Gamest (ゲーメスト) was a Japanese video game magazine specialized in covering arcade games. Launched in may 1986 by Shinseisha and originally published bi-monthly, Gamest originated from the bi-monthly fanzine VG2 Newsletter from the early 1980s.
The magazine had first a heavy-focus on shoot ’em up arcade games before covering all genres and especially beat them all. Over the years, Gamest magazine had a plethora of passionate and talented writers. A significant number of Gamest’s early writers originated from VG2 and VG3, self published publications that focused on early arcade gaming. One of the notable graphic artists, Han, who is widely recognized for his work at Treasure, was also part of the writing team at Gamest for a certain period of time. Additionally, mangaka artist Mine Yoshizaki gained valuable experience creating various art pieces for the magazine.
The magazine had a special section called “Gamest Island” in every issue, which was exclusively reserved for reader submissions. In 1992, Gamest compiled all the Island sections that were published into an incredible book : “Gamest Island Mokushiroku”. Also every year, Gamest organized a reader-voted “favorite character” poll, accompanied by alternating sub-polls for various character categories. The results of every-poll is in this amazing book.
Gamest ran for several years until September 1999 (issue n°274) due to the bankruptcy of publisher Shinseisha. Many editors then move to ASCII (later Enterbrain) and create the famous magazine “Monthly Arcadia“.
The original Gamest team has a twitter and youtube where they debate old issue of the magazine. Enjoy ! (jp only though)