The skies are grey above our passion right this moment as one in every of gaming’s oldest establishments, Recreation Informer, is closing its doorways. This morning, GameStop abruptly pulled the plug on the Recreation Informer journal and web site, shedding its total workers because it was “about 70% completed” with the subsequent problem, in response to content material director Kyle Hilliard.
The official Recreation Informer X account shared a farewell message titled “The Last Stage: Farewell from Recreation Informer”, discovered beneath:
The sudden closure comes after a turbulent interval for the Minneapolis-based journal. Dealing with stress from struggling proprietor GameStop, Recreation Informer had already gone via a number of rounds of layoffs since 2018, decreasing the outlet’s measurement. In March 2024, Recreation Informer launched a brand new subscription, indifferent from GameStop’s rewards program, for $19.91 a yr. Earlier than right this moment’s developments, the GI workers appeared fairly pleased with the way it was going.
It is unclear if GameStop plans to problem refunds for current subscriptions, but it surely’s not an awesome signal that the whole Recreation Informer web site has already disappeared. The location now directs to the identical closure assertion above.
Recreation Informer was based in 1991, a time when gaming was smaller, and it was a lot more durable to maintain observe of every part happening in our passion. For thousands and thousands, the month-to-month version of Recreation Informer was appointment studying, not just for the main exclusives on newly introduced video games the journal would reliably ship, however for the breadth of video games it lined in a single problem.
If you happen to have been a child within the 2000s like me, there’s an opportunity you did not absolutely perceive how Recreation Informer received to your door. We began getting mags within the mail after my dad signed up for a GameStop membership—he by no means cracked one open, however I could not get sufficient. In elementary college, I saved a thick stack of Recreation Informers in my desk that I might pour over at each alternative. I lacked the eye span to learn a lot of the articles, however I might marvel for hours on the screenshots, web page design, and sharply written captions.
That stack received heavier over time, and whereas I ultimately removed some in a transfer, my favourite Recreation Informer points nonetheless take pleasure in a spot on my bookshelf. I nonetheless have my 2007 Borderlands problem, again when it was going to look all desaturated and Mad Max-y. I bear in mind studying and rereading my Murderer’s Creed problem so typically that the binding fell aside. I all the time made time for the reader letters and fan artwork pages—I believe I favored that it introduced out the personalities of GI’s workers, even when I used to be too younger to study their names. Recreation Informer was how I realized that writing about video games is a factor you are able to do as a job. Now it is gone.
Recreation Informer’s legacy lives on, although. MinnMax, an unbiased outlet based by former Recreation Informer workers caught up in layoffs, is organizing a Recreation Informer archival venture on its Discord to assist protect the journal’s a long time of labor.
