GameStar

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GameStar
GameStar logo
description Computer game magazine
language German
publishing company Webedia
Headquarters Munich
First edition September 1, 1997
Frequency of publication per month
Range 0.64 million readers
( AWA 2009)
Editor-in-chief Heiko blade
Web link www.gamestar.de
ISSN (print) 1610-6547

The Gamestar (short GS ) is a German computer games magazine based in Munich . It is published by the publishing house Webedia Gaming GmbH , a subsidiary of the French group of the same name. The magazine appears on the penultimate Wednesday of each month and has around 132 pages per issue, depending on the number of games currently being published. A sister magazine of GameStar in the field of console games is GamePro . The website of the same name, gamestar.de, is probably the most popular news portal for PC games in Germany with almost 75,000 daily visitors. Gamestar also operates the largest editorial gaming channel in Europe on the video platform Youtube .

history

editorial staff

At the beginning of May 1997, Jörg Langer began to develop the GameStar concept for IDG Verlag together with Charles Glimm and Toni Schwaiger . The three editors had previously mostly worked for the games magazine PC Player , which is published by DMV Verlag . The first regular issue of GameStar (10/1997) appeared in early September 1997 on a CD-ROM including a full version at a price of DM 6.90.

Jörg Langer became editor-in-chief and stayed that way for seven years. Toni Schwaiger was the one-man film studio at PC Player for the entertaining video clips that could be found on the magazine CD. In these videos, the editors mostly played humorous roles. This thought made it into the GameStar, so that a new episode of Raumschiff GameStar could be found every month on the accompanying CD .

Jörg Langer left the GameStar editorial team with the relaunch issue 10/2004, in which a new rating system was also introduced. Gunnar Lott succeeded him as editor-in-chief ; he stayed in the position until the end of 2007. From 2008 Lott reoriented himself at IDG Verlag (he became Director of Online and New Business ). He was succeeded by his deputy Michael Trier, who had already been GameStar's deputy editor-in-chief since September 2004, to the GameStar executive chair .

At the end of June 2011, the editor-in-chief was restructured: Editor-in-chief Michael Trier was now supported by an editor-in-chief consisting of Daniel Visarius (responsible for hardware), Michael Graf (responsible for games) and Frank Maier (responsible for the website) . The deputy editor-in-chief Christian Schmidt, who had previously been responsible for the games division, left the GameStar editorial team on June 30, 2011 .

After Jochen Gebauer was appointed acting editor-in-chief in May 2014, he left the publishing house at the end of October and handed over this position to Heiko Klinge in November 2014 .

Issue design changes

As of the 04/2006 issue, the version of the magazine with a magazine CD was discontinued. GameStar has also been available as GameStar XL with two DVDs since the 100th edition .

In issue 10/2006 there was a further redesign , as the publisher switched from QuarkXPress to Adobe InDesign .

Further design changes were made in the 08/2007 edition.

In March 2008, extensive changes were made to the design, structure and use of the website.

With the 10/2009 issue, the editors reacted to the feedback from readers and removed the “Service” area from the magazine, in which tests on modifications, patches and budget games were included. The offer has been outsourced to the website. In addition, the charts were rearranged at the beginning of each test category.

With the 10/2010 issue, the complete magazine layout was revised. The genre structure was dropped, there was a new table of contents and the scoring box changed again. There was also a white, blue-framed star next to the GameStar lettering on the cover.

Others

For a long time, the cult series Raumschiff GameStar was a special gimmick . Almost every month there was an episode of the series produced by the magazine's editors on the CD / DVD that came with the magazine. In the series, in addition to current developments on the game and multimedia market, the science fiction themes of Star Wars and Star Trek were parodied in an ongoing plot . In the summer of 2004, Raumschiff GameStar was discontinued and replaced by the new series Die Redaktion . Each of the films was produced by Toni Schwaiger, who had previously produced the multimedia letters to the editor in a similar format for PC Player . In 2001 and 2005, the episodes of Raumschiff GameStar that had been filmed up to that point were published in collected form on DVD and distributed through the magazine.

In August 2005 the first issue of the quarterly offshoot / GameStar / dev was published , from issue 03/2008 under the name Making Games . The rights to this magazine were sold to Computec Media in April 2016 .

