For over three decades, Game Informer has been a reliable source for gaming coverage that helped to pioneer what games media would later become. It wasthevideo game magazine, bankrolled and supported by GameStop when it was still a retailer people actually cared about.
For its entire lifetime, it has been used as a way to reveal new games with exclusive coverage on the most-anticipated releases likeDragon Age: The Veilguard,Hades 2, and so many others that it feels impossible to list them all. But after 33 years, the outlet is no more. Shuttered like it meant nothing to its parent company, as all staff were laid off and a site featuring thousands of articles was wiped from the face of the internet in a matter of minutes.
I can’t fathom how angry this makes me, and how GameStop only ever saw it as a means to promote its business and pull in customers instead of championing the medium it mistakenly claims to represent. How could you look at an outlet like Game Informer and decide to tear it down with no hesitation, putting 13 people out of work, and throwing the games industry into yet another tailspin without considering the consequences? The sad thing is, I bet on the fact it did just that, and didn’t care anyway.
Game Informer Deserved Better Than This
After a former Game Informer staffer used the site’s social channels to post their own statement on GI’s closure, GameStop nukes the account.
This, coupled with taking the online archives offline on Friday, is such flagrant disrespect for GI and its legacy. Sad to see.pic.twitter.com/Ni9yd9Y0oO
— eric van allen (@seamoosi)July 21, 2025
Staff were apparently blindsided by the news when they arrived at work last Friday, learning that they were being laid off and Game Informer was closing its doors for good shortly before the rest of the world would hear the news. Entire livelihoods were upended in an instant, with nobody having an opportunity to back up their work or grieve their job loss, as the website and all links associated with it now direct to ageneric landing pagewith a canned farewell which naively believes that 33 years of existence can be summed up in just a few paragraphs.
It must have come as a surprise,because magazine content director Kyle Hilliard said on Twitterthat they were at least 70 percent done with the next issue at the time of closure.
What makes matters worse is that when a former staffer took to the official Game Informer account to tweet out a genuine, heartfelt goodbye,GameStop decided to nuke the account completely, because god forbid the people you screwed over are given a voice. Once again, an entire legacy was upended with zero foresight, respect, or emotion. It is corporate to the most sickening degree, and speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of how vital Game Informer was to the industry. It leaves behind a void that will never be filled.
I didn’t grow up in the United States, so I only ever glimpsed Game Informer and many of its iconic cover reveals through online osmosis, and only when visiting America for the first time in 2005 did I finally hold the magazine in my hands. It was a major inspiration to chase games journalism as a career, so I could tell stories as its editorial team had, even with all the hardships it had to contend with.
They managed it, even adapting when the internet slowly but surely changed the face of journalism into one that favoured podcasts, videos, and content types that not everyone is able to embrace. But Game Informer did, and it went on to make excellent studio tours, interviews, and myriad distinct videos you can’t find elsewhere.
Game Informer remained a major player for several decades, and continued to put out some of its best work even weeks before closure with its exclusive Dragon Age: The Veilguard coverage that featured several in-depth interviews and deep dives into characters, narrative, and also mechanics that no other outlet could lay claim to.
Now, before BioWare’s newest RPG has even launched, all of these articles have been wiped off the face of the Earth with no way to recover them. It is concrete proof that the decision to shutter Game Informer makes no sense, and was made in a matter of days to save the skin of greedy corporate executives who just don’t care.
But Despite Its Closure, Game Informer’s Legacy Lives On
The outpouring of support for Game Informer upon its closure was heartwarming as writers, developers, and former staffers from across the industry gathered to commiserate and celebrate in equal measure. People talked about their favourite memories of the outlet, what pieces they will treasure forevermore, and how unforgivable it is to throw decades of work away without a second thought. We are at the whims of corporations who can burn our creativity to cinder in pursuit of profit without a second thought, but it’s becoming harder and harder to do work like this without begrudgingly accepting the boot that will soon crush you underfoot.
Fortunately for us, the people who made Game Informer so brilliant aren’t going anywhere. It has been incredible to see those laid off receiving offers of work and constant support online despite such dire circumstances, while MinnMax, an independent YouTube channel helmed by Game Informer alumni Ben Hanson, has just announceda series of videos, podcasts, and more aimed around celebrating all things Game Informer.
I’m excited to see what comes of this celebration, hopeful that it will do Game Informer the justice it deserves in the wake of its undeserved closure. The writing was on the wall for a long time considering GameStop’s ill fortunes, but closing an outlet that continues to be not only a positive voice in the industry, but a knowledgeable and nuanced one, is woefully short-sighted corporate decision-making at its most barbaric.
Game Informer deserved better. So did the people behind it and the incredible work they put out. But now so much of it is lost to the online ether, and there is nothing that can be done to salvage it. Yet it still leaves behind a legacy, one so legendary that I know we can pull something new from the ashes without a shambling corpse of corporate mediocrity weighing it down.
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