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''GameFan'' (originally known as ''Diehard GameFan'') was a publication started by Tim Lindquist, Greg Off, George Weising. and
Dave Halverson Dave Halverson is an American video game journalist who has been the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of ''GameFan'' (where he wrote reviews as E. Storm, Skid and Takahara), ''Gamers' Republic'', ''Play'', and currently the new versions of ...
in September 1992 that provided coverage of domestic and
import video game Import gamers are a subset of the video game player community that take part in the practice of playing video games from another region, usually from Japan where the majority of games for certain systems originate. Reasons for importing There ...
s. It was notable for its extensive use of game screenshots in page design because of the lack of good screen shots in other U.S. publications at the time. The original magazine ceased publishing in December 2000. In April 2010, Halverson relaunched ''GameFan'' as a hybrid video game/film magazine. However, this relaunch was short-lived and suffered from many internal conflicts, advertising revenue being the main one.


History

The idea for the name ''GameFan'' came from the Japanese
Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...
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 A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
. ''GameFan'' 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. The death of ''GameFan'' is usually attributed to several factors. The primary cause was 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. A deal could not be reached, and the magazine was shuttered shortly thereafter (around the end of the first quarter of 2001.)


Controversy

In the September 1995 issue of ''GameFan'', an article was printed that contained several derogatory comments about
Japanese people The are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago."人類学上は,旧石器時代あるいは縄文時代以来,現在の北海道〜沖縄諸島(南西諸島)に住んだ集団を祖先にもつ人々。" () Jap ...
(naming them "little
Jap ''Jap'' is an English abbreviation of the word "Japanese". Today, it is generally regarded as an ethnic slur. In the United States, some Japanese Americans have come to find the term very offensive, even when used as an abbreviation. Prior to t ...
bastards", a racially derogatory term that was used to insult Japanese descendants and Japanese Americans during the years of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
). The text took the place of one of the paragraphs of one of the sports games reviews. The article discussed a
Namco was a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Na ...
combat flight simulator Combat flight simulators are vehicle simulation games, amateur flight simulation computer programs used to simulate military aircraft and their operations. These are distinct from dedicated flight simulators used for professional pilot and mili ...
, ''
Ace Combat is an arcade-style combat flight simulation video game franchise published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, formerly Namco. Debuting in 1995 with ''Air Combat'' for the PlayStation, the series includes eight mainline installments, multiple spin- ...
'', 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 fan-base. However, later reports indicated that it was actually
filler text Filler text (also placeholder text or dummy text) is text that shares some characteristics of a real written text, but is random or otherwise generated. It may be used to display a sample of fonts, generate text for testing, or to spoof an e- ...
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.


''The Adventures of Monitaur''

The magazine included 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 ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The m ...
''''.In 1994 The leadership of Game Fan and a new startup Known as Dark Moon Productions and Dark Moon Comics entered into an agreement to bring Monitaur out as a full-blown comic book series, and at that time discussions were underway to make a full-length animated movie to be produced by Dark Moon Productions Inc and DMP Multi-media A sister company, Founded by Andrew Spencer and Gary Tucker of Connecticut


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 ''
Gamers' Republic Dave Halverson is an American video game journalist who has been the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of ''GameFan'' (where he wrote reviews as E. Storm, Skid and Takahara), ''Gamers' Republic'', ''Play'', and currently the new versions of ...
'', and then '' Play Magazine'' (an
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
video-gaming magazine, not to be confused with the
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
publication of the same name), consisting mostly of former ''GameFan'' and ''Gamers' Republic'' staff members. ''Gamers' Republic'' had a short run of 35 issues and has ceased publication back in July 2001 when the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
burst. ''Play'' had a far more successful run of 97 issues until the publishing company filed for bankruptcy. 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 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 in 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 two-thirds 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 was a Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and manga artist from Sapporo, Hokkaido and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art Universi ...
. 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 in August 2011, eight months after issue 5, and with an entirely new editing team, headed-up by newcomer 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 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
e was E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plu ...
still short cover art". Despite the stressful working conditions, Duenas harbored no ill will towards Halverson or the magazine, stating that he would have still been willing to contribute with cover illustrations or providing assistance with layouts. Soon after Duenas' departure, 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
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channel. Former ''
Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017, and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. History ' ...
'' 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 isbelly and a roof over ishead." 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 Magzter is a cross-platform, self-service, global digital newsstand with thousands of magazines and newspapers from 5,000+ publishers. Girish Ramdas and Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan founded Magzter in 2011. The company is headquartered in New York. ...
'' 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
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page, the deal with ''Destructoid'' would have allowed for the magazine to be released on a monthly schedule. However, the deal with ''Destructoid'' seemingly fell through as only one issue of the ''GameFan/Destructoid'' magazine had ever been released. As of January 2019, there have been no new updates regarding ''GameFan's'' overall status.


References


External links


GameFan's Official Site (In Archived Format)

GameFan 2010's Website, before the redesign (In Archived Format)



VideoGameObsession's 100% Complete GameFan Issue Index

The Original GameFan Website (In Archived Format)Archived GameFan Magazines
on the
Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

Digitized GameFan magazine on Retro CDN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gamefan Monthly magazines published in the United States Video game magazines published in the United States Defunct computer magazines published in the United States Irregularly published magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1992 Magazines disestablished in 2000 Magazines established in 2010 Magazines disestablished in 2015