, comics, music and movies. Lineage Tips & Tricks (later Tips & Tricks Codebook) was a video game magazine published by Larry Flynt Publications (LFP). For most of its existence, the publication was devoted almost exclusively to strategies and codes for popular video games. It began as a spin-off from VideoGames magazine, which in itself morphed out of VideoGames & Computer Entertainment. VG&CE and VideoGames, like Tips & Tricks, were published by LFP following the purchase of A.N.A.L.O.G., ST-LOG and other computer magazines from publishers Michael DesChenes & Lee Pappas in the late 1980s. Tips & Tricks originated as a spinoff from the monthly "Tips & Tricks" section in VideoGames & Computer Entertainment magazine. Because VideoGames & Computer Entertainment itself grew out of the monthly "Video Game Digest" column in A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing magazine, Tips & Tricks was technically the longest-running publication in a succession of related magazines that originated with the first issue of A.N.A.L.O.G. in January 1981 - nine months before the publication of Electronic Games and Computer & Video Games, which are generally considered to be the world's first video-game magazines. When the final issue of Tips & Tricks Codebook appeared on newsstands in February 2011, it marked the end of a series of print magazines that had covered the video-game industry for 30 consecutive years. Tips & Tricks' Editor-In-Chief, Chris Bieniek, was featured in a July 2014 interview, detailing the history of the publication.

P.S.X. (short for PlayStation Experience) was an unofficial magazine covering PlayStation games and accessories. It is one of the first PlayStation mags in the U.S. (along with PSExtreme), and it was Ziff Davis's only PS publication until they acquired the rights to run Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine in 1997. History It began life as a one-off special published by Sendai in the late summer of 1995. After the PlayStation's successful Christmas season, Sendai ramped the publication up to a bimonthly schedule, putting it in the same category as Mega Play and Super NES Buyer's Guide. Todd Mowatt was editor-in-chief of both this magazine and Cyber Sports, working on the two titles in alternating months. Unlike those two publications (which were mostly filled with recycled content), P.S.X. featured a more modern design style and a somewhat more mature level of writing. Reviews were similar in style to Computer Game Review, with every game getting a page, a long spout of review text, and three scores out of 100 by three different editors. When Ziff Davis bought Sendai in 1996, the publisher decided to make P.S.X. a monthly, and by mid-1997 the magazine was already more robust and popular than PSExtreme. Ziff closed the magazine a month before launching Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine in October 1997; its final issue coincides with PSM's first.

