A poem to GamePro: “How sucky can you be? Let me count the ways…”

I haven’t read an issue of GamePro since the days of the Super Nintendo. I remember being very excited to see a new issue of the magazine on the newsstand over at the local 7-11 that I had to swoop it up as quickly as possible. I would thumb through the pages reading the reviews, checking out cheat codes for some of the new games I had got, reading the letters pages from gamers whose opinions were similar to my own. Man, those were the days.

But yesterday, a friend of mine showed me the newest issue of GamePro (the “Wii Win” issue)… what the hell happened with them? The first thing that I noticed was that the magazine is about a third the size of what I remember. With all of the new stuff going on in the video game industry, how did the magazine get smaller? In the 90’s, there was Nintendo, Sega, and… that’s about it really. But now, between Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, the handheld market, and PC games… the market is flooded with titles with which to review, preview, criticize, rip apart, and hail as the almighty king. So, why less space?

But then I started to read the magazine and I realized that having fewer pages is probably for the best. The number of typographical and grammatical errors that I read in the few pages I looked at was astounding. How, HOW, can any self respecting editor allow an issue go to print with such blaring mistakes as what I witnessed in GamePro? Does the magazine even have an editor to, you know, EDIT the mistakes? Does he just sit in his office playing free video games all day and tell his writers “Yeah, this is good” without even looking over what was written? He must, cuz if not, he is the worst possible person for his job.

I also noticed that the writers for GamePro are severely elitist concerning what they do. It seems to me that they feel that most games should be played at a certain standard of output, such at high definition with surround sound. Now, don’t get me wrong. I feel that a powerful system can enhance the video gaming experience. However, to make me feel as if I shouldn’t play a certain game because I don’t have a Hi-Def television on which to view is just… well, fuck you is all I have to say. If I were to spend $600 on a PS3, $100 on HDMI cables, and $60 on a game, you will have to excuse me if I don’t have an extra $1500 to spend on a Hi-Def TV. I play a game to play the game; I don’t play it to achieve some sort of Visual Nirvana.

In summation, here are the ways in which my opinion differs from GamePro’s.
1) Video gaming should be treated as a hobby, not as an ideal for which you must sell your soul in order to appreciate in any capacity.
2) If one is to write for a magazine that is to be read by others, then one should know how to write in a way that can be read by their audience.

And let me make this one recommendation: If you are in a 7-11 with only enough money for one video game magazine, and all they have left in stock is the newest issue of GamePro, then do yourself a favor, and pick up “Field and Stream.” It’s that simple.