Last week, Game Informer, the world’s longest-running gaming publication, was taken to a farm upstate by its parent company, GameStop. What started as FuncoLand’s in-house newsletter reached a circulation of 8 million readers by 2011. Just over a decade later, it would be tied to a shed and shot dead. It’s a tale we hear too frequently in these hellish times.But last March, before its laid-off staff joined the rest of our nation’s out-of-work journalists ravaged an inhospitable, growth-hungry media landscape, a quartet of former staffers took a quick tour of Game Informer’s abandoned offices in Minneapolis. In a video posted by MinnMax, an independent gaming outlet made of several former Informers, the foursome walked the desolate bullpens, studio spaces, and closets of Game Informer’s final resting place. There, the life-sized statues of the Prince of Persia and unopened Gizmondos collect dust until claimed by GameStop or wily liberators, freeing this cornucopia of gaming history.The nostalgic tour of an enviable office filled with toys, games, and legless Draculas does make for a stronger argument for “return to office” than just about any CEO’s cynical enthusiasm for “collaboration.” However, it also shows what used to be considered the norm for publications like these. In the video, they refer to Game Informer’s vault as one of North America’s greatest video game collections, offering its writers and creators vast resources for their work. What if one of the writers needs a PlayStation 2 qwerty keyboard or a copy of the LaserDisc interactive game Quiz Econosauraus? Back when Game Informer was kicking it, they had one in the Vault. Former editor-in-chief Andy McNamara said the publication kept one copy of every game they received since 1991. By 2016, the Vault housed some 13,000 games.This might be our last chance to look at one of gaming’s most impressive collections and one last chance to say goodbye to one of its most influential and enduring publications.Watch the video below or head to MinnMax’s Patreon for an even longer and more thorough look at the offices.
