So I know in the past, last year. I have spoken about how much I hated and loathed GamePro Magazine. But this was pre-John Davison… This man has created, not single handedly of course, the BEST VIDEO GAME MAGAZINE TO EVER EXIST! Props have to also be given to Tae K Kim, Reviews Editor extraordinaire. With the new style and design of the review pages, I can’t even believe it. The only magazine that could even be competing with GamePro these days is Electronic Gaming Monthly’s super relaunch. This is only because they have a wicked online component. But story for story, piece for piece; GamePro wins EVERY TIME.
Let me just explain to all you folks who haven’t been reading my site why this is just an incredible turn around and why I am writing about the one thing that could potentially end every other game journalism site and magazine out there. Let’s begin with the beginning. Including mine of course.
These were the days when the 1UP Show was the greatest Internet video game show and every one was still reading EGM every month and maybe slumming with the latest copy of Computer Gaming Monthly(not really, that magazine ruled). But GamePro back then was one step above Nintendo Power. The magazine was a hogpodge collection of screenshots that were a quarter of the size of each page and their reviews often made so little sense that the avid reader would assume that the reviewers didn’t actually play the games they were reviewing. But at that time, there were SO MANY video game magazines that no one magazine REALLY had to hold up the whole of video game journalism. But that magazine would have been Electronic Gaming Monthly and probably the UK Edge magazine.
Then bad things began to occur. No matter what their eventual outcome I am here to say that all the shuttering of all the magazines and websites that occurred over the past two years is something a kin to evil. Once EGM was shuttered most people felt that perhaps this was the end of video game journalism as we knew it. When COOP was born many people felt it wouldn’t last(it didn’t really, but that’s beside the point). All this heartache lasted a few months. While one magazine, after another, tried to pick up the slack. Fill a void that seemed unable to be filled. Finally, one magazine DID pick up that slack. GamePro to the rescue!
John Davison, a man who learned how to write and make content back when both were really difficult to do. You know, before there was broadband. The reboot of GamePro, everything from the cover art to the columns that are so quickly disappearing and/or reappearing in every video game publication these days. By the time this revolution occurred I was starting to wonder if John was reading my site(If you do read it John, please let me know; big fan). What was brought to the magazine was a Computer Gaming Monthly and EGM sensibility. This was something not seen for a long time. Most people felt that Games for Windows was the last magazine that truly embodied these qualities in America. Perhaps, it was EDGE that carried the torch all along. But it would never be a top tier magazine in the US. Any magazine that has a $80 yearly subscription price is probably not going to go mainstream any time soon.
I am a convert, a GamePro fanatic. I buy every single issue. Why? Because advertisers track off the rack numbers much more closely than subscriptions. And my mail is slow; I love this magazine and every one of you reading this should run out and buy the magazine. There is probably no better source for intellectual gaming commentary, reviews, and some incredible insight. I’m not saying they are better than I am, but let’s face it; they are. But I am happy to be aspirational about my abilities in this field. One more time, read GamePro and EGM. You won’t be sorry.
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