Electronic Gaming Monthly (usually abbreviated to EGM) is a monthly magazine devoted to console games, with occasional coverage given to cell-phone games. It is the oldest (independent) American console game mag currently in operation, and is largely considered to be the most prestigious. Licensed editions of EGM are currently published in Mexico (EGM en Español), Brazil, Singapore, Thailand, and Turkey. History Steve Harris, founder of EGM, was a high-school dropout and classic-era video game enthusiast who was a member of the original U.S. National Video Game Team, a group of "professional" gamers started by the Twin Galaxies arcade that toured the country and held game demonstrations. Beginning in 1984, he was responsible for keeping Twin Galaxies' national arcade-game high score board, a job that eventually grew to directing Video Game Team projects and setting up arcade tournaments. He also self-published his own fanzine, the Top Score Newsletter, irregularly starting in 1986. In 1987, Harris partnered with his friend Jeffrey Peters to hold the 1987 Video Game Masters Tournament, a Video Game Team-sponsored national arcade game championship. He used the proceeds from that tournament later that year to start Electronic Game Player, a "precursor" to EGM that closed after four issues due to a lack of interest from national distributors. The next year, just after the last issue of EGP in late 1988, Harris received a call from Harvey Wasserman, a small magazine distributor in Chicago, who saw the potential for a game magazine and agreed to give Harris $70,000 to start a new magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, in exchange for exclusive distribution rights. The new magazine debuted with a one-shot buyer's guide in early 1989. This issue was successful, selling 107,000 copies (60,000 of which were sold in a deal with Kay-Bee toy stores) and leading to the launch of a regular magazine. The periodical EGM (which "officially" debuted with the May 1989 issue) became profitable by the end of the year, and Wasserman used that to leverage a deal with Time Warner's magazine distributor, bringing it to 50,000 supermarkets and drug stores nationwide. EGM was the magazine of choice for many hardcore gamers in the early 90s, thanks to several innovations (most of which were borrowed from Japanese game magazines). With their "Review Crew" section (which debuted in issue 2), they were the first US magazine to offer multiple reviews and scores for each game they covered. Young gamers of the time also liked EGM's writing style, as well as characters like Quartermann (who ran the rumor column) and Sushi-X (the mysterious game freak who was the "voice of the hardcore" in the Review Crew). By 1993, EGM had grown in audited circulation from 64,000 to 152,000. Sendai aggressively expanded as EGM grew, launching new titles like Mega Play, Super NES Buyer's Guide, Computer Game Review, and Super Gaming. Harris sold most of Sendai's magazines and websites to Ziff Davis Media in 1996, and after a large-scale redesign to make it look more professional, EGM became the flagship publication of ZD's new game-magazine section. After a lengthy circulation battle with rival GamePro, EGM broke 500,000 circulation in 2002 and briefly broke 600,000 after a massive redesign in 2002 that emphasized short features and larger screenshots. Although Game Informer has it soundly beaten in circulation, EGM is still among the most respected magazines in video games, and it still attracts the most advertisers of any magazine. Circulation Numbers are taken from the United States Postal Services's Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (PS Form 3526), unless otherwise noted. Figures otherwise noted are from either the Audit Bureau of Circulation or BPA International (now BPA Worldwide). Figures are for Total Distribution with paid subscriptions in brackets. Click on the links to see the full Statement of Ownership table. 1993: 253,442 (62,371) 1996: 264,096 (119,411) 1997: 355,922 (193,449) 1998: 376,013 (200,296) 1999: 417,343 (235,391) 2000: 416,443 (246,569) 2001: 456,634 (307,585) 2002: 541,460 (309,235) 2003: 536,012 (395,330) 2004: 588,088 (402,521) 2005: 608,133[a] 2006: 613,640 (488,411) 2007: 631,524 (538,631) 2008: 602,765 (529,404) [a]: Circulation for 6 months ended June 30, 2005 (BPA)

GameFan (originally Diehard GameFan) was a magazine devoted to console games, with an emphasis on RPGs, Japanese imports, and the "hardcore" side of video-game fandom. Its boundless enthusiasm and then-extraordinary design made it one of the most famous (and infamous) magazines of the 1990s. History GameFan has its beginnings in the Diehard Gamers Club, a video-game store founded by Dave Halverson in 1990 and based in the Los Angeles suburb of Tarzana, CA. DieHard was one of the first "game import" shops that specialized in Japanese releases, and it made a name for itself with its flashy advertising in magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly throughout 1991 and 1992, often publishing screenshots of games that the magazines themselves never mentioned. DieHard published a handful of small catalogs and other promotional material in 1991 and 1992 that were circulated throughout its stores. In mid-1992, however, Halverson decided to expand these efforts into a monthly magazine, largely due to a falling-out between his stores and EGM. The first issue was completed in October 1992 and was mainly distributed to DieHard customers; the title was picked up for national distribution with the next issue in December. The original GameFan team was mainly picked from the staff at the Tarzana DieHard store and several other game shops in the Los Angeles area. It included Halverson, editors Greg Off, Tim Lindquist, and Andrew Cockburn, layout artist George Weising, and import-coverage writer Kei Kuboki. Terry Wolfinger, an artist and effects creator who had done work for Heavy Metal magazine, was brought on to draw the magazine's covers and internal illustrations after Weising met him at another game store. The magazine quickly made a name for itself with its unique visual style and writing. Although far from professional-looking, GameFan's layouts bursted with lavish screenshots (easily the clearest of any US magazine of the time) and review text written by hardcore gamers, for hardcore gamers. For game freaks in the 90s, each issue was like an invitation to a secret club where everyone understood your obsession and nobody thought you were strange. While this formula seems impossibly alien now, it served a valuable purpose during its heyday. GameFan was always published with the spirit of a fanzine, and the magazine was rarely, if ever, profitable. Halverson spun off the magazine in 1996 to Metropolis Media, an outfit owned by wheeler-dealer businessman David Bergstein. The money situation only worsened with this move, and many ex-staffers would later write about Cannonball Run-style races to the bank to get their paychecks cashed before the account was overdrawn. Halverson left in 1997 to start another company (and later found Gamers' Republic), and Bergstein merged the company in 1998 with online retailer DVD Express to form dot-com media outfit Express.com. Express.com was less interested in GameFan than the $55 million in investment money Bergstein had just received from Eidos, but the magazine continued on, despite a very rocky 1998 -- only five issues were published, and the magazine became subscriber-only in all but name towards the middle of the year. The magazine bounced back into regular operation in 1999, and Express expanded on the brand by creating the GameFan Network, a game-news website and a link-sharing affiliate network that included everything from humor website Something Awful to assorted ROM and abandonware pages. The company shut down both the magazine and the affiliate network in late 2000 before filing for bankruptcy in early 2001, reportedly owing Something Awful and other affiliate sites large sums of money. A January 2001 issue was reportedly completed but never published. GameFan's legacy continues in may different ways, from Halverson's Gamers' Republic and Play to GameGO! and Hardcore Gamer, both heavily influenced by GameFan's design and both including some GameFan veterans on their staff. Halverson eventually kicked off a reboot of GameFan in 2010, producing eleven issues over its six year existence.

