Culture A Deleted Game Informer Is Now Redirecting To GameStop’s Closure Statement

GameStop suddenly closed one of the most venerated outlets in video game journalism yesterday, laying off its entire staff with many being informed by a statement that appears to be written by AI.

While it is bad enough to lose your job, what the past and present writers found shortly after is that Game Informer is not just closed, but the entire website has been wiped from the internet. Not just the homepage, but every single historical link to any Game Informer story in decades now redirects to the AI “Goodbye” message.

As a writer, it’s hard to understand how devastating this is, as it’s one thing to lose your job, but to be unable to point to your past work as you try to move on elsewhere is horrible. Not to mention just the loss of thousands and thousands of great features over the years from a hugely important industry outlet. The only reason this makes sense is that GameStop is trying to cut…hosting costs for the URL? It’s a move that’s being describe by many as “evil.”



This affects not just the recently laid off employees, where the site and magazine had already been cut to the bone from layoffs before this. But now anyone who has ever written for Game Informer has seen those articles lost. There is likely no recourse for this through GameStop as they technically own that content and are unlikely to simply turn the lights back on out of the goodness of their hearts.



So, there is a movement underway to preserve what can be saved through internet archives and such, though it would be a massive project that would take ages to complete, given the volume of what we’re talking about here.

GameStop has still not issued a statement on Game Informer’s closure directly, again, only publishing a “goodbye” message with no rationale. I was able to easily recreate passages of this message in ChatGPT with a few uses of the prompt: “Write a sad goodbye message about the closure of video game magazine Game Informer after 33 years.”

• The Statement: “After 33 thrilling years of bringing you the latest news, reviews, and insights from the ever-evolving world of gaming, it is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Game Informer.”
• ChatGPT: “With a heavy heart, we announce the closure of Game Informer after 33 remarkable years.”
• The Statement: “From the early days of pixelated adventures to today’s immersive virtual realms, we’ve been honored to share this incredible journey with you, our loyal readers.”
• ChatGPT: “Throughout the years, we have witnessed the evolution of the gaming industry, from the early days of 16-bit graphics to the stunning, immersive worlds of today.”
• The Statement: “While our presses may stop, the passion for gaming that we've cultivated together will continue to live on.”
• ChatGPT: “While Game Informer may be closing its doors, the memories and connections we have built will endure.”

If you keep telling it to modify it changes the words around but all the structure is the same. Gross. Running it through multiple AI detection sites, they also all conclude it’s AI generated.

The closure of Game Informer is bad enough but destroying 30+ years of history with the press of a single button is unconscionable, and redirecting to an apparently AI-generated statement is a metaphor for the state of the entire industry. I hope someone is held to account for this, but at this point, I just don’t see how.

I’ve reached out to GameStop and will update if I hear back.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...edirecting-to-gamestops-ai-written-statement/ (Archive)

 

[Dysnomia]

I imagine there were non-journos on the staff that did things like sort through mail, clean up the office and take phone calls. It sucks that they lost their jobs. But fuck game journos. When they stopped being fun I stopped caring.

 

[A Pale Shadow]

I haven't read GameInformer since the early 2000's, and even then it was treated like a joke.

Like...gaming publications in general were just funny shit and advertisements, but they were FUN. The push to "legitimize" gaming in the mid to late 2000's was a fucking mistake and completely at odds with how the shit worked.

Nintendo Power of all things was surprisingly chill. They never lost their sense of humor and for a mag dedicated to pimping Nintendo products, their review board could be surprisingly critical.

 

[LGTV]

Nintendo Power of all things was surprisingly chill. They never lost their sense of humor and for a mag dedicated to pimping Nintendo products, their review board could be surprisingly critical.

I loved Nintendo power. Never found out about it until it was over. I actually found a few copies at my grandmothers house. It was in a bin of old magazines my father got and kept. Only upside to hoarding.

Game Informer was cool for the artwork, and for knowing what major games were dropping. That's it. I have/had a subscription. Totally forgot about it. Came included with my Gay Stop power rewards membership I was required to have to purchase a PS5 back in 2022. I keep forgetting to cancel it. I tried to log into Game Informer but I remembered I have been unable to log into Game Informer since 2022. Something happened when I made my account. Looks like I won't be able to preserve it.

