The Secret Garden of Magazines

Game Informer is probably the best source for video game magazine covers in the history of the medium. That goes without saying. Sure, sometimes they prioritize exclusivity at the expense of goodness and they slap an obviously terrible game on the cover. No one's perfect. However, their parent company, Gamestop, is doing some interesting things to get a leg up on the lowly consumer.

I read somewhere that GS is prioritizing the digital version of the magazine, which you get free when you sign up for their Powerup Rewards program. They've offered a digital magazine (think less "PDF or iOS App" and more "link in an email that sends you to a website where you read these things") for a couple years now, but these days employees are instructed to assume new Rewards customers want the digital edition instead of print, and so the question is not even posed at the time of the sale. A commenter in the linked Reddit thread informed us that the company-wide policy is to assume digital for new sign-ups, but to offer digital when a print subscriber comes in to renew, but obviously not every district manager is strictly adhering to these practices.

So, to sum up:

• Gamestop wants to lighten its burden in regards to all these printing costs!
• It offers a Digital Edition of its magazine that it really wants you to subscribe to, but you have to choose either the print version or the digital version. You know, like The Atlantic.
• It's not amazingly iPad friendly. It's basically a website. So we get to hunch over our computer desks to get our video game news like it's a BBS in 1987.
• The digital/website version of the magazine has dynamic ads even for back issues, so you'll always get current advertising when thumbing through old content (another benefit of magazines squandered)
• If you do choose the print magazine because you like pretty art strewn haphazardly across your living room, there's a chance someone could switch you over to the digital version without asking you.
• No matter how much editorial freedom GS gives the staff, it's important to remember that the magazine is, itself, obviously a huge advertisement for preorders at Gamestop, with frequent pitstops for lists like the end-of-the-year TOP FIFTY GAMES OF 2011. Seriously? Top fifty? You really couldn't have narrowed that down? The original title for this piece, I believe, was FIFTY SHORT PIECES OF AD COPY FOR GAMES THAT ARE OLD ENOUGH TO BE AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE PRE-OWNED AT YOUR LOCAL GAMESTOP!
• Also, the Rewards program you buy into to get the magazine is a huge loyalty program that locks you in to a single store chain to buy pre-owned games that Gamestop itself acquired for basically pennies on the dollar in the first place. 
• This is possibly the worst retail store in history. 
• I shop there all the time because I hate myself.
• It's a longrunning joke that I am addicted to bulleted lists, but only two people even know or care so in real life it's just annoying.

This is not a big news story, but this is not a big news blog. At long last, though, here is my point: Gamestop has created a publication that you can only get by walking into a store already knowing that it exists. You have to go in and ask specifically for the print version if you want it. There is no pathway from not knowing about the print version of GI to buying the print version of GI. What is the only area of print media that shares this business model?

That's right:

Obviously this is meant to represent those behind-the-counter racks that I'm not sure they make anymore.

The porn industry has survived this way since way before we were all born. The only way you could walk out of that corner liquor store with the new issue of ALL OF THE ASSES was if you already knew it was there before you walked in the door. 

However, I don't really believe that this illustrates some kind of new corporate greed that can be compared to shameful habits like pornography. I'm just not that lucky.