EGM2 is a monthly magazine devoted to console video games. It launched with the Summer 1994 Consumer Electronics Show as a "second edition" of Electronic Gaming Monthly, but soon trailed its own editorial path until it became distinct enough from EGM to merit a name change. History When it was launched by EGM editor-in-chief Ed Semrad, it was intended to be the exact same thing as EGM itself, except published two weeks apart from EGM's own publication date. The idea was that this would essentially turn EGM into a sort of optional biweekly publication -- casual gamers could be satisfied with EGM alone, but hardcore fans who wanted every bit of game coverage possible could spring for both EGM and EGM2. (This scheme also allowed Sendai to avoid the complications that would arise from making EGM itself biweekly, as well as have two monthly multiplatform magazines to sell per month instead of one.) However, unlike Famicom Tsushin and the other Japanese biweekly magazines of the time, Sendai originally launched EGM2 without creating a separate editorial staff for it. This quickly resulted in magazine burnout, as the EGM editors had little to add to EGM2 that they hadn't already covered in their own magazine. After a year of publishing, Sendai realized that EGM2 did little that EGM wasn't already doing, and the magazine began to shift its coverage to primarily concentrate on previews, arcade coverage, and in-depth strategy guides. This formula (proven successful by Tips & Tricks at the time) helped EGM2 find its niche, and it managed to grow its circulation even as it bowed out of the "first tier" of game magazines. In acknowledgement of its new voice, Ziff Davis took the occasion of EGM2's 50th issue to completely redesign the magazine, giving it the new (and more fitting) name of Expert Gamer. That magazine would last until 2001, when it was redesigned and renamed once more to GameNOW before closing for good in 2004. Distinguishing features One of EGM2's main draws was expanded coverage of import games, in an effort to better compete with Game Fan. The Tricks of the Trade cheats section included tricks for Japanese titles, and the International Outlook section was expanded to include Fact File spreads on popular import games like Ultraman Powered and Yu Yu Hakusho. Unlike EGM, Fact Files in EGM2 had author bylines and the accompanying text was a bit more opinionated. EGM2 had no Review Crew section, arguably the main attraction of the original EGM. EGM2 had a fanzine review page, written by Arnie Katz of Electronic Games fame. Trivia Despite the superscript numeral in the title, the magazine was officially referred to as "EGM Two," not "EGM Squared." Before the publication of the first issue, an advertisement for EGM2 featured a mock-up cover touting a blow-out on Mortal Kombat 3. After the real issue came out with a different cover and sans anything on MK3, hundreds of letters flooded the offices demanding the info. (They printed one of these letters in the third issue.) To meet the magazine's premiere at the 1994 Summer CES, copies of the first issue were trucked directly from the printer to Chicago's McCormick Place convention center by Sendai employees. The first issue had only just closed, mere days before the first day of the convention. In an effort to distinguish EGM2 from EGM, several popular columns were slightly changed. The Game Gossip column was written by "X-Bert" beginning in the second issue, even though the columns by Quartermann and X-Bert were actually written by the same editor. Similarly, Tricks of the Trade was credited to "Trickman Junior" and a few previews were penned by a "Sushi-X, Jr." In the third issue, the Fandom Central fanzine review column included a review a zine whose staff included Chris Johnston, who also happened to be on the EGM2 staff at the time.

