Gamest

Gamest[lower-alpha 1] was a Japanese video game magazine that specialized in covering arcade games. Published by Shinseisha, it first began in May 1986 and originally published bi-monthly, later changed to be a monthly-issued magazine in the late 1980s. The magazine also featured the annual "Gamest Awards", which hands out awards to games based on user vote. The magazine had a heavy-focus on shoot 'em up arcade games, but would also cover games from other genres. Gamest originated from the bi-monthly fanzine VG2 Newsletter from the early 1980s. The magazine ran for several years, with its final issue being released in September 1999. Following the bankruptcy of publisher Shinseisha, many editors would move to ASCII and create a successor magazine, Monthly Arcadia.

Gamest
Cover art for the first issue of Gamest magazine, May 1986.
CategoriesArcade game
Frequency1986: Bi-monthly
1987-1992: Monthly
1993-1999: Bi-weekly[1][2]
FormatPaper magazine
PublisherShinseisha, Ltd.
First issueIssue #001: May 5, 1986
Final issueIssue #274: September 30, 1999
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

History

Gamest arose from the 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).[3]

On 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 beat 'em ups. 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).

Table of contents

Gamest was subdivided into the following sections:

  • New Game Japanese: 初弾 (New Game Hatsutama)
  • Report
  • Comic

Notes
  1. Japanese: ゲーメスト, Hepburn: Gēmesuto

References
  1. Gamest index of issues (Japanese) at netlaputa.ne.jp
  2. Gamest index of issues (English) Archived 2016-09-19 at the Wayback Machine at arcade-gear.com
  3. 消しゴムかけのおもひで at nsknet.or.jp


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