Gamest

Gamest

Cover art for the first issue of Gamest magazine, May 1986
Categories	Arcade game
Frequency	1986: Bi-monthly 1987-1992: Monthly 1993-1999: Bi-weekly
Format	Paper magazine
Publisher	Shinseisha, Ltd.
First issue	Issue #001: May 5, 1986
Final issue	Issue #274: September 30, 1999
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Gamest was a Japanese video game magazine that specialized in covering arcade games. Gamest originated from the bi-monthly fanzine VG2 Newsletter from the early 1980s. Following the bankruptcy of publisher Shinseisha, many editors would move to ASCII and create a successor magazine, Monthly Arcadia. The magazine also featured the annual Gamest Awards, which handed out awards to games based on user vote.

Description

Published by Shinseisha, the magazine first began in May 1986 and was originally published bi-monthly, later changed to be a monthly-issued magazine in the late 1980s. The magazine had a heavy-focus on shoot 'em up arcade games, but would also cover games from other genres. The magazine ran for several years, with its final issue being released in September 1999. Gamest was subdivided into three sections: New Game Japanese: 初弾 (New Game Hatsutama), Report, and Comic.

History

Gamest arose from the early 1980s bimonthly fanzine VG2 newsletter (VG2 Japanese: 会報, VG2 kaihō) which was also called VG2 Union magazine (VG2 Japanese: 連合誌, VG 2 rengō-shi) edited by Uemura Bankita (Japanese: 植村伴北, Uemura Tomokita).

The cover of the first issue of read "Game book Gamest - High score magazine for fans of games" (Japanese: ゲ一メス卜 Gamest Japanese: ゲームファンのためのハイスコアマガジン, Gēmesu boku Gamest Gēmufan no tame no haisukoamagajin). Initially, it covered arcade games with an emphasis on 2D Shoot 'em ups. From issue 6 on, it appeared monthly and from issue 116 (1994) the magazine was published twice a month.

In the mid-90s, the magazine covered mainly the then booming versus fighting game genre. In 1999, the magazine was discontinued without a final issue due to the sudden bankruptcy of the publisher Shinseisha. Thereafter, much of the Gamest staff transferred to the publisher ASCII (currently Enterbrain) who launched the arcade game magazine Monthly Arcadia (Japanese: 月刊アルカディア, Gekkan arukadia).

Gamest Awards

The magazine featured annual Gamest Awards, which handed out awards to games based on user vote.

External links

• Gamest PDF magazine archive (incomplete)
• List of all Gamest issue contents (in Japanese)