Prima Games, a once very popular video game strategy guide publisher, will be shutting down after Spring 2019 based on reports from EGM Now and Variety.
Prima Games is owned by parent company Dorling Kindersley. They announced the closure for the publisher which has offices in Roseville, Indianapolis, and New York. The Roseville office is already in the process of shutting down, while the Indianapolis office will keep a small skeletal staff until March 2019. The New York office is unknown at this point.
The video game strategy guide publisher debuted back in 1990 and has since published millions of strategy guides for thousands upon thousands of games. Prima bought out their main competitor known as BradyGames back in 2013 when parent company Penguin Group merged with Random House to create a new company called Penguin Random House.
Prime ha attractive art covers with hot video game tips on the latest titles released. They covered AAA games and lesser-known titles. Prime also printed art books and hardcover strategy guides. GameStop has been a major outlet for their magazines but now they’ll no longer be required to sell guides when you buy pre-orders and other promos.
Variety reports a statement from a spokesperson via email from GameStop:
“I can confirm that the decision has been made to no longer commission new Prima Games strategy guides and the U.S.-based imprint will be discontinued in Spring 2019, we are in conversations with the Prima Games team and cannot comment on this further at this point.”
Strategy guides are pretty much accessible on-demand now with digital print. They’re obsolete with the vast amount of free walkthroughs, game tips, cheats, and other reviews all on the internet. Community-powered wikis and other guides are all available for free and instantly without a payment, so strategy guides on print have no place to compete nowadays.