Game Players (spelled Game Player's until 1991) is the multiplatform magazine in the stable of Signal Research publications that launched in the late 1980s. Along with VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, it was the one of the only magazines at the time to include both PC and console game coverage. History The history of Game Players can be divided into two parts, based on its two separate publishing runs. Read about the second publishing run. The first era (1989-1991) Signal Research was founded in 1988 by Robert Lock, the former publisher of COMPUTE!, who set up the outfit in Greensboro, NC, the same town as his old company. After releasing a series of successful Nintendo magazines in 1988, Signal founded Game Players as the flagship of a series of publications and media about all forms of games, including videotapes on soccer training. The magazine, much like early issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly, was heavily text-oriented with only a few screenshots and other art. This gave it an extremely bland look that was improved upon only slightly in later issues, making it look outdated compared to the competition in 1991. This led to the curious situation of Game Players (the alleged flagship magazine) being outsold by its Nintendo sub-magazine, Game Players Nintendo Guide. In October 1991, Signal defaulted on a loan from one of its venture-capital investors, thanks to over-optimistic sales expectations, mounting printing costs, and the 1991 recession. The company made a last-ditch attempt to save itself by canceling three titles, but this didn't stave off its creditors, and it was officially foreclosed in February 1992. This means that the October 1991 issue (which, ironically, is a redesign-launch issue) is the last known edition of the first era of Game Players. A November 1991 issue was almost certainly completed, but it is unknown whether it was actually published. If anyone has it, we'd like to know.

