Analysis: What The (Game) Papers Say - November 2009, Pt. 1

Author: by Kevin Gifford

[Game magazine veteran Kevin 'Magweasel' Gifford continues his 'What The (Game) Papers Say' round-ups, looking at the month in major game magazines from Game Informer to Play and beyond.] John Davison, ex-Ziff Davis, ex-What They Play, made some news in early October when he became executive VP of content at GamePro Media, the section of IDG that runs the magazine, GamePro.com, and a few other sites. He talked a bit on yesterday's Kombo Breaker podcast about his plans and goals with the brand, and -- like George Jones before him in 2007 -- what he's saying is undeniably true. "A big part of it is that we're trying to rebrand the thing and get some real sense of purpose," he began. "To me, what I also want to do is get away from people thinking it's just a magazine. We have a pretty big website, which is obviously where the future is." Along those lines, Davison is planning to "relaunch" both the magazine and the website (which, despite the lack of respect core gamers pay it, has been around for over eight years and arguably performs a far better job of repping the mag than most of its competition manages). The reboot, similar to the one Game Informer just completed, will kick off with the January '10 issue. "A big part of it is changing a lot of the editorial direction to something that's more thought-provoking, that goes a lot deeper into stuff," Davison noted. "More about the culture around video games. There's two paths you can take: you can either chase after GameSpy and IGN, trying to do everything you possibly can on every single game, or you can specialize." "I've done it both ways in the past, and I think honestly that the real way to go is to specialize and become known for a particular kind of content or approach to things. What They Play was one attempt at that, and the new GamePro will be another version of that." GamePro, as Davison is quick to point out, is one of the oldest brands in gaming. But that's nearly all it's known for -- being old. It doesn't really have a voice of its own, and that's something can definitely seen in this semi-transitional issue, low on decent content and high on top-X lists, preview features, and 4 random pages from the Brady Games strategy guide to Uncharted 2 (why?). What Davison wants to do is take advantage of the "pro" in the GamePro name and go for narrow, in-depth coverage -- to "treat gaming the way Wired treats tech, or Vanity Fair treats culture in general," as he puts it. "A lot of coverage of games just treats it like games, you know?" He's right, and I know he's got the talent to pull that off. I think it all comes down to how dedicated he can be to that vision, and how much he can push his company into committing on it. IDG's corporate culture always struck me as never wanting to mess with the GamePro brand, forcing it to retain outdated trademarks like Protips and editor personas for far too long in fear that dropping them would alienate the readership. If Davison wants GamePro to be an "elite gamer" sort of brand, and the current issue of GamePro is reprinting strategy-guide content as one of its features -- well, there's nowhere to go but up, anyway. Other mags out in the past two weeks: Edge December 2009 Cover: Dead or alive? The cover is niiiice-looking, although the content it touts is a bit more pedestrian -- just a basic TGS recap/preview feature, along with four pages of genuine show-floor pessimism the way only Keiji Inafune and Japanese hardcore gamers can dish it out. Another boring recap feature looks at good WiiWare games, and if it weren't for the 6-page interview with Jordan Weisman (founder of FASA and a guy with a history in games a mile long), the issue woulda been a dud for me. Play November 2009 Cover: Ratchet & Clank or Heavy Rain (2 covers) Boasting a remarkably healthy 116 pages, this issue is quite nice, with two enormous dev interviews and a neat (if you consider Dave Halverson neat, which I do) editor roundtable about storytelling in games. There's also a brief retrospective of what Halverson calls the "critter platformer" genre, complete with a lovely page-size art piece by Robert Duenas filled with ancient obscure game-mascots (Wonder Dog! Buck Bumble! Vexx, which I famously bought every version of back in the day!) Game Developer November 2009 Cover: Scribblenauts 'Bout time someone put this on the cover! The postmortem is super-neat, focusing on the astonishing how-it's-made for such a unique game. Best quote: "QA on this game was a lot like trying to clean the debris from the inside of a tornado by throwing yourself into the center and hoping you can catch everything flying around." [Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]