Diehard GameFAN

GameFan

GameFan Volume 7, Issue 12 - December 1999
Editor	Dave Halverson David Hodgson Eric Mylonas
Categories	Gaming, Anime
Frequency	Monthly
First issue	October 1992
Final issue — Number	December 2000 Volume 8, Issue 12
Company	DieHard Gamers Club (1992-1996) Metropolis Media (1996-1998) Shinno Media (1999-2000)
Country	United States, Canada
Language	English
Website	http://gamefan.com (defunct)
ISSN	1092-7212

GameFan (originally known as Diehard GameFan) was a publication started by Tim Lindquist and Dave Halverson in September 1992 that provided coverage of domestic and import video games. It was notable for its extensive use of game screenshots in page design because of the lack of good screen shots in other U.S. publications at the time. The original magazine ceased publishing in December 2000. On April 2010, Halverson relaunched GameFan as a hybrid video game/film magazine. However, this relaunch was short-lived and suffered from many internal conflicts, advertising revenue being the main one.

GameFan's legacy extends far beyond that of its intended "hardcore" gaming legacy. The idea for the name Gamefan came from the Japanese Sega magazine called Megafan. Although it began as an advertising supplement to sell imported video games mostly from Japan, the small text reviews and descriptions soon took on a life all their own, primarily due to the lack of refinement and sense of passion. Caricatures were given in place of actual editor profile, with profiles drawn exclusively by Terry Wolfinger. This particular method of reviewing and commenting seemingly freed its editors from the creative restraints commonly associated with competing publications. It also allowed certain editors like Dave Halverson to write multiple reviews of the same game under different pseudonyms.

GameFan Magazine was well known for its extensive import game coverage and its expansive coverage of the emerging interest in anime. Another major feature that separated GameFan from other gaming magazines was the high quality paper it was printed on. Gamefan’s game screen shots were the most colorful and faithfully resembled the game graphics.

GameFan Magazine was also a champion of RPGs (role playing games). Mostly ignored by American audiences, this genre was a favorite of many GameFan staffers. The magazine's extensive coverage of the genre helped create and foster acceptance for the style of gameplay. This support came to its climax with the release of Final Fantasy VII, of which GameFan was chosen as the on-box quote proclaiming the title “Quite Possibly The Greatest Game Ever Made”.

The death of GameFan Magazine is usually attributed to several factors. The primary cause was due to the effects of a series of lawsuits which had haunted the magazine for nearly its entire run (mainly stemming from a cadre of investors that felt they were fleeced during the earliest years of the publication's run), following it through numerous corporate iterations and change of hands. It is this lawsuit that, in fact, had prevented the sale of the print magazine and its continuation as a going concern (as it turns out, the deal was virtually all but final and was derailed at the 11th hour due to the aforementioned suit).