GamePro was a monthly magazine devoted to console video games, although it added PC games coverage in 2000. The second most popular game magazine in America after Nintendo Power for much of the mid-to-late 1990s, its teen-oriented design and writing style has led it to be derided by "hardcore" gamers, but allows it to maintain a devoted audience that no other magazine targets. The magazine featured content on various video game consoles (e.g., Nintendo Entertainment System, Sony PlayStation, Xbox 360), PC computers and mobile devices (e.g., Game Boy, PSP (PlayStation Portable), iPhone). 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. Originally published in 1989, Gamepro magazine provided feature articles, news, previews and reviews on various video games, video game hardware and the entertainment video gaming 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. History GamePro was first established in Redwood City, California in late 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 acquisition team comprising IDG Peterborough President Roger Murphy and 2 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 publication. 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 addition 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. 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, their current and latest location. In 1993, the company was renamed from GamePro Inc. to Infotainment World in reflection to 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 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, 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 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. Despite the demise of the term in GamePro itself, the term "ProTip" has been revived as a pop culture meme used to precede some ironical advice with extreme sarcasm, such as, "ProTip: To defeat the Cyberdemon, dodge its attacks and shoot at it until it dies" or "ProTip: Don't call the cops to report your stolen weed." 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. With the April 1996 issue, the magazine started putting the issue number on the cover. However, from the very start of that practive, the number printed on the cover was inflated by 10; April 1996 was the 81st issue, though it was labeled as 91. One theory to this issue is that they included special issues they had published in previous years towards the issue count of the main magazine, but there has been no confirmation as to why the printed issue number was higher. 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 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 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. 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 focuses on five main insertions: HD game images, more reviews and previews per issue, www.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 its 20th anniversary of this significant marque with some exciting editorial changes, and to reshape it as a thoroughly modern integrated media brand." 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 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." 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. 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. GamePro had ended its monthly publication after over 22 years of debut, with its October 2011 issue. Shortly after that issue, the magazine had 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. The quarterly endeavor; however, only lasted with one issue when it was scrapped. On November 30, it was announced that GamePro as a magazine and a website would be shutting down on December 5, 2011. GamePro would only then become part of the PC World website as a small section of this entertainment site covering on the latest and most recently released video games in the current video gaming industry, now run by the PC World staff. Circulation Numbers are taken from the United States Postal Services's Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (PS Form 3526), unless otherwise noted. Figures otherwise noted are from either the Audit Bureau of Circulation or BPA International (now BPA Worldwide). Figures are for Total Distribution with paid subscriptions in brackets (yearly average). Click on the links to see the full Statement of Ownership table. 1995: 533,346 (268,465) 1996: 482,140 (294,530) 1997: 467,001 (265,654) 1998: 486,555 (256,803) 1999: 513,655 (512,295); 515,880[a] 2000: 501,744 (260,635) 2001: 396,676 (251,341) 2002: 507,970 (355,236) 2003: 558,269 (426,887) 2004: 480,021[c] 2005: 2006: 430,386 (345,137) 2007: 221,670 (157,337) 2008: 185,473 (132,972) 2009: 121,549 (79,353) 2010: 91,631 (59,965) 2011: [a]: Circulation for 6 months ended June 30, 1999 (BPA) [c]: Circulation for 6 months ended June 30, 2004 (ABC) Note: ABC Initial Audit Report for 2001 (three month period ending January 2002) returned a circulation number of 529,043

History The history of Game Players can be divided into two parts, based on its two separate publishing runs. Read about the first publishing run. The second era (1993-1996) The Game Players multiplatform title was resurrected in 1993 with the merging of Game Players Nintendo Guide and Game Players Sega Guide, the two surviving magazines of Signal Research, which was bought out by its creditors in 1992 and renamed GP Publications. The two magazines were continued mainly so the creditors could find a buyer for them, and they found it in Chris Anderson, founder of Future Publishing in Britain. Searching for an entry into the US magazine market, Anderson bought GP in 1993, eventually leaving the UK to work at GP full time and moving the outfit to Burlingame, CA. Under his guidance (which had already began with the Nintendo and Sega mags), Game Players became a far more professional and well-written magazine. Writers like Chris Slate, Jeff Lundrigan, Mike Salmon, and Bill Donohue turned GP into a reader-oriented magazine filled with offbeat and engaging humor -- a very UK-like product in the US marketplace. The magazine changed names to Ultra Game Players in 1996 in tandem with a large-scale redesign.

PSM, 100% Independent PlayStation 2 Magazine is a monthly magazine devoted to Sony consoles and games. It is the only PlayStation-specific magazine in the US apart from Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, the oldest currently in production (by a month), and also the one with the highest circulation. Future Publishing also produces magazines in several European countries titled PSM (the UK edition is currently called PSM2). While the magazines occasionally share similar visual designs, they all have different editorial teams and do not share any editorial content. History PSM was the final major magazine launch by Imagine Publishing, the original name of Future's US division. It followed after Ultra Game Players, PC Gamer, Next Generation, and the online Imagine Games Network, and like these magazines, PSM borrowed a great deal of its design from Future's British mag stable, ensuring a unique look for the US market. Much of the original staff (including editor-in-chief Chris Slate, the longest-tenured game-mag EIC currently in the industry) jumped over from the original Game Players, and many more joined the staff once Ultra Game Players ran its course. For its first year or so, PSM was marketed towards a relatively young audience in order to compete for GamePro's share of the marketplace. Issues came packed with disc-tray or memory-card stickers, screenshot captions were mostly humorous, and the covers were all original creations by comic-book artists with official company art only rarely used. However, as the PlayStation's audience proved to skew older than those of other game systems, PSM began to slant more hardcore in its coverage, although its Brit-mag design and flippant captions are still in full force today. (Imagine made one more attempt at the children's audience with PS Max in 1999, but that went nowhere fast.) PSM's average paid circulation in 2005 was 312,215. Its readership has surpassed OPM's for most of the decade in the US, despite its "unofficial" status.

