GameFan

History

GameFan's legacy extends far beyond that of its intended "hardcore" gaming legacy. The idea for the name Gamefan came from the Japanese Sega magazine called Megafan. Although it began as an advertising supplement to sell imported video games mostly from Japan, the small text reviews and descriptions soon took on a life all their own, primarily due to the lack of refinement and sense of passion. Caricatures were given in place of actual editor profile, with profiles drawn exclusively by Terry Wolfinger. This particular method of reviewing and commenting seemingly freed its editors from the creative restraints commonly associated with competing publications. It also allowed certain editors like Dave Halverson to write multiple reviews of the same game under different pseudonyms.

GameFan Magazine was well known for its extensive import game coverage and its expansive coverage of the emerging interest in anime. Another major feature that separated GameFan from other gaming magazines was the high quality paper it was printed on. Gamefan’s game screen shots were the most colorful and faithfully resembled the game graphics.

GameFan Magazine was also a champion of RPGs (role playing games). Mostly ignored by American audiences, this genre was a favorite of many GameFan staffers. The magazine's extensive coverage of the genre helped create and foster acceptance for the style of gameplay. This support came to its climax with the release of Final Fantasy VII, of which GameFan was chosen as the on-box quote proclaiming the title “Quite Possibly The Greatest Game Ever Made”.

The death of GameFan Magazine is usually attributed to several factors. The primary cause was due to the effects of a series of lawsuits which had haunted the magazine for nearly its entire run (mainly stemming from a cadre of investors that felt they were fleeced during the earliest years of the publication's run), following it through numerous corporate iterations and change of hands. It is this lawsuit that, in fact, had prevented the sale of the print magazine and its continuation as a going concern (as it turns out, the deal was virtually all but final and was derailed at the 11th hour due to the aforementioned suit).

Even after its demise, several staff members attempted to have the brand resurrected by the publisher of Computer Strategy Plus, based in Burlington, Vermont. Unfortunately, a deal could not be reached and the magazine was shuttered shortly thereafter (around the end of the 1st quarter of 2001.)

Controversy

In the September 1995 issue of GameFan, an article was printed that contained several derogatory comments about Japanese people (naming them "little Jap bastards", a racially derogatory term that was used to insult Japanese descendants and Japanese-Americans during the years of World War II). The text took the place of one of the paragraphs of one of the sports games reviews. The article discussed a Namco flight-simulator, Ace Combat, rather than College Football '96 (which was the topic of the article) and was poorly written.

GameFan's official explanation was that a rogue employee had sabotaged the magazine in order to alienate its Japanese audience and fanbase. However, later reports indicated that it was actually filler text that someone had neglected to remove, and the whole thing was an internal joke that accidentally got printed. A long apology (dated August 24, 1995) was published in DieHard GameFan's October 1995 issue in both English and Japanese, and a further apology appeared in the November 1995 issue.

Staff

Staff members of GameFan magazine had amusing aliases.

Within the magazine there was a comic strip, The Adventures of Monitaur, an anime-derived series. Although the title character Monitaur was only drawn for the strip, the rest of the magazine's staff personae appeared as characters. Monitaur's main storylines were his struggles against The Blowmeister, who metaphorically represented the leadership of rival magazines such as Electronic Gaming Monthly.

Golden Megawards

The winners of GameFan's annual Golden Megawards were chosen by editors.

Related publications

GameFan's original editor-in-chief, Dave Halverson, went on to publish Gamer's Republic, and then Play Magazine (an American video-gaming magazine, not to be confused with the English publication of the same name,) consisting mostly of former GameFan and Gamer's Republic staff members. Gamer's Republic had a short run of 35 issues and has ceased publication back in July 2001 when the dot-com bubble burst. Play had a far more successful run of 97 issues until the publishing company filed for bankruptcy.

After GameFan ceased publication, Eric Mylonas went on to edit GameGO! magazine. Only one issue of the magazine ever reached publication with the completed second issue being distributed in PDF format only. More recently, Mylonas has had success writing strategy guides for Prima Games.

