According to
Gamasutra, Ziff-Davis finally pretty much folded, and sold all of 1up.com and its affiliates (mycheats.com, gamevideos.com, et al) to UGO, which is owned by Hearst. As a result, the January 2009 edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly will be the end of the road for the 20-year-old rag.
Did anyone still read EGM? Did anyone actually use GameVideos, when Gametrailers is generally far and away superior? I'm saddened because this is likely going to spell the end of all of 1up's generally good podcasts, which I will indeed miss.
Team:
We are announcing today the sale of our 1UP digital business to UGO Entertainment, a dvision of Hearst Corporation.
Over the course of the last 4 years we have built the 1UP sites into a top tier gaming digital destination. While our growth has been sharp, it has become apparent that more scale is necessary to effectively compete in this market segment.
We made the decision that the best path to putting our award winning 1UP brand and content in a more competitive position was to combine it with the operations of another publisher. We received much interest from other parties.
After a comprehensive process, this morning we completed a deal with Hearst Interactive, the owner and operator of UGO Entertainment. 1UP.com, MyCheats.com, Gamevideos.com, and Gametab.com will now all be part of the UGO Entertainment business. Many of our employees will travel with this business and become part of the UGO team.
With this transaction happening, we have also made the decision to discontinue publication of EGM. The January 2009 issue will be the final issue of the publication. With demand for print continuing to decline amongst both advertisers and readers and the content being produced by 1UP no longer available for use in the publication, it simply did not make sense for us to move forward with this business any longer.
We will continue to operate the Filefront business as a part of the PCMag Digital Network. In the coming months we will determine the best ways to leverage the scale and functionality of this digital property to expand our business position.
The Ziff Davis position in the gaming market has been significant and important to our company and the market itself. While many of our assets in the PCMag Digital Network (including Filefront now) will continue to cover this market, it's important that we celebrate all that we have achieved over the last 25 years.
Our leadership in print for decades with titles like Computer Gaming World and EGM which in turn translated into the build out of one of the leading digital gaming media assets in 1UP are prime examples of the skill, passion, and expertise of our teams.and what they achieved.
It's incredible to compare the 1UP.com of today versus that of 12 months ago. I want to thank everybody in our Game Group for their important contributions over the years.
For Ziff Davis Media, our attention and focus now shifts squarely to the PC Mag Digital Network. The proceeds from this transaction will be used to pay down debt. One of the primary objectives of our business plan is ensuring that we have plenty of room to service our debt obligations into the future, and manage for growth in what will be a challenging year in the advertising market.
While the market will be tough, we are confident our position is well aligned to where the demand is most active. We move forward as a 100% digital business with tenured brand position, and powerful capabilities to drive results for our customers. I look forward to sharing more updates in the coming weeks.
JY.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Posts
I think.
Man all those sites look the same to me. ):
Damn.
Or am I reading that wrong?
I highly doubt that many of 1up's employees will be kept around, seeing as UGO is based in New York, while 1up is in San Francisco. It may be UGO wants a West Coast office (for easier convention access maybe?), or it may be that they just want a few "high profile" 1up staffers to move up to NYC while they tell the rest of the crew "tough luck."
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Alas poor Brodeo, champion amongst podcasts.
I mean, sure, I've enjoyed things less as Jeff and Shawn left