Next Generation (officially NextGen after September 1999) is a magazine devoted to PC and console games, with a heavy emphasis on in-depth features and interviews. Its intelligent, critical writing and often controversial features makes it unique in US magazine history; it was arguably the most smartly-written game magazine the country has ever seen. History Its history begins with Edge, a UK magazine launched by Future Publishing in August 1993. As the first issue's introduction plainly stated, Edge was not meant for everyone: "This magazine is brought to you by dedicated, hardened gameplayers and experts in all fields of videogaming technology...[it] taps into a huge underworld of videogame entertainment that simply isn't covered anywhere else. It answers questions other magazines don't even know how to ask." Next Generation was the US edition of Edge (although this was never explicitly stated), and for the first half of its life, the two magazines shared similar designs and editorial voices. Until the NextGen redesign in 1999, the majority of Next Generation's features (and around a quarter of the previews, mostly of games produced in Europe) were taken from the pages of Edge. For its part, Edge would print a Next Generation feature in its magazine about once every few months. Both magazines were squarely targeted at the mature game enthusiast, and everything they didn't care about -- from the tips section to the pages of written-off-the-press-release previews -- were removed. Next Generation's writers used the extra space to write game coverage more professional and in-depth than any magazine previous, from multi-page interviews with company executives to expansive previews that covered the entire development history of the game. Next Generation's first editor was Neil West, who left his job at MEGA (the Genesis counterpart to Super Play) to take the position. Under his guide, the magazine offered coverage that no one else offered, including several memorable interviews with industry folk like Trip Hawkins and Atari's Sam Tramiel. Nearly every feature and preview featured extensive commentary and input from the developers themselves, making the magazine one of the only publications to truly bring the full game-development process to the reader. This unique coverage helped Next Generation attract a faithful audience of hardcore gamers, and for its first few years, the magazine was unparalleled in the US. Things began to change after a few years, though, beginning with West's departure in 1997 and culminating with its renaming to NextGen in 1999 and its concurrent redesign (or "Lifecycle 2", as the editors called it). Although its beat was largely the same, the staff began to run out of steam, and much of the writing began to sound wooden and unrefined. Other magazines began to catch up with NextGen's research-heavy game coverage, making the publication's unique voice not so unique by 2000. After some experimentation with page size and other aspects of the title, Imagine Media suddenly shut NextGen down in late 2001 as part of a long series of magazine foldings worldwide. The name was resurrected by Future Publishing in 2005 in the form of next-gen.biz, an industry news and job-search website.

Expert Gamer is a monthly magazine devoted to console games, with an emphasis on strategy guides and reader interaction. It is the immediate followup to EGM2, with mostly the same editorial staff. History By 1998, EGM2 had gone from a second edition of sorts for Electronic Gaming Monthly to a magazine heavily inspired by Tips & Tricks, filled with game strategies and hardcore coverage of Japan and arcade news. The mag was rechristened Expert Gamer to more accurately portray this change in editorial style. It eventually became a more-or-less clone of Tips & Tricks, with its pages mostly filled with strategies and no reviews or "serious" features to be found (although many issues have humorous game-related features). In 2001, the magazine had another large-scale redesign (along with a renaming to GameNOW) to reposition it for the GamePro audience. The Expert Gamer name would live in in the form of the Expert Codebook, a seasonal collection of tricks and strategies. It would be renamed EGM Codebook by 2003.

Atari Age was available by subscription only as part of the Atari Club membership. There were two black and white newsletter issues published, then it was relaunched as a full color magazine in 1982. Each issue was 20-30 pages in length and covered Atari's game consoles, featuring news, previews, contests, tips, and more.