A recent Game Informer cover

The fifth-largest consumer magazine in America has nearly 1.5 million more paid subscribers than People and three times as many 18-to-34-year-old male readers as Maxim. It’s made in the Minneapolis Warehouse District, and most of you probably never heard of it.

Meet Game Informer.

Earlier this month, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reported that the 33-employee videogame magazine topped 5 million verified subscribers. Even more remarkable: in a year when total consumer-mag circulation fell, Game Informer grew 33 percent, passing Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping and National Geographic.

The secret? Not newsstand sales; Game Informer sells only 5,355 single copies, according to its ABC audit. The more lucrative perch: checkout counters at GameStop retail stores nationwide.

“Like selling candy at a candy store,” associate publisher Rob Borem says.

A year’s subscription costs $14.99, but subscribers also get 10 percent off used games, a 10 percent bonus on trade-in games, and loyalty points for every dollar they spend. Borem says the sales surge coincided with GameStop's reconfigured loyalty program, though a November 2009 redesign helped.

OK, so Game Informer has better spiffs than the New Yorker. Still, the magazine doesn’t appear to be a throwaway. An anecdotal Twitter survey turned up authentic-seeming feedback ranging from “better than you’d think” to raves.

Seeking a true critic’s eye, I asked Chris Ward, formerly of the alt-weekly game blog Joystick Division, a guy not likely to over-praise.

“I personally like Game Informer,” he says. “As a hardcore, I wouldn’t read it first. It’s clear they’re in bed with some of the companies, which is how they get exclusives. But as far as their reviews go, they are tough when they need to be. Nothing seems overly glowing. And in the past year, their covers are stuff I want to frame.”

Best Buy has taken notice, starting @Gamer magazine last summer, at the same $14.99 annual price and boasting “at least $100 in coupons in every issue.” But the fledgling move hasn’t dented Game Informer’s subscription numbers, and Borem judges his competitor's look “more catalogue-like.”

So why is the country’s largest videogame magazine in the Twin Cities? According to Borem, it dates back to 1991, when the locally based Funcoland created Game Informer. Texas-based GameStop acquired Funcoland in 2000 and asked if the staff wanted to transfer. “We said, ‘heck no,’” Borem says with a chuckle.

In some ways, Game Informer operates like a conventional, independent magazine. It commissions its striking covers, and doesn’t sell the front to game manufacturers. It also sells its own ads, rather than being part of GameStop’s marketing budget.

Still, Borem concedes GameStop’s retail power gives his writers first looks at titles still in development. “Our primary asset is still pulling down world exclusives,” he says. “For example, we’ve had every ‘Grand Theft Auto’ as a world exclusive.”

Gary Hodges, another journalist who worked with Ward on Joystick Division, says such arrangements might be good for sales, but not ethics. “They’re a bit of a train wreck,” he says of the exclusives. “I feel for guys writing 5,000 words about a game 12 months before release. The game is not even done, but you have to write 15 pages about it.”

Borem casts his magazine as “an advocate for gamers” rather than game-makers. While fanboys may lust for exclusives, Game Informer reviewers have the freedom to bring the hammer down; GameStop does not dictate a review’s verdict. Most of the civilian readers I talked to found value there, though Hodges said he couldn’t remember the last time a “huge triple-A game got less than an 8” out of 10.

Whatever the journalistic merits, Borem says Game Informer proves that a well-designed title can grab younger eyeballs. While Game Informer’s website has about 1.5 million unique monthly visitors, there’s no real irony in screenheads reading a print magazine, he says — as long as publishers, like game designers, put a high value on what they produce.

“Sitting on a coffee table, desk, or kitchen counter, print is an evergreen,” Borem says. “We want to reflect that it’s more of an art, celebrating the joy of the game.”

Because Game Informer is the rare mag that has found a way to reach hard-to-reach young males, each issue features ads from major consumer brands such as Honda, Schick and Coca-Cola. In this segment, Borem says prime competitors aren’t just other gamer titles, but “lad mags” such as Maxim.

The magazine runs 100 to 120 pages per issue, with only about 40 percent ads, a lower percentage than most consumer mags. Borem says the magazine was not immune from the recession, but Game Informer’s circulation surge indicates those days are over.

[Update: Nice follow-up post from Rohn Jay Miller.]