On April 29, 2015 GameStar announced that IDG had sold the three subsidiaries IDG Entertainment Media GmbH, Onlinewelten and the YouTube network Allyance to the French publisher Webedia . The reason is a complete reorientation on the part of the parent company IDG, which now wants to specialize in the IT area and will therefore sell its gaming areas worldwide.

content

The main categories of the printed edition of GameStar are:

  • News from the PC computer game scene, also in a more distant sense (film adaptations), with rumors and columns
  • Previews of PC computer games that are still in development
  • Tests (reviews or reviews ) of current PC computer games (recently published or about to be published)
  • A cover story (usually as a detailed preview of an upcoming game, sometimes as a review)
  • Articles about current PC hardware components related to computer games (e.g. graphics cards or special input devices)
  • Articles, news and reports on the multiplayer scene, especially e-sports
  • Presentation of free modifications, patches and tools
  • A magazine section with letters to the editor and reports on the subject of computer games (e.g. the development history of a PC game)
  • The satire page "The penultimate"

Scoring system

A specially developed rating system is used for the game tests. It differentiates between individual ratings and an overall rating that is freely awarded. For the individual evaluations, a maximum of five points are awarded in five categories:

  • presentation
  • Game design
  • balance
  • Atmosphere / story
  • scope

As a reason, up to five positive and negative aspects are listed in each category.

GameStars

The GameStar Awards can be given optionally.

Platinum award with an overall rating of 90 or higher
Gold award with an overall rating of 85 to 89
Special awards for special services in individual categories, such as B. "for presentation", "for game design" or "for scope"

The GameStar Reader Awards have been presented once a year since 1999 . This is a price chosen by readers in several categories. Since 2005 the event has been carried out jointly with the GamePro editorial team. In 2007, the awards and associated event were renamed GameStars .

Output types

  • GameStar Magazine (normal edition without DVD)
  • GameStar magazine iPad version (via GameStar application with videos)
  • GameStar DVD from 16 years (DVD also contains demos with an age restriction from 16 years)
  • GameStar DVD from 18 years of age (DVD also contains demos with an age restriction from 18 years, in Germany only by subscription or in Austria and Switzerland also available at the kiosk)
  • GameStar XL 16+ (two DVDs, the "normal" DVD and a bonus DVD)
  • GameStar XL from 18 (two DVDs, the "normal" DVD and a bonus DVD; only available by subscription)
  • GameStar special issues

Booklet DVD

The data carrier enclosed with the booklet contains demos , videos , mods , patches , and since the end of 2004 (previously only sporadically) full versions of older computer games.

Bonus DVD

The bonus DVD included with the GameStar XL version contains additional full versions, demos, mods and videos in higher resolution .

Circulation statistics

In the fourth quarter of 2014, the average monthly circulation according to IVW was 71,220 copies. That is 2.43 percent (1,772 issues) less than in the same quarter of the previous year.

The number of subscribers fell within one year by 11.12 percent to 38,486 subscribers. In the fourth quarter of 2014, an average of 54.03 percent of readers subscribed to the magazine .

Since the third quarter of 2012, these figures also include e-paper sales. 6,720 copies were distributed via this sales channel in the fourth quarter of 2014; that is 9.43% of the total distributed expenditure. Around 78.1% of it (5,248 copies) were purchased by subscription.

The slight change between 2010 and 2011 is also due to the fact that the IVW has been adding up both the classic and the pocket format of the magazine under the title GameStar since quarter 2/2011 .

In 2001, the number of subscribers almost doubled, as IDG-Verlag took over the subscription to the discontinued PC Player magazine and GameStar was offering an edition with an enclosed DVD for the first time from issue 07/2001 - at that time still exclusively on subscription.

In 2017, Webedia deregistered GameStar from the IVW after a circulation loss.

Number of issues sold each month

Number of subscription issues sold each month

Online offer

The Forum GameStar-Pinboard (GSPB) of GameStar ranks internationally among the 150 largest Internet forums a (board). This forum mainly revolves around computers, the Internet, games and other media.

GameStar has been operating the online service GameStar.de Premium for a fee since March 13, 2002 . a. Game servers , faster downloads , special forums and, with GameStar TV, will offer news from the computer game scene twice a week in the form of editorially prepared videos.

On June 17, 2014, Premium was replaced by GameStar Plus , an expanded offer with exclusive articles, videos, full games and (since February 2017) podcast episodes. Plus members also use GameStar.de without advertising.

GameStar Clan League

GameStar.de has been operating a nationally recognized online league for several PC games since October 10, 2000 (now GameStar Clan Tournament ). Games such as Counter-Strike , Counter-Strike: Source , Pro Evolution Soccer 6 , Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos as well as Tactical Ops and Conflict: Denied Ops were played. In the meantime, however, the clan league has stopped playing.

GameStar Ladder

In addition to the clan league, the first GameStar multiplayer ranking list ( ladder ) was started with Counter-Strike: Source in September 2005 . A month later, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was added as a second game. Need for Speed: Most Wanted , Pro Evolution Soccer 5 and Quake 4 followed shortly afterwards. The ranking list, which no longer exists today, counted over 1,200 teams with more than 2,500 players in November 2006.

GameStar Podcast

The GameStar podcast was a 15 to 30 minute podcast on the subject of computer games that appeared every 14 days and was moderated by the GameStar online editor Michael Obermeier. The first episode appeared on January 18, 2007, the last, regularly appearing episode (number 70) appeared on June 10, 2010. Since then, only one special episode (see below) with a preview of the 2011 game year has been published.

