Probably worth mentioning, Game Informer shut down, and the site was also taken offline, employees apparently just told of it that very day and let go with immediate effect and everything becoming inaccessible. That's one heck of a huge archive of gaming-related stuff that's no longer directly accessible now. (There is archive.org of course, but may not have everything.)

Power to the expense reports, et al.

Gamestop was already a circus, but they really found a real clown of a ringleader in that despot supporter & mountebank Ryan Cohen.

The thing that amazes me is that the stock has been trading sideways instead of deflating. There's no future, no pivot, no long term strategy; they've already shuttered a lot of physical space and funco pops alone won't do jack.

I see to add insult to injury this will make the issue with Dragon Age: The Veilguard on the cover their last.

I can't say I had any personal connection to GI, but it's always sad to see a long-running publication like this close, even more so to see it just vanish off the face of the Internet too. Way back when gaming magazines were very important to me, made me care about gaming beyond just treating it as fun time-waster. And as I watched them all die one by one, I feel for Informer's fans.

Sad. I will remember Game Informer fondly

I hope everyone laid off will find jobs again soon. I remember flipping through the pages and being excited for some of the new games being covered. I even remember that some of those games never got released. It was all good memories for me.

Kind of expected unfortunately. I wasnt a huge fan but did read some Game Informer back in the day but gaming magazines are definately a dying industry.

Gaming magazines only really provided 3 major benefits
- advertising and reviews for upcoming video games
- video game walkthroughs
- thought pieces on the video game industry or games in general

For the first benefit, magazines have lost ground to youtubers due to their generalization and the bad reputation of gaming journalists. Unfortunately, game journalists are not good at games and now that gaming youtubers are more specialized for a specific genre or even series, video game companies can target their focus customer base through these youtubers rather than through a magazine.

For walkthroughs, gamefaqs and steam walkthroughs provide better information for free. Unless the devs themselves make a walkthrough with additional commentary (like FF ultimanias) for exclusive content, they cant even compete with the free stuff.

The only real benefit is thought pieces which other magazines like Forbes are also getting into and honestly require extreme stances to garner attention (hence why sites like Kotaku still exist). The gaming audience is more tech savy so are unlikely to purchase paper magazines and brand name for professional gaming journalists are more akin to a scarlet letter than trust imo.

Wha?!? I thought filling stores with funco pops and other kitsch was the wave of the future and a profit magnet for gaming stores.

Yep.

I actually went to our local newsagent a few days ago, first time in ages, and I naturally looked at the computer games section, because back in the day I used to buy a lot of magazines.

And guess what? They only had one, and there was no included disc ... not that I would have bought it in any case, but it was kind of sad.

In fact, I was surprised to see all sorts of magazines still being sold, when I reckon you would get better joy online.

I sometimes wonder if my huge collection of PC magazines and discs, not looked at in ages, are actually worth anything. I guess that will be something for my kids to investigate. I've certainly got oodles of game demos on PC magazine discs and related ... even a good number of free full games.

The joy of getting a disc full of demos and sometimes full free games. Fun times and memories.

To be fair, paper and physical is a dying industry, not that I necesarily think thats a good thing. While these things do tend to end up in the waste basket most of the time and the day of the demo disc is over, magazines are great to have when in a waiting room or on the toilet and honestly may need a comeback to encourage us to get over our general phone addiction lol.

But given the fact that consoles and PC are online now and not only can you easily look up a youtube video of a game you could be interested in online (as well as get information on that game online), you can also just download a demo now as opposed to needing a demo disc which has the risk of also containing the entire game for free lol.

I dont remember game informers staff much but in the defense of some gaming magazines, they are a great intro to gaming for normies and did a good job advertising games, just not in the way they think imo. I always enjoyed going through games, especially some of the walkthroughs, and getting interested in playing a game like Tomba because the evolution of the character over time seemed interesting. They also focus on the games themselves and didnt attack or put down any specific developer or company. Could be because thats where the paycheck comes from and to be honest, most reviews were always positive which is why anything at a 70 is considered bad and 80 is ok (which likely carried on today). Couldnt judge their capability in games since we didnt see them play as well.

Sad to see another one of the long-established print publications go. I still prefer reading articles in print form over digital. Wild that the website has been unplugged as well.

That's the bigger problem and far more surprising thing, yeah. In terms of the print magazine, it was quite amazing that they made it this far, but to shut down the site and put all of that content beyond reach on zero notice... Why?

(On the other hand, Game Informer also made the baffling decision some years ago to completely block users from this part of the world, and not only, from accessing the site, and that policy lasted a long time.)

Might be just another example of corporate decisions strictly based on numbers. The dichotomy of infrastructure-governing profit seekers and the value producers (the product, the heart, the soul) has reached new heights in every field. The callousness must be part of the business model.

Can't really believe it. I've been reading their magazines for as long as I can remember. Gameinformer and PC Gamer are what kept me informed on all the latest games before I had access to the internet.

What I really can't believe is how Gamestop just pulled the plug with no discussion with the magazine's employees. From what I read, they were 70% done with the next issue then they were abruptly told "You're all fired. Shut it down."

And with the website gone for good, the opportunity to back up all of their reviews and news articles to internet archive's waybackmachine will be impossible now.

This is just sad news all the way around. :(

That would imply competence in the first place, which is asking a lot for people like Ryan Cohen; where you have to ask questions such as, "Is it incompetent malice or malicious incompetence?" Guy thought he could save Bed Bath & Beyond from insolvency.

His best plan to save Gamestop was crypto wallets & NFTs. His best buisness decision was selling a company he owned (Chewy) to a direct competitor (Petsmart). That's why we call him Lord Dogfood.

...Frankly speaking, he's a rich failson who isn't even fit to clean dog latrines.