Former Game Informer staff announced today that the site and magazine are coming back, following their abrupt closure by owner GameStop last August. The entire staff at the time of the shutdown will return, and, after the contents of its website were completely taken offline, the Game Informer site is back online too.
In a video, executive editor Kyle Hilliard says that the returning staff includes “production, design, video, editorial–everybody.” The team has also regained access to Game Informer’s social media and video accounts, and the website currently hosts new articles written during the site’s hiatus, as well as older pieces. Staff say the magazine will be coming back in both print and digital. Game Informer will have “memberships and subscriptions,” with more information forthcoming.
Game Informer was purchased by Gunzilla Games, though staff say it operates as a separate entity. In a press release, Gunzilla writes that "Game Informer remains completely editorially independent," with CEO Vlad Korolov saying,“We are proud to welcome the talented voices behind Game Informer in the Gunzilla Games family, and join their fight to preserve the heart of video game journalism in what has been a tumultuous time for the industry."
“Editorial independence has been foundational for Game Informer ever since it was started back in the 90s, and it will continue to be a sacred element of our operation going forward,” says executive editor Brian Shea in the video.
Editor-in-chief Matt Miller says that “all of Game Informer’s editorial content is 100% selected by our editorial team without any outside influence, including from the new owners. In fact, that editorial integrity is something that the new owners insisted upon as strongly as we did.”
Gunzilla’s first game is a free-to-play extraction shooter called Off The Grid, currently in early access. Off The Grid features what Gunzilla calls “an optional NFT element;” as such, on PC it’s only available on the Epic Games Store, as per Steam’s rules. Gunzilla is also developing GUNZ, which it calls in a 2024 press release “a blockchain-based digital economy platform built to allow Gunzilla and even other AAA game developers to empower players with full ownership of in-game items as tradable NFTs.” That press release also highlights funding from several investment funds dedicated to crypto, web3, and the blockchain. Game Informer's former owner GameStop also dabbled in NFTs, launching a marketplace in 2022 and shutting it down in 2024.
While I won’t say the idea of a Game Informer potentially resurrected by crypto money isn’t a bit of a bummer, I’m hopeful about the video’s assertion of editorial independence, and excited by how many staff they’ve brought back. On Bluesky, senior video editor Alex Van Aken noted that “We’ve all received huge raises and many of us long-overdue promotions,” which is certainly something you don’t hear every day in games journalism. After their rough treatment at the hands of GameStop, I’m excited to see what the team does.