Since February 18, 2017 there is a new, weekly GameStar podcast, overseen by the editors Michael Graf, Dimitry Halley and Maurice Weber. The new podcast episodes each last around an hour. Usually three GameStar employees (or sometimes a guest) discuss background topics. The podcast appears weekly. Every second episode of the podcast appears exclusively for GameStar Plus members.

GameStar Server Down Show

The GameStar Server Down Show , which appears once a week on Wednesdays and is around 30 minutes long , was moderated by Hendrik Weins and Christoph Klapetek. In the later editions, Maxi Gräff was added. The topics of the show were mostly chats about current computer games and information about the computer game World of Warcraft . The show was aimed at players of the latter in particular through its release time during the weekly update times of World of Warcraft. Later, however, the program also dealt with other well-known computer games of the MMORPG genre. For this purpose, an MMORPG was usually declared the main topic of the respective program and this was often examined in more detail by invited guests. The Server Down Show was also available on Apple's iTunes .

The Server Down Show was discontinued on March 28, 2012 with the release of the 200th episode and a reference to a creative break. No new episodes have been produced since then. Weins left GameStar in June 2013.

GameStar on YouTube

GameStar operates one of Europe's largest editorial gaming channels on YouTube with around 1.22 million subscribers. Recurring content and formats are news about game releases, what is ...? , Top lists for games, tests and reviews.

On December 1, 2012, IDG Entertainment Media GmbH (former parent company of GameStar and GamePro ) started a new project with the YouTube channel High5 . The videos were dedicated to interactive, digital entertainment and pop culture of the 21st century and were moderated by Maxi Gräff, Nino Kerl, Florian Heider and Michael Obermeier, among others. Originally William Patin, David Hain , Fabian Siegismund and Kristin Knillmann also belonged to the High5 team. These left IDG Entertainment Media and the project in June, August and November 2013. Also in June 2013, the channel reached 100,000 subscribers and by the end of 2014 it was already over 200,000. High5 was officially retired on September 28, 2015.

After the end of High5, the offshoots “Nerdkultur” (Marco Risch) and “Der Heider” (Florian Heider) were brought into being from the remnants of the High5 crew. Most of the videos from "Nerdkultur" are presented on the GameStar website. Florian Heider announced on January 12th that he was leaving Webedia, and with it GameStar , too . Nino Kerl, who already operated the “Ninotakutv” channel during the existence of High5, expanded with the special “toykyo” channel in May 2015.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.gamestar.de/news/vermischtes/3079638/gamestar_11_14_ab_2910_am_kiosk.html
  2. ↑ gamestar.de at WI. GameStar - The No. 1 magazine for PC gamers. Retrieved May 6, 2020 .
  3. ↑ The GameStar Future - Why Editorial Values ​​Are So Important. April 24, 2019, accessed February 26, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b Gunnar Lott new Director of Online and New Business at IDG Entertainment Media GmbH .
  5. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.idg.de
  6. ↑ Major personnel changes at GameStar and GamePro - Jochen Gebauer acting editor-in-chief GameStar. May 5, 2014, accessed February 27, 2020 .
  7. ↑ New GameStar editor-in-chief - Jochen Gebauer leaves, Heiko Klinge takes over. October 24, 2014, accessed February 27, 2020 .
  8. ↑ GameStar and GamePro get new owners - IDG AG sells entertainment subsidiaries to Webedia. Accessed April 29, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Article on the rating system. In: Gamestar.de. Retrieved April 19, 2015 .
  10. ↑ What are the Gamestars anyway? (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 7, 2012 ; Retrieved February 9, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gamestars2011.de
  11. ↑ An industry capitulates: Almost all games magazines are leaving the IVW after the circulation losses , meedia.de, January 27, 2017
  12. ↑ Big Board Statistics ( Memento from May 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ GameStar: Battleknight - Exclusive GameStar browser game, March 23, 2007, 1:45 pm
  14. ↑ GameStar: Battleknight Special
  15. ↑ GameStar Plus is here - Simply get more with the Plus for GameStar.de - GameStar . ( gamestar.de [accessed on June 18, 2017]).
  16. ↑ a b The new GameStar Podcast - Why we make it as it appears! - GameStar . ( gamestar.de [accessed on June 18, 2017]).
  17. ↑ GameStar - YouTube channel. In: YouTube. Webedia Gaming GmbH, accessed on May 6, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Kristin Knillmann: High5 - We're starting our new YouTube channel: These are our shows! dated December 1, 2012, GameStar
  19. ↑ Post on William Patins Facebook page ( Memento of 26 July 2013 Web archive archive.today ) of 23 July, 2013.
  20. ↑ High5 on YouTube
  21. ↑ High5 - Chronicle Photos | Facebook. In: www.facebook.com. Retrieved September 28, 2015 .
  22. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAImgiaujmk