Game Informer and their Editor’s Note
I have never met or know Andy McNamara, but what he says in the most recent Game Informer is rather irritating. In issue 179, as a direct slap to EGM, he writes “..we have never been banned from a company for a poor review and there is a simple reason why. Companies may not always agree with what we say, but we back up our reviews with research and insight that explains our position…”
If you look a little further on that same page, you’ll see this: “Game Informer is a trademark of GameStop, Inc.”
Does anyone else think this may be a conflict? I mean seriously, is a game company going to ban GameStop from receiving product to sell? I just don’t think you call out EGM like that when there is an appearance of a conflict…that’s all…then again no one really cares and they just get the magazine because of the 10% Gamestop discount, right? 
February 24th, 2008 at 2:40 am
I’m not a big fan of Game Informer, but I actually liked that editorial. It was pretty clear that Dan Hsu was calling out Game Informer in his EGM review, when he was talking about magazines selling out to get feature articles. This was a “right back atcha” pointing out that letting writers express their opinion doesn’t mean the editor sits by while his staff writes whatever crazy-ass stuff comes into their minds.
In the last couple of years EGM has deliberately tried to become more controversial (this goes back to the Peter Moore interview in 2006). That can be good when legitimate issues are raised, but the danger is that the writers are now looking to create the outrageous story, tempted towards satire rather than real journalism. EGM/1UP’s podcasts encourage them to push even further towards entertainment and away from journalism. So, yeah, Dan Hsu deserved to be called out. If there’s a problem with some game publishers then it’s his job to fix it not just sit at his computer and whine to his customers.
February 24th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Personally, i like Game Informer. I mean, all of the gaming mags are the same, so why not get one that also scores me an extra 10% trade in value?
As for the GameStop thing, yeah there’s a conflict, but any time a games magazine takes ad revenue from game companies there’s the possibility for a conflict. Plus, we don’t know how separate the GameStop and Game Informer sides of the house are. If Entertainment Weekly can be owned by Time, Inc, which in turn is owned by Time Warner and there’s no crying foul when they give a Warner Bros. movie a good review, then I think it’s fair to give Game Informer the same benefit of the doubt. The more that I t hink of it, the fact that their owned by GameStop means that there probably isn’t a conflict because they can review things however they see fit and not worry that they’ll get dropped coverage, because GameStop can then turn around and flex their retail muscle.