History Magazine / GamePlayersMagazine

The letters page started with several running gags, with Donohue and the fans building upon each others' jokes, creating new fictional characters and personas, speaking of a "Cleansing" (and later, "The Rinsing"), and promises of world domination and violent reprisals. It was just that kind of a mag -- mostly nonsensical, and all in good fun (and vulgar taste). While ''[=GamePro=]'' was far bigger, and ''EGM'' and ''Diehard Game Fan'' got all the "legit" industry cred, Game Players was a wild and wacky book with running gags, a letters page that was 80% joke-topics (leaving the rest for actual video games), and stands out even today.

Its editors and writers moved on elsewhere -- Chris Slate has had the most success of the group; he would eventually become editor-in-chief of the now-discontinued ''Magazine/NintendoPower'', and is now editor-in-chief of ''Mac Life''. Bill Donohue, who worked with Slate at ''PSM'', still writes ''Jaded Gamer'' columns (they debuted in the ''Ultra'' era), Frank O'Connor eventually wound up at Microsoff in charge of the ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' franchise, Chris Charla is running the new UsefulNotes/XboxOne Independant Developers divsion, Francesca Reyes is editor-in-chief of ''Official Xbox Magazine'', and Mike Salmon is Director of Research and Planning at 2K Games.

** FanserviceCover: The final issue of Ultra Game Players (June 1998) featured a swimsuit-clad woman on the cover, as one of the features inside was a long-requested article about the hottest video game babes. Other fanservice-y covers include any cover with [[Franchise/TombRaider Lara Croft]], and the May 1998 cover, which featured Turok and a bikini babe hanging off him whose face was modeled after Pamela Anderson.

* IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: Their response to a female fan's complaint about Chun-Li's ShowerScene in ''Anime/StreetFighterIITheAnimatedMovie''.

''Game Players'' was a video game magazine that had its best years in the mid-[[TheNineties 1990s]]. Starting out as a seemingly-regular game mag (debuting in 1989 around the same time as ''Game Pro'' and ''Magazine/ElectronicGamingMonthly''), there was very little to separate it from the competition as far as video game magazines went, but in the mid-90s, it shifted into a more comedic, irreverent style with Chris Slate taking over as its Editor. Under Slate, the entire magazine started getting more deliberately wacky, with the game reviewers gaining personality (and faux-personality, with Bill Donohue as an evil dungeon-master and Mike Salmon as a sarcastic ladies-man).

The letters page started with several running gags, with Donohue and the fans building upon each others' jokes, creating new fictional characters and personas, speaking of a "Cleansing" (and later, "The Rinsing"), and promises of world domination and violent reprisals. It was just that kind of a mag -- mostly nonsensical, and all in good fun (and vulgar taste). While ''Game Pro'' was far bigger, and ''EGM'' and ''Diehard Game Fan'' got all the "legit" industry cred, Game Players was a wild and wacky book with running gags, a letters page that was 80% joke-topics (leaving the rest for actual video games), and stands out even today.

Its editors and writers moved on elsewhere -- Chris Slate has had the most success of the group; he would eventually become editor in chief of the now-discontinued ''Magazine/NintendoPower'', and is now editor in chief of ''Mac Life''. Bill Donohue, who worked with Slate at ''PSM'', still writes ''Jaded Gamer'' columns (they debuted in the ''Ultra'' era), Frank O'Connor eventually wound up at Microsoff in charge of the ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' franchise, Chris Charla is running the new UsefulNotes/XboxOne Independant Developers divsion, Francesca Reyes is editor in chief of ''Official Xbox Magazine'', and Mike Salmon is Director of Research and Planning at 2K Games.

''Game Players'' was a video game magazine that had its best years in the mid-[[TheNineties 1990s]]. Starting out as a seemingly-regular game mag (debuting in 1989 around the same time as ''Game Pro'' and ''ElectronicGamingMonthly''), there was very little to separate it from the competition as far as video game magazines went, but in the mid-90s, it shifted into a more comedic, irreverent style with Chris Slate taking over as its Editor. Under Slate, the entire magazine started getting more deliberately wacky, with the game reviewers gaining personality (and faux-personality, with Bill Donohue as an evil dungeon-master and Mike Salmon as a sarcastic ladies-man).

** Gamer-X was also a thinly-veiled parody of ElectronicGamingMonthly's Sushi-X.

* TheNineties: Their decade of operation. They're also a major signpost of that era, going crazy over the most bloody and violent games, getting into the start-up of the Anime movement, and using that decade's lack of censorship to make tons of dick and fart jokes.

Its editors and writers moved on elsewhere -- Chris Slate has had the most success of the group; he would eventually become editor in chief of the now-discontinued ''Magazine/NintendoPower'', and is now editor in chief of ''Mac Life''. Bill Donohue, who worked with Slate at ''PSM'', still writes ''Jaded Gamer'' columns (they debuted in the ''Ultra'' era), Frank O'Connor eventually wound up at Microsoff in charge of the ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' franchise, Chris Charla is running the new XboxOne Independant Developers divsion, Francesca Reyes is editor in chief of ''Official Xbox Magazine'', and Mike Salmon is Director of Research and Planning at 2K Games.

* BonusMaterial: Starting with the switch to Ultra Game Players, each issue included a demo disc filled with video previews and playable demos for Mac and PC.

* DenserAndWackier: The format from roughly mid-93 to September 1996.

* KillerApp: Frequent hype was common, despite a relatively-impartial viewpoint. They all but blew their wad with ''VideoGame/BattleArenaToshinden'', calling it literally the "Best Brawler EVER!" on their cover after playing the Japanese version. Though they were spot-on sometimes (''Tomb Raider'', ''SuperMario64''), things like that just look more hilarious in retrospect.

* SeriesHiatus: The main ''Game Players'' title went on one from October 1991 to June 1993.