Tim Lindquist, along with several other members of the original GameFan team, began a new magazine, Hardcore Gamer. They also began developing strategy guides as a part of their publishing company, DoubleJump Books (Now called Onionbat Books). The magazine had a short run of 36 issues before they began focusing exclusively on their website.

The DieHard GameFan name was resurrected by Alex Lucard as a website, Diehard GameFAN, with Dave Halverson's blessings. While there is plenty of coverage on the major releases, the site also prides itself on reviewing more "indie" games, much in the spirit of the original magazine.

2010 Relaunch

After the bankruptcy of Fusion Publishing and the closure of Play, Dave Halverson immediately began work on his latest magazine, a relaunch of GameFan. The magazine returned to newsstands on April 2010, headed by Halverson and a few key staffers from Play with Rob Duenas serving as the new art director. It was available in both print and digital formats, the latter of which was sold directly through GameFan's online shop.

For the first two issues, GameFan featured a section titled MovieFan which covered movies, anime, and comics. The first 2/3s of the magazine were devoted to GameFan, then readers needed to turn the magazine upside down in order to read the MovieFan magazine. As of Issue 3, the MovieFan portion of the magazine was discontinued, but later issues would still feature anime and comic reviews similar to Play. In its second and final issue, MovieFan conducted one of the last known interviews with late filmmaker, Satoshi Kon.

Up until issue 5, the magazine had been on a consistent, bi-monthly release schedule. Unfortunately, problems occurred with the magazine's development due to issues with advertising revenue, causing the sixth issue to be released on August 2011, eight months after issue 5, and with an entirely new editing team, headed-up by new-comer James Bacon. Issue 7 was assembled by only three people - Editor in Chief Dave Halverson, Art Director and Graphic Designer Rob Duenas, and Managing Editor James Bacon - and was released in December 2011. Soon thereafter Rob Duenas resigned. The reason for his departure was due to an overwhelming workload stating that he worked "20 hours a day for two weeks straight and I'm still short cover art". Despite the stressful working conditions, Duenas harbored no ill will towards Dave or the magazine, stating that he would've still been willing to contribute with cover illustrations or providing assistance with layouts. Soon after Rob's departure, Managing Editor James Bacon left for reasons unstated.

A press release was issued on April 18, 2012, highlighting the supposed future of Paper Planet brands: GameFan and Girls of Gaming. The company planned on increasing their online presence through app development for mobile devices as well as a new GameFan TV online channel. None of these plans had ever come to fruition, with the slight exception of a YouTube channel. Former Destructoid editor Wesley Ruscher, was named the magazine's new editor-in-chief but resigned shortly after the release of issue 8 stating that it "lacked the necessities to keep food in my belly and a roof over my head."

As of June 2013, GameFan's web presence had been in a mostly inactive state for about a year. Issue 9 was finally made available in February 2013 after missing their holiday 2012 release. This issue was only worked on by two people, Dave Halverson and Greg Orlando. Issues 8 and 9 were only available in a digital format. GameFan would later go on a two-year hiatus, returning in 2015 with a rebooted, redesigned magazine and website. In February 2015, GameFan simultaneously released issue 10 digitally and in newsstands. The digital version was released gratis on Magzter with the use of a promotional code. The magazine went through a complete overhaul, simplifying its layouts and design, most likely in order to have the magazines completed on schedule. The size of the print magazine is significantly smaller compared to previous issues. In addition to that, they also redesigned their logo and their mascot, Monitaur.

On May 6, 2015, GameFan had announced a partnership with Destructoid to help promote the GameFan brand with collaborations and free subscription offers. The initial plan was to bring back the dual-cover format from the first two issues, only instead of a MovieFan portion, it would be exclusive content created by Destructoid for the magazine. According to GameFan's official Facebook page, the deal with Destructoid would have allowed for the magazine to be released on a monthly schedule. The deal with Destructoid fell through and only one issue of the GameFan/Destructoid magazine was ever released.