The publishing history for this special issue is complicated and unclear. The magazine was likely produced in January–February 2011, but it was not issued as a print edition until early 2012 as a subscriber perk.

Based on its content, the magazine appears to have been produced in late January or early February 2011. The magazine itself references the February 2011 issue of Game Developer (p.4), which would actually have been published in January, and it includes an advertisement for the 2011 Game Developers Conference (p.2), which started that year on February 28.

The first known public mention of this issue by its publisher was in December 2011, when it was advertised as a bonus issue "only available to new (or renewing) paid print subscribers via this offer." This promotional offer was repeated in the February 2012 issue of Game Developer (p.5).

The issue itself is intentionally undated (the official date is "Spring 20XX"), suggesting that this was meant to be a perennial bonus for subscribers not tied to a specific time period. This may explain why the magazine was not published until nearly a year after it was compiled.

Although it is possible that a digital edition of this issue was available in early 2011 to subscribers of the digital edition of Game Developer, that seems unlikely. While promotions for Game Developer: Digital Edition from early 2011 reference a "bonus issue," that language predates 2011, and there is no explicit mention of this issue on the Game Developer website until late 2011.