GamePro magazine calls it quits

[YoungRider]

One of the oldest video game magazines around is closing up shop.

GamePro, which has been covering the video game industry for 22 years, has announced its November issue will be its last, due to declining ad revenues. The magazine's website will also be shutting down, redirecting visitors to PCWorld.com starting December 5.

Times have been tough for the magazine for a while now. In July, GamePro's owner decided to gamble with a new publishing schedule, eliminating monthly issues for a quarterly format. The gamble, however, failed to pay off.

"The U.S. editorial and business staff worked hard to earn a passionate, loyal following for GamePro and I am grateful for their dedication and hard work over the years," said Mike Kisseberth, who heads up IDG's Consumer and Small Business media group. "GamePro, like all businesses, must keep up with industry changes and economic realities."

While the magazine is gone, the GamePro name will continue to live on — albeit in a different fashion. The publication's parent company plans to use it as a custom publishing company for events like E3's show daily. It will also be used as a subsite of PCWorld, but many of the magazine's staff has been laid off.

The game magazine business as a whole is a shaky one these days, with many publications struggling. Future Publishing, the parent company of Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine, merged its U.S. and U.K. operations earlier this week and recently announced plans to shift resources away from print and more towards online publishing.

About the only game magazine that's showing strength, in fact, is Game Informer, which enjoys a significant presence in GameStop stores since the retailer owns the magazine. As a result, publishers still battle each other for the magazine's cover.

While the print world loses another gaming publication, the online world is mourning the shutdown of another popular game information site. Indie game site GameSetWatch has announced plans to go on "semi-permanent hiatus" after six years.

Founder Simon Carless says the decision was made not for economic reasons, but because of an increasing overlap in coverage with sister site IndieGames.com as well as the more thorough coverage of off kilter titles by mainstream game blogs.

[Fuzzzie]

Not too surprising. Most print media is declining or dead. Last time I was at Chapters there must have been 50 differnt gaming magazines anyways. No idea who has the money to publish them all these days...

[Caiada]

Closing the online site too. It's kind of sad. Used to buy the magazine occasionally.

[Sieger1145]

22 years, it's sad to see a company as old as I am disappear like that.

[Fuzzzie]

What made a lot of these games successful in the past were demo discs. I remember getting quake and decent from magazines like this. It was also the only place you could see new games before you bought them. Now, with the internet all that is gone.

[Azutael]

What made a lot of these games successful in the past were demo discs. I remember getting quake and decent from magazines like this. It was also the only place you could see new games before you bought them. Now, with the internet all that is gone.

I agree, personally I havent bought a game magazine (or any other magazine for that matter) for many many years. They just became obsolete.

[Oprah]

"i have a magazine at home with allllll the fatalities..."

you'll be missed, GamePro!

[docatron]

A sad day indeed. I remember reading this when I was 8 years old, looking for tips on how to beat my GameBoy games.

[Dacien]

I remember Gamepro as being predominantly targeted towards sensationalism and a younger audience. I know, I know, it's a video game magazine, but they'd run articles about how poor the image quality was in Final Fantasy 7, then print half a dozen predictably-upset gamer letters a week later. Just writng up bullshit stories to stir up interest and readers. There were better magazines, like EGM.

[Belloc]

It's about time. GamePro was one of the worst gaming magazines I've ever read. EGM was (is?) loads better. Hell, even VideoGames was a better magazine.

[Palex]

I bought one of their issues not too long ago. It contained a list of the top fighting game characters, but seemed more to be a list of "lets see how many scantily clad women we can fit in" list.

[Deleted]

Game magz starting dying then Charlie Brooker left PC Zone imo..

[Collegeguy]

Wow, I remember Gamepro being my only news source for videogames in the 90s.

[aztr0]

I won't say that I'm surprised by this news that they are closing down. I'm more surprised that it took this long. I used to be a subscriber years ago, and when I noticed that their articles and coverage were lacking and I could use the internet for free alternatives for gaming information, I stopped after I received my 12 issues. I still remember how it used to be a nice little event as my group of friends would just gather to read it together during lunch at school, elementary school.

[Bearshield]

You know, I haven't read an issue of GamePro in years, but back when I did used to read gaming magazines I remember very much disliking GamePro. I have always been primarily and RPG'er and they had a bad habit of playing 20 min into a game and doing their entire writeup based solely off that limited experience.

As others have said though, it's not surprising that gaming magazines are slowly dying off. Why pay for what you can read on the internet for free?

[Silhouette of Seraphim]

Man, I remember reading and looking forward to the monthly issues at the library in middle school.

[Sykol]

I wanna know how a group of people who've collectively played about 90 minutes of video games in their entire lives could keep a gaming magazine going for over twenty years. Bravo.

[NyghtFox]

I had a gamepro sub for like 3 or more years...I let it go about a year ago though. Now I just had OXM as my gaming mag of choice.

Gamepro you will be missed!

[The Ogdru Jahad]

Printed media is on hte decline..newspapers are failing too. It was only a matter of time!

[anveena]

It will be missed. I remember having a sub with them for quite some time back a while ago.