Hard ceiling on monthly sponsored output. Below the cap, sponsored pieces are flagged with a permanent banner.
Vol. XVI · Issue 04 · Masthead
Established 2009 · Relaunched 2014 · San Francisco
Inside the Newsroom
About the desk that finishes the game.
Game Quarters is the independent gaming publication that reviews a game only after the credits roll — frame-rate tested across five hardware configurations, scored on a public 100-point rubric, and read by 1.2 million people across 94 countries every month.
Founded in 2009 as a print-and-pixel fanzine in a 200-square-foot San Francisco office. Relaunched as a digital-first daily in 2014. Still independent, still reader-funded, still allergic to embargo theater.
1.2M
Monthly readers
94
Countries reached
218K
Daily Drop subs
14,200+
Archived reviews
Editorial Creed
We finish the game. Then we tell you what we think.
The trade has a habit of shipping reviews at 2,000 words and calling it journalism. We think the average reader deserves better — a verdict written by someone who has actually played to the credits, on hardware that resembles the one sitting under their TV, with a score that doesn't collapse into a vibes-based thumbs-up.
Game Quarters exists for the reader who is about to spend sixty dollars and a weekend on a game, and wants to know whether the writer spent the same. We do not publish preview-as-review, we do not pass off hands-on demos as finished verdicts, and we do not run sponsored coverage of a game while pretending the deal didn't happen.
What we will do: take the time. Our reviews average 2,400 words — almost four times the industry median — because the games are longer than the deadlines the trade has learned to accept. Our hardware team tests on five configurations, minimum, and publishes the frame-rate telemetry in the body of the review, not in a footnote. Our launch coverage goes live at 9:00 AM ET, not at whatever hour the platform holder's PR shop drips the embargo. We say no to roughly 92% of the sponsored briefs that land in our inbox, because the cap exists for a reason.
If that sounds stubborn, good. The publication was built on stubbornness — a fanzine in 2009, a daily in 2014, a newsroom of 38 full-time staff and 14 contributing editors in 2025 — and the stubbornness is the only thing standing between a reader and a review that was finished for time, not finished for them.
— The Editors, San Francisco
By the Numbers
Independence by the numbers.
Six figures that don't need adjectives. Every one of these is audited, footnoted, and verifiable.
Independent auditor's score on review authenticity and disclosure consistency. Highest in our coverage tier.
Full-time critics. No freelancers ghost-writing verdicts. No AI-generated reviews. Ever.
Across 94 countries, with the top five being the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Australia.
218,000
The Daily Drop newsletter subs · 42% avg open rate
38 / 14
Full-time staff · Contributing editors
312K
YouTube subs · 48M lifetime views
9,400+
Hardware articles archived
The Desk
38 full-time staff. 14 contributing editors. One newsroom.
A partial masthead of the people whose bylines run on every review. Click a desk to read recent work.
Reviews Desk · Editor-in-Chief
Maren Okafor
Sets the Quarters Score rubric and signs off on every 90+ verdict. Twelve years on the desk, formerly of a now-defunct print monthly.
Hardware Desk · Lead Analyst
Davin Reyes
Runs the five-config telemetry pipeline. If a frame-time graph made it into a review, he is the reason the line is honest.
Esports Desk · Lead Correspondent
Theo Iwasaki
Former competitive player turned writer. Covers the leagues the trade ignores and the bracket math nobody else will read past the headline.
Indie Spotlight · Editor
Pia Halvorsen
Runs the Indie Spotlight program, which has featured 640+ titles and produced an average 38× wishlist lift for pre-launch coverage.
Methodology
How the Quarters Score is built — and what we won't do.
Three commitments that make the number on the badge defensible.
-
01
The 100-point Quarters Score, broken four ways.
Every review ships with four sub-scores — Fun, Value, Performance, Longevity — visible to the reader, not buried in an appendix. The headline number is a weighted average, but you can see how each axis moved and disagree with the weighting in public.
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02
Five-config telemetry, every PC and console review.
No "plays well" hand-waving. Every hardware-touching review runs through at least five configurations — minimum-spec, recommended-spec, the lead reviewer's personal rig, a current-gen console, and a handheld where applicable — with frame-rate and frame-time data published in-body.
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03
The 8% sponsored cap, written into the masthead.
Sponsored content is hard-capped at 8% of monthly output. Pieces that fall under the cap are still flagged with a permanent sponsor banner and disclosed in-line. If a month exceeds 8%, the editor-in-Chief publishes the number publicly the following Monday. We have never exceeded the cap.
2024 Digital Media Awards · Best Gaming Publication
“Game Quarters is the rare gaming outlet that treats the reader's wallet the way it treats its own — with paperwork. The Quarters Score is the most defensible rating system in trade publishing, and the newsroom's refusal to bend its 8% sponsored cap is a structural commitment to independence, not a marketing line.”
— Digital Media Awards jury citation, March 2024
2024
Best Gaming Publication
Digital Media Awards
2023
Best Review Site · Finalist
Critics' Choice Gaming Honors
2025
96% Independence Rating
ReviewMeta Audit, Q3
Press, partnerships, corrections.
- Editorial inquiries[email protected]
- Newsroom phone+1 (415) 555-0142
- Mailing address414 Bryant Street, Suite 220, San Francisco, CA 94107