GamePro - Editorial Characters

Editorial Characters

From the birth of the magazine until issue #230, the GamePro staff went by monikers and never by their real names. When GamePro began, the magazine only had a limited amount of editors on staff, but the small start-up wanted to give the illusion that they were bigger. Therefore, they created character names, and each writer generated articles under mulitple nicknames. The monikers caught on and became a tradition, one that's continued to this day. Many of the names, according to GamePro, are a play on the personalities, interests, and/or past jobs that the real person behind the persona has, and the editors choose their own name (while some they have admitted to being just "bad puns," such as Miss Spell and Bad Hare). After the first few years, most editors picked one name they liked and stuck with it.

Once an editor left GamePro, the name was respectfully retired, although the magazine retained all copyrights to the character. The names were rarely if ever used again, unless that writer returned (as was the case with Boba Fatt and Manny LaMancha, both of whom contributed work as freelance writers after their original runs with the magazine).

In 2006, GamePro.com received a revamp, and in turn, another tradition was seemly dropped: editors would not reveal their true names, as the editor bio sections of GamePro.com may show the editor's true name (seemly in the event that an editor chooses). Also, both in the magazine (in the "Ask The Pros" sidebar of "Head-2-Head") and on the site, a picture of the editor is shown, albeit in an interpolated rotoscoping style. The Watch Dog's identity is also kept secret, probably due to the column he maintains, Buyer's Beware, and the backlash one might receive for writing the column and the scathing criticisms of game company's customer support that the column is known for publishing.