Pitch Zone GameStar: Can Games Media Grow Up, Too?

Electronic Gaming Business, Nov 3, 2004

The "aging gamer" has become a familiar motif in the games industry this year, but game makers are only beginning to appreciate how this demographic shift ultimately affects the business. Statistics point to a shrinking pool of kid and teen populations, gaming's traditional core, in the coming years. A growing bubble of 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings retain the taste for video games they cultivated as children but lack the time and focus they once had for gaming.

IDG's GameStar, now in its third issue, wants to be the games magazine that follows the aging gamers through their changing tastes and evolving gameplaying behavior, and the magazine is bringing some fresh approaches to games coverage. After multiple test issues aiming for an untapped readership, "It seems we ended up with a fusion of ESPN, Entertainment Weekly, and Maxim," says editor Wataru "Wat" Maruyama. And in the process, the magazine seems to be reconnoitering different ways of bringing games media to a broader audience.

"We only cover the best, so in a given issue we cover a lot less product than the other magazines," says Wat. While other books blow out their November issues with hundreds of reviews and previews, GameStar comes in proudly with about 20 spotlighted titles. Wat is serving two main adult audiences, the former hardcore gamer who just hasn't got the time to play or even pay attention to the market any longer, and the casual gamer, who just doesn't care about exhaustive coverage.

Thus, if you want to pitch these guys for a preview or review, the game play better be good and you better give them hands-on testing. And because it is trying to track a somewhat inscrutable adult audience, GameStar also polls its own panel of core readers about the titles and genres that most interest them in order to determine which games are spotlighted. "But the most important factor is us playing the game and being able to form a good opinion of it," says Wat.

One of the surprising things Wat and Co. discovered is that the games media's obsession with farsighted previews of upcoming titles may be at odds with real consumer behavior. "It's a skewed view," says Wat. "We did research of when people are aware of a game and the majority are aware after release." And so, while GameStar is not willing to dispense with the venerable game preview convention, these previews often come only one issue before the full game review. In fact, less is more in this editorial mix, which does not include the usual newsy items in the first block of pages. GameStar may be the only games mag finally to concede the obvious, that the Web is the bigger and better source of game news against which print simply cannot compete.

Shifting Categories

Without front matter, readers dive right into a unique feature well that can run 16 to 30 pages but is not filled with glorified previews and "exclusives" on games that are 18 months from release. "Saying that we're trying to cover the best makes it hard to say we want to jump on something at a very early stage," says Wat.

The features are more thematic (violence in video games, making of ..., etc.), so to get in this mix, game makers need to pitch broader ideas than a preview. They need to convince Wat and his staff that a game really matters, that it opens up a larger story related to other games or that it represents a genuinely new wrinkle in technology. GameStar is also a good place to pitch obscure game titles with solid game play. The editors went wild recently for Namco's weird gem, Katamari Damacy, for instance.

Another consequence of a more adult audience is it allows Gamestar to be platform agnostic. "We make one assumption about our audience," say Wat. "If they are older and working, they don't have too much time but they have more money. If something strikes them, they can get the console of their choice or upgrade their PC to play it. We try to pick on the merits of the game."

GameStar also departs from the convention of dividing games coverage by platform and instead uses broadly defined categories like "Quest" or "Speed" that embrace all the hardware platforms and can contain various genres that speak to a common game playing experience. This, too, points to the more massmarket approach of music and DVD merchandising, organizing by user taste rather than by platform. Wat says initial feedback from GameStar readers about the editorial organization has been positive, though the editors continue to tweak and re-think the categories.

GameStar deadlines fall in the middle of the month, so Wat suggests reviewable code be available at the beginning of the month. Feature ideas should be pitched at least four months ahead. GameStar does include a packed CD of PC demos, trailers, patches, etc., but publishers and developers hoping to plant some assets here should pitch the staff four to five months in advance of issue date, since the CD deadline is at least a month before print editorial.

GameStar Quick Stats

Publisher: IDG

Editorial Mix: 65% games/35% DVDs, music, gadgets, home theater