The Review Crew
Electronic Gaming Monthly, more commonly known as EGM, was a gaming magazine founded in 1988 as ‘U.S. National Video Game Team’s Electronic Gaming Monthly’ under Sendai Publications. The lighthearted magazine was known for making April Fools jokes. Its April 1992 issue was the source of ‘the Sheng Long hoax’ in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior.
EGM’s unusual review scale was based on a letter grade system in which each game receives a grade based on its perceived quality. Games were originally reviewed by a team of four until the year 2000, then a team of three, and finally knocked down to one in 2008, except for the year’s ‘biggest releases’, which were reviewed by one of a pool of editors known as ‘The Review Crew’.
Each reviewer assigns a grade to the game and write a few paragraphs about their opinion of the game. The magazine makes a strong stance that a grade of C is average. Towards the top of the scale, additional awards are given to games that average a B− or higher from their individual grades; In ascending order, these awards are ‘Silver’, ‘Gold’, and ‘Platinum’.
The letter grade system replaced a long-standing 0–10 scale in the April 2008 issue. In that system, Silver went to a game with a rating of 8, Gold to a game reviewed at 9, and Platinum to a game that received nothing but 10 ratings. Until 1998, as a matter of editorial policy, the reviewers rarely gave scores of 10 and never gave a Platinum Award. That policy changed when the reviewers gave Metal Gear Solid four 10 ratings in 1998, with an editorial published half a year before announcing the shift. In addition, they gave the game with the highest average score for that issue a ‘Game of the Month’ award.
To counter ‘Game of the Month’, in 2002, EGM began giving games that earned unanimously bad scores a ‘Shame of the Month’ award, though not all issues would feature such a game as not every nominee would meet the qualifying criteria. Though the scores ranged from 0–10 on the previous numerical scale, the score of ‘zero’ was almost never utilised, with exceptions being Mortal Kombat Advance, Ping Pals, and the controversial but respected and sought-after PS2 game, The Guy Game.
Rise and Fall
In 1994, EGM launched spin-off magazine EGM², which focused on expanded coverage of cheats, tips, tricks, maps and guides. It eventually became Expert Gamer and finally the defunct GameNOW. After 83 issues (up to June 1996), EGM switched publishers from Sendai Publishing to Ziff Davis. Until January 2009, EGM only covered console gaming.
In 2002, the magazine’s subscription cost increased by more than 25 percent. While this would roughly fall in line with U.S. rates of inflation at the time, subscription renewals after 2002 would see a significant decline. The magazine was discontinued by Ziff Davis in January 2009, following the sale of property 1UP.com to UGO Networks. The magazine’s February 2009 issue was already completed, but was not published.
An announcement was made on Twitter (now X) by Michael Goroff, the associate editor of EGM’s companion website, EGMNOW, “I received word on Monday that EGMNOW has shut down, which means I’ve been laid off,” he said. The site’s owner did not release an official statement about the closure. The last published article on EGMNOW was on January 25th, 2009, and EGM would officially close.
Be Careful What You Wish For
February 2009 would see media coverage of EGM’s demise attempt to embellish the myth that the magazine was gone for good. However, in May 2009, EGM founder Steve Harris purchased the magazine and its assets from Ziff Davis. The magazine was relaunched in April 2010 by Harris’ new company, EGM Media, LLC, widening its coverage to the PC and mobile gaming markets.
The magazine would continue releasing as normal for over a year, however September 2011 would see the magazine switch to bi-monthly releases but would continue to keep the ‘M’ for ‘Monthly’ in the name. The slower release schedule would allow more content to be crammed into each issue, alongside a glossier new style for the magazine’s imagery, however the change in frequency would prove confusing for subscription holders. The July/August 2012 was missed, leading many to suspect troubles were once again arising at EGM.
With the team’s focus on themed issues and bigger varieties of content, May 2013 would see the magazine switch again to quarterly, with the May issue replaced by ‘Summer 2013’. This would once again confuse readers, with many switching to more regular publications and questioning what was really going on behind the scenes. Sadly, less frequency would mean considerably less sales, and Summer 2014 was the final issue, apart from a one-off EGM 2015 Video Game Buyer’s Guide special edition.
Relaunching a Sinking Ship
In March 2019, EGM announced that it was going to relaunch EGMNOW fully online “later this year” into an outfit that will have “a new look and a focus on long-form features, original reporting, and intelligent critique”. An advertising campaign would see the EGM acronym reinterpreted as ‘Enjoy Games More’. The relaunch went ahead as scheduled.
However, in a letter in April 2020, editor Josh Harmon announced that the site would no longer publish long-form articles, prompting speculation that the publication had shut down. Harmon edited the announcement shortly afterwards to confirm that the site would continue “some form of daily news coverage”.
What would follow was a major downsizing of permanent staff writers, while articles would continue to be posted by volunteers and freelancers. EGMNOW would not make an official statement on the site regarding the change in operations or the future of the site, however Josh Harmon would take to Twitter with troubling updates:
“Finally putting together the portfolio I should have years ago. If any of the freelancers I edited on @EGMNOW are still on this dying ship and would like to share some words about what it was like to work with me for testimonials, it’d be greatly appreciated.”
“Today sucks. My sincere thanks to everyone who helped us make this effort so special while it lasted.”
“Additionally, Michael, Mollie, Matthew and I are not presently unemployed. We’re waiting to find out more about what might be next for us, and in the meantime we continue working on Walmart Gamecenter Magazine.”
“Because there’s apparently been some confusion: As of now, EGM’s daily news coverage will continue. The features that were the focus and showpiece of the new site will not. Beyond that, I cannot say what, if anything, the future has in store for EGM as a brand.”
At time of writing, EGMNOW is still online, however their own articles have been gradually phased out. The site’s final review was of the 2023 Dead Space remake on January 26th, 2023, written by co-editor Mollie L Patterson, while the last feature post was a Ghost Runner II interview with Radosław Ratusznik, published on February 22nd, 2024.
Josh Harmon and Mollie L Patterson are currently the only two listed staff members at EGMNOW, and both are still ranked as co-editors. True to Harmon’s words, the only active area of the site is the digital magazine section which acts as a page-by-page viewer of the still-active free Walmart Gamecenter digital magazine.