While the magazine is trash I would love to have it preserved just for preservation sake. My father likes to hoard physical stuff, while I do it in the digital realm.

 

[Safir]

GameStop has still not issued a statement on Game Informer’s closure directly, again, only publishing a “goodbye” message with no rationale. I was able to easily recreate passages of this message in ChatGPT with a few uses of the prompt: “Write a sad goodbye message about the closure of video game magazine Game Informer after 33 years.”

But this is an old cliche, it's how corporations announced closures for ages. You can look up past incidents of closures and deletions on the Archive Team, way before ChatGPT. You can look up acquihire-related deletions on the Incredible Journey site, it has that name because "incredible journey" is a cliche corporations use to announce content deletions.

What part of journo output isn't exactly this garbage?

 

[GenociderSyo]

Last month they had everyone renew their yearly for 30. They are not refunding unless you contact them.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

GameStop suddenly closed one of the most venerated outlets in video game journalism

Venerated? By whom?

 

[Brahma]

lmao using ai to write the goodbye message is just mwah *chefs kiss*

Fuck journos and fuck gaming journos most of all

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

Game Informer was complete shit and this isn't exactly the gaming equivalent of the Library of Alexandria burning but how hard is it to just convert it to a static website and keep the links active? The Google ads would basically pay for the hosting and static pages require no maintenance.

This is happening more and more, where old sites, articles, videos, TV shows, etc are just nuked by owners.

Yeah, oh "haha, Game Informer was trash, fuck journoscum" but there is something larger at play here in the boardrooms of big corporations we aren't privy to, some logic they aren't sharing.

I get hosting costs are tangible, but in the grand scheme of most companies they are a rounding error, especially for text. Even the tv/movie streamers do this. They will just take down a show or movie forever, even though it costs little to leave it listed and let people stream it. That can he a ploy to get someone else to lease it, like Paramount did with Star Trek Prodigy. They had a completed Season 2 and basically said they were going to never air it, even though Star Trek was their main property. Of course then Netflix leased it so...

I think with some of this deletion, like the Game Informer one, it comes down to worries about content. Sure, you can leave something up forever and pay pennies a year to do so, but what happens in 12 years when an article from 25 years ago is dredged up and suddenly problematic? Who has time to police that? That costs more money than hosting. Easier to delete forever.

There's an episode of the tv show Community, lauded as one of it's best, where an Asian actor wears blackface (but not really) and is called out on episode, it's now deleted and unwatchable. One of the black actors from the show is vocally against the deletion too. But deleting and reediting thus has now become common. So they pulled a Doctor Who episode because it had a 3 second vocal clip of a BBC news anchor who was exposed as a pedophile, and they are going to redub it. I'm honestly surprised Paramount hasn't pulled Star Trek The Motion Picture because of the guy who played Decker.

The same holds true for Game Informer. They keep the articles up, and 12 years from now a guy who wrote 50 articles in the 90s is exposed as a pedophile, transphobe, supporter of Isreal, supporter of Palestine, etc. Now you have bad press. Best to nuke it all and not have to pay anyone to worry about it.

This is going to happen a lot more. the Eternal Present is all.

 

[DoomsdayElite]

Pink-slipping game "journalists" using AI is the unceremonious dismissal they deserve, but to completely wipe the website and articles going back so many years? Pretty wild shit.

 

[Ghostse]

And nothing of value was lost

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Last month they had everyone renew their yearly for 30. They are not refunding unless you contact them.

Who honestly subscribed to Game Informer? Like...just subscribed to it and didn't just get the Gamestop membership?

The worst thing that is going to come out of this is lost media faggots losing their shit that a bunch of previews and reviews of games that people stopped giving a shit about the second they came out are gone now, aren't they?

 

[Positron]

 

[GenociderSyo]

Who honestly subscribed to Game Informer? Like...just subscribed to it and didn't just get the Gamestop membership?

