Prima Games

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Prima Games
Parent company
Founded1990; 35 years ago (1990)
FounderBen Dominitz
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationShreveport, Louisiana, U.S.
Publication typesBooks
Fiction genresVideo game strategy guides
Official websiteprimagames.com

Prima Games is a website owned by Gamurs that covers video game news and tips. Founded in 1990, it was formerly a publishing company of print and digital strategy guides for video games. Random House acquired the company in 2001. In 2015, Prima Games merged with BradyGames, an imprint of DK, where it continued to operate under the Prima name. In 2019, DK announced that Prima Games would cease the production of strategy guides, later selling the company to Asteri Holdings the same year. where it ceased the publication of strategy guides.[1] Gamurs acquired Prima Games in 2022.

History

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Prima Publishing was a small publisher working out of a residential-style home office in Roseville, California when in 1990, its owner, Ben Dominitz, contracted with author Rusel DeMaria to create a video game strategy guide imprint, initially called "The Secrets of the Games". At the time, DeMaria was senior editor for PC Games magazine and on the staff of GamePro. The initial contract called for five books—the first ones being Nintendo Games Secrets, Sega Genesis Games Secrets, Turbografx Games Secrets, Game Boy Games Secrets, and The Official Lucasfilm Games Air Combat Strategies Book.[citation needed]

Notable titles included Myst: The Official Strategy Guide, which sold in excess of 1.25 million copies in all versions; The 7th Guest: The Official Strategy Guide; X-Wing: The Official Strategy Guide; TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide; Secret of Mana Game Secrets; Prince of Persia: The Official Strategy Guide; a special Sonic the Hedgehog book for Sega; and two Earthworm Jim strategy guides. DeMaria served as the principal author and creative director of Secrets of the Games between 1990 and 1996. He also was the editor on several books by other authors.[citation needed]

Prima Games, originally an imprint of Prima Communications, was acquired along with its parent company by Random House in 2001.[2]

In 2005, Prima introduced electronic distribution of digital gaming guides.[3]

In 2006, Prima Games undertook an effort to improve the quality of MMORPG strategy guides. Historically those had largely consisted of charts of data, maps, and basic instructions. What they were lacking was expert strategy content. Prima worked with the online gaming community known as The Syndicate, who was very large, well known, and well connected with developers.[4] That partnership resulted in a shift in how strategy guides were written. They began to be less of a data dump and more of a deep strategy. Examples of this can be seen in the LOTRO, Pirates of the Burning Seas,[5] Vanguard, Warhammer Online, and other similar guides from 2006 through 2009.

Prima entered a partnership with Nintendo in 2007, creating several official game guides over the years (such as for Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Super Mario Odyssey). They contained gameplay tips, walkthroughs, and canon lore. Some of these even featured never-before-seen concept art.[6]

In 2009, Prima Games decided to take the expert strategy concept an additional step. First, the company hired The Syndicate (its own independent studio) in place of a specific author. The guides would be written from the ground up solely by The Syndicate. They filled the role of writer, author, project management, and editor. Second, the scope of the guides they worked on was expanded from just MMOs to include FPS, RTS, and RPG games.

In 2010, Prima started selling its strategy guides on Steam.

Prima worked with developers directly to create guides like Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar.[7]

In 2013, Prima's parent company Random House merged with Penguin Group, owner of competing strategy guide imprint BradyGames, to form Penguin Random House. On June 1, 2015, it was announced that the two imprints would merge and continue to operate solely under the Prima Games brand.[8] Penguin Random House announced in November 2018 that it decided to close Prima Games by Q2 2019.[9] However, by March 14, 2019, the division was acquired by Asteri Holdings, which will shutter the print operations and instead focus on gaming tips on the Prima Games website, as well as expanding into gaming news.[10] The previously-published digital strategy guides were migrated to a new system, but they were taken down in November 2024 due to the site falling out of use.[11] The company was acquired by Gamurs in January 2022.[12]

References

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  1. ^ "Asteri acquires Prima Games". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2019-04-23.
  2. ^ Milliot, Jim (April 2, 2001). "Random House to Acquire Prima Communications". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2025-08-21.
  3. ^ "IGN's Direct2Drive to Offer Downloadable Prima Guides". IGN. Archived from the original on 2007-02-03. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  4. ^ "Part Of The Author Team". Prima Games. Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
  5. ^ "Pirates Press Release". Prima Games. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
  6. ^ Nintendo Power Magazine (Internet Archive: Wayback Machine)
  7. ^ Snider, Mike (December 9, 2004). "Strategy guides are as hot as video games". USA Today. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  8. ^ "Two big video game strategy guide makers become one". Polygon. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
  9. ^ Slead, Evan (2018-11-08). "Strategy guide publisher Prima Games is shutting down". Electronic Gaming Monthly. Archived from the original on 2018-11-09. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  10. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (March 14, 2019). "Asteri acquires Prima Games". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  11. ^ "Where are my eGuides?". Prima Games. 2024-11-15. Retrieved 2025-05-19.
  12. ^ "GAMURS Group acquires PRIMA Games". GAMURS Group. Retrieved 2022-12-13.
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