GamePro Turns 20!

The only constant in this industry is that it's always changing. Twenty years after it launched, GamePro is one of the few constants the industry can rely on. But the magazine (and website) have also undergone massive changes over its two decades, going from a garage operation run by a game executive and his sister-and-law to one of the most prestigious publications in the entire industry. How about we take a moment to reflect on the past 248 issues before plunging forward again?-Kevin Gifford

1989

The only constant in this industry is that it's always changing. Twenty years after it launched, GamePro is one of the few constants the industry can rely on. But the magazine (and website) have also undergone massive changes over its two decades, going from a garage operation run by a game executive and his sister-and-law to one of the most prestigious publications in the entire industry. How about we take a moment to reflect on the past 248 issues before plunging forward again?-Kevin Gifford

Patrick Ferrell, an executive at Nintendo third party publisher Tengen (you know, the one that made NES games with black cartridges), leaves his job to publish the first issue of GamePro out of his garage in Redwood City, CA. His sister-in-law LeeAnne McDermott serves as the first editor-inchief. The premiere issue was mainly distributed through Toys 'R' Us stores; Ferrell sold the mag to IDG Communications a few months later for its big bimonthly newsstand launch. PC World writer Wes Nihei was the first staffer they hired; he wound up sticking around for the next decade and a half. "Looking back, we can be generous and say that first issue was raw," he says. "A slab of maguro tuna before it's sliced into sashimi."

1990

It's a tumultuous time for video games-the 8-bit NES is still king (this was back when gamers cared about things like "bits"), but NEC's TurboGrafx-16 and the white-hot Sega Genesis are threatening to break the market open completely. GamePro, already selling over 100,000 copies a month, responds by ballooning in size, covering everything from the Atari 7800 to the latest in arcade machines, and generally kicking ass. It's 1990, and in one of those fateful moments that can define a magazine for the rest of its existence, GamePro introduces a happy-face-oriented rating scale for its reviews. In fact, the "smiley scale" remains so iconic that ill-informed forum trolls often think GamePro still uses it. PROTIP: we dropped smiley scores over five years ago!

1991

The SNES finally gets released in America in September, but the hottest Japanese games just aren't getting translated into English fast enough! Responding to reader demand, GamePro launches new mags devoted to 16-bit consoles and the suddenly very crowded handheld market. Console gaming was all about Japan at this point, and the GP of this era are filled with coverage of games months out of U.S. release and ads for 1-900 game-news hotlines and Japanese importers, some of which had their advertising revoked after ripping off readers.

1992

Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II, and more Street Fighter II-that sums up 1992 in GP-land. Capcom's arcade sensation dominates the letters and strategy-guide sections of every issue, with hopeful readers crying for info on the million-selling Super Nintendo port and the GamePros responding with codes to unlock boss characters and other extras. That, and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog, were the two console wunderkinds in what was otherwise a disappointing year, with the Sega CD add-on proving to be a useless space-age gadget (yeah, we gave Sewer Shark a perfect score, we're sorry) and our constant rumormongering over Sony and Nintendo's SNES CD-ROM attachment amounting to jack squat...even though it very nearly happened.