Japan · 1986–1999
Shinseisha's Japanese arcade magazine, devoted to shoot 'em ups and later fighting games, whose annual Gamest Awards were voted by readers.
Gamest grew out of an early-1980s fanzine, the VG2 Newsletter, and was launched by the Tokyo publisher Shinseisha with an issue dated 5 May 1986. Unlike most Japanese game magazines it was devoted to arcade games, with a strong emphasis on shoot 'em ups and, in the mid-1990s, versus fighting games. It began as a bimonthly, went monthly from 1987 and appeared twice a month from 1994. Each year its readers voted in the Gamest Awards. The magazine ended in 1999 when Shinseisha went bankrupt, and former staff moved to ASCII to launch its successor, Monthly Arcadia.