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Report: Game Informer bigger than Time, People and O, more circulated than Family Circle

by Alexander Sliwinski on Nov 30th 2010 5:00PM

Game Informer is bucking the death of print, increasing its audience over the past year by another 800,000 readers and topping out at a "paid and verified" circulation of 4,364,170, according to a new report by media monitoring service BurrellesLuce. The magazine is just a measly 100K-and-change subscribers away from surpassing National Geographic and landing in the top five of most-circulated U.S. consumer magazines -- and it's not even for old folks!

Published by GameStop Corp., a one-year Game Informer subscription is included with the mega-retailer's PowerUp Rewards Pro membership (and was previously bundled with its now defunct Edge card). So, yeah -- we're all subscribers. You're welcome, GameStop.

Source: BurrellesLuce

Tags: burrelles-luce, burrellesluce, circulation, game-informer, joystiq, magazines

Reader Comments (40)

As long as it beat the Oprah magazine, i dont need anything more.

It would be #5 if the AARP didn't just send out a newsletter and magazine to every single person over the age of 60 without them asking for it or not. I bet my parents are counted twice in those numbers. Both of them started magically getting them without asking.

thats because they give them out, i got a free sub with some best buy bull, then another year with gamestop edge card

That's unexpected in my opinion. Great magazine though!

Proudly not a subscribe.
Bad magazine endorsing a bad company.

@Erluti
Though there are some practices I dont agree with from GS, I think Game Informer is a great magazine, especially for the world exclusives in this day and age of websites breaking news long before print.

@doubtingthomas
Personally, I don't think it's that great of a magazine. It's like G4 crammed onto a piece of paper. Blech.
But on top of that, they are majorly a part of all the bad video game journalism. They get exclusive reviews by promising higher review scores to help pad metacritic ratings. That's why giantbomb exists. A lot of video game journalism is negatively impacting the game industry and GI is one of the worst.

What does it mean that AARP's subscriptions went down? RIP Old People...

@doubtingthomas
It means the death panels are already here!

So, I guess this means that gaming is still a niche market, and not of concern for getting the media's attention (Ie, dropping G4, but keep Auction TV)?

@Phil A

G4 needs to get dropped because it's crap all day every day.

This is what happens when you give away subscriptions for free.

Mostly, Americans should be ashamed of what we choose to pick up and read :)

@Draugdraugr

I doubt we're the only ones.

Good magazine. But I'm sure it had a lot to do with the GameStop Edge Card.

@Comic Book Guy
Who would say no to a free magazine?? specially if its about gaming. Its not a bad magazine, the best part was reading McNamara opinions.

Well, that's... depressing. Would that Edge or, hell, even Electronic Gaming Monthly could pull those kinds of numbers. But then, they don't have a convenient store tie-in promotion.

I used to subscribe to it because I thought it was a descent magazine for the price. Plus you got the Edge card with it. But now that they've swapped to cheap paper and the whole thing looks worse than newspaper print, I won't be renewing.

@xkaosu9x
Same here the card isn't even worth it I actually mainly primarily bought it for the magazine. Which I actually use to like a lot, not so much now

Oh snap!

I have no idea what Family Circle is

It makes a good toilet book. As far as gaming news or anything new ... not so much. It's a good read on the can; nothing more and nothing less.

Even though I don't always agree with those guys and gals at GI, it's a pretty decent mag. Sometimes I think they rake Nintendo a little more over the coals than strictly necessary, but they pulled a fast one this last month, giving both Kirby's Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country Returns a 9.5/10. Not bad at all.

They're probably also more entertaining than the recent incarnation of EGM. It's just not quite as good as it was before it went under. And I really wish that GMR would come back, but it's not going to happen, given that it was EBGames answer to GI pre-merger.

@Sarge
Dude, basically any Wii game that isn't by Nintendo themselves is guaranteed to be heaped with hate by GI. They're incredibly averse to new ideas unless they're popular.