Last year gamestop seperated the two so that to get in print game informers people had to pay extra.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

View attachment 6270941

I haven't been to Gamestop in close to 5 years, but I'd probably go buy something right now if they just replied "shut the fuck up, loser" or posted the Mario pic to MovieBob

 

[robobobo]

Game Informer was always shilly garbage that GameStop employees would try to foist on you along with retarded warranties, absolutely nothing of value was lost. Whereas when I was a kid, getting a Nintendo Power in the mail would be the high point of my month. That's what an actual gaming magazine should ascribe to; they were still complete shills but put out quality content.

 

[Haramburger]

Last year gamestop seperated the two so that to get in print game informers people had to pay extra.

Sounds right, so the writing was on the wall. I did like getting a general gaming mag for free intermittently, there were some years a Gamestop card was worth it, other years not depending on what was new/trending. Occasionally the magazine had very good articles or let me know about games that weren't getting alot of press: Evolve, me & my friends' introduction to asymmetrical games, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 stood out as informative and interesting issues. I think Game Informer in general had a very different vibe than EGM, or PSM or NEXT(?) because it was tied to the resale store & unnecessary card, they knew they were disposable and could go at anytime. It was one of the least preachy mags because knew they were corporate bootlickers and their masters werent even high up the hierarchy as corporations go. Also I can't remember any of their writers being on the GameJournoPros mailing list for Zoe Quinn. Game Informer largely sidestepped the drama there.

Sad, but not enough to cry over.

 

[TowinKarz]

I keep seeing this brought up whenever some bullshit publication gets wiped and do these supposed professionals not keep personal copies of their work for their portfolio? They don’t even have to keep a filing cabinet full of printed out hardcopies they can just have a thumbdrive full of pdfs, do they really just expect to apply for a position with “idk google my name and 1up.com” in place of their portfolio?

As you make it easier and easier to keep an almost infinite amount of yourself preserved? It seems people are just less and less willing to put in the effort.

Laziness is a pathological mindset amongst the "journo" class, meaning they do very little work.

Also, they're all addicted to being hard-done-by, a consequence of the victim/identity culture they all grew up in.

Its why they got into being "games journalists" in the first place, what's a lazier way to make a living than just upload your unresearched opinions on stuff you don't like? And what better way to make enemies (and thus elevate your victim value) than doing it online?

And if you're doing it online, why keep hard copies?

That's work, and the time you spend backing up your finger-waggling means less time to actually DO the finger-waggling.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Game Informer wasn't bad when I was younger like 15-20 years ago. Wiping the archive like that is completely wrong, because one can do anything from learn how people were talking about old, now famous games on first reveal to tracking the decline of games journalism among so many other things. We're definitely headed for a digital dark age at this point.

Game Journalism died 10 years ago.

It was already shit. I remember wondering what the big deal over Goobergrope was because absolutely nobody liked video game journalists due to their constant lying and shilling and unwarranted self-importance.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

It was already shit. I remember wondering what the big deal over Goobergrope was because absolutely nobody liked video game journalists due to their constant lying and shilling and unwarranted self-importance.

I remember seeing people going "It's about ethics in games journalism" and being like "Where were you during the Kane and Lynch Dog Days fiasco?"

Even before that, I was surprised that people didn't know that games that spent money on advertising got better reviews. I thought it was obvious even when I was a kid in the late 90's, but I thought people would have put two and two together with the AVGN pointing out all the dogshit from the 80's that reviewed high.

 

[TowinKarz]

It was already shit. I remember wondering what the big deal over Goobergrope was because absolutely nobody liked video game journalists due to their constant lying and shilling and unwarranted self-importance.

It had been declining for a while since transitioning to the net from traditional print.

But GG just shined a light on how truly BAD it had gotten and how FAST the 90's gamebro reporter had been hunted to extinction and replaced by a corporate-approved diversity-box-checker who was more interested in Hillary's run for the White House than if I should drop money on a given shooter game. (Spoiler: You shouldn't, they're problematic now)

And it arguably never recovered.

It's quite a shocker to read old archived games news from, say, 1998-2005, and realize how infested with politics and agenda it all became.