• by Shankar Gupta , April 1, 2005

Coinciding with its 200th issue, GamePro, a popular PC and console gaming magazine based out of Oakland, Calif., announced its first major redesign in three years, with bigger game screenshots, callouts to extra material published on the Web, and a new look for their reviews. GamePro, which has been publishing for 16 years, is old for a gaming magazine, and its readers are starting to get older with it. Video games, which were once a toy for kids, are now a more mainstream entertainment source, said GamePro Editor Francis Mao.

"10-15 years ago, Nintendo, Sega Master System, Genesis--they were still toys. If you were an adult buying it, people would look at you funny," Mao said. "A generation later, the game system is an appliance. It's in the family room, right next to the TV and the DVD players. Kids still play it, but those kids who played the old Nintendo are now young adults and even old adults, like me."

The redesign of GamePro caters to the more mainstream gamer, Mao said. The larger screenshots let readers get a quick idea of what a game's play looks like, and the captions for the screenshots are often strategy tips. The reviews are fairly brief half-page affairs, with scores ranging from 1 to 5 at the end. And this mainstream gamer is interested in more than just games, Mao said.

"They accept gaming as a way of life, just like going to the movies. That's where we feel our niche is because a lot of other magazines still try to speak to the hard core group, and we do too, but we also want to be available to a mom and dad who pick it up to try to decide what to buy for their kids," and other casual gamers who have other interests, Mao said. And the advertising in GamePro reflects that. The magazine enjoys a lot of non-endemic advertising, Mao said, including various soft drinks, men's grooming products like Gillette, and Axe body spray. "Everyone wants our sweet spot--the male teen with a disposable income," he said.