IGN should make a magazine

@EDZiLLUH

No they don't.

@Bubbameister33 I think you meant to say "Yes, they doesn't."

I simply do not believe that more humans read Gi over People. It simply isn't true and not by a longshot.

Me thinks Oprah's gonna be mighty pissed.

Billionaires don't get pissed, they buy shit.

@Bubbameister33 No, they just hire assassins.

It used to be a good magazine it seems to be going down the drain as of late.
Also what is up with the way the pages are they feel so cheap and nasty. If it's so popular it why are they going cheap. Next they should go and do part of the magazine in color and the rest in black and white to cut on costs even more.
Since their obviously hurting on money or something.

This is so weird. I just renewed my subscription yesterday.

I'd been debating whether I wanted to continue or not, but I really do like their better features, and I've been getting it since 2003 (good lord, that's 7 years! Where is my youth?!) and I would miss having it if I didn't.

That's an amazing figure though. Good to see them doing well.

GameInformer has always been a pretty good magazine. I'm sure a good % of the numbers has to do with their gamestop deal where you pay like 10 bucks for a subscription and a gamecard that gives you a % off used games... I mean why wouldn't you get such a great deal?? Pretty awesome to see it's doing so well!!

I don't think many people on Joystiq would be fooled by this report. Most people know by now that Gamestop pushes that magazine to every customer that walks through the door, especially since they offer "discounts" on used games.

Better homes and gardens?
WHAT

That's awesome..I wish EGM, GamePro and GameFan would have the same success, those were THE gaming mags back in the day. I remember EGM was my bible.

I guess G.I. is decent, like the guy said earlier, it's a good magazine for the crapper. I do feel their writers at times are a little guilty of grandstanding. They'll post an editorial decrying the current state of First-Person-Shooters, yet you open the magazine to a massive COD advertisement.

GI is a good magazine published by a terrible company. Ugh, if GameStop didn't give away the subscriptions, numbers would be quite a bit lower.

Also if they didn't put such pressure on the employees and management to "get subscriptions or get written up" all those associates with multiple subscriptions wouldn't count either :p

I detest dealing with Gamestop on most days, but GI is a great gaming mag - and I don't equate the two, although I buy the mag almost faithfully and is often the ONLY reason I go in there. I actually ASKED them to sell me a subscription but they don't do that in Canada. The one thing they do have is excellent exclusives that not even the net gets, because...they're GAMESTOP and can demand that kind of exclusive content.

^And yes, I know I can get a subscription online, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Breaking News

Report: Game Informer bigger than Time, People and O, more circulated than Family Circle

Reader Comments (40)

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:02PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:04PM LaughingTarget said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:05PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:08PM Gritzor said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:09PM Erluti said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:11PM doubtingthomas said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 8:15PM Erluti said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:10PM doubtingthomas said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 11:20PM headphase said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:11PM Phil A said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 7:42PM Shiv Thrice said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:11PM Draugdraugr said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:19PM Cleric said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:12PM Comic Book Guy said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:20PM Ch1d0r1 said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:13PM gatotsu911 said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:18PM xkaosu9x said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:18PM Jawmuncher said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:24PM imadogg said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:33PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:34PM Sarge said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:53PM gatotsu911 said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 5:52PM EDZiLLUH said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:00PM Bubbameister33 said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 11:36PM Milf Biggenson said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:06PM Jack Kevorkian said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:12PM The Joy of Painting w Bob Ross said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:25PM Bubbameister33 said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 8:31PM krizoitz said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:14PM Jawmuncher said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:17PM RedRaptor82 said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:41PM Mechanism said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 6:42PM Lerkero said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 7:05PM eNriqeu said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 8:15PM rambo8 said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 8:20PM Slight of Ham said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 8:25PM Imperial said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 9:06PM Dragonclaw said

Posted: Nov 30th 2010 11:34PM Milf Biggenson said

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