Gameinformer has always had a little place in my heart, mostly just because as a child I was subscribed to the magazine via Gamestop but ultimately lost much of the magazines I had. I remember having 30-40 at one point that seem to have just been lost or thrown away which makes me really sad. Recently I have been playing games more and just to take advantage of a few of gamestop's sales I figured I would resub to the magazine and many of the nostalgic feelings I felt for it, came flowing back.
The magazine itself now is mostly crap, ill be honest, its filled with advertisements and the articles are far and few inbetween, but the point of the magazine isnt exactly to read it at this point in time. There are 100 other channels or websites I would rather get my gaming news from, but the magazine is a time capsule that I plan on looking back at in 10 years.
I only have about 10 editions at the moment, but I plan on buying many more in the coming months through ebay and other online stores so I can build up the collection. Many of the magazines that showed off fantastic titles in the past now are valuable to the person who wants to look back and see what things were like at the time. It is interesting to read reviews of what people thought about games that would end up either changing the industry or not going anywhere at all.
The 300th issue of the magazine is coming out and its definitely going to be tough to go back and pick up many of the earlier ones. I have already done some preliminary searches and I have to say its going to be harder than I thought. I was also thinking about getting a few protectors for the magazines as well because they are very easy to damage and tear. I want to hopefully get the full collection someday.
Like I said, the magazine isnt the greatest, but it is a time capsule for people like me who want to live through the nostalgia of their childhood. The magazine holds an important place for me and also for gamers who have been collecting it for some time as well. I will update you on the magazines that I end up picking up and hopefully I will be able to get many of them for cheaper than I thought. In the long run maybe ill be able to even collect them all.
-Calaber24p
Even if the magazine isn't that great these days, I don't blame you for wanting to collect something that is really nostalgic for you. Good luck on filling up your collection, man. Sounds like it's going to be tough to track them all down with so many being published, haha.
Yeah I actually just bought like 50 volumes right after I posted this. Hopefully ill show them off when they come! Its a piece of my childhood so its awesome to me.
Damn, man, lol. Sounds like you're not messing around. Hopefully that didn't make your wallet hurt too bad. For sure post them once you get em, man! Nothing wrong with showing off your nostalgia here, bud :) I gave you a follow, so if you end up getting around to it I'll be sure to check it out!
Good Luck with your collection. Maybe keep an update of editions your require and maybe crowdsource them on Steemit?
While not exactly Game Informer, you can go over to Out of Print Archive and grab some gaming publications from the United Kingdom. The magazines there are preserved with full publisher and IP owner permissions.
I was a member of the team when we were working with Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamefan (two Game Informer competitors for a bit before both went under).
I still have some earl Game Informer issues laying around - #3 or something is my oldest.
At one point I had about 500 or so gaming magazines (nearly a full set of Gamefan and Gamepro amongst them). Sadly, over the years with raising values in eBay at times when I really could use $20 per issue caused me to dwindle my collection to less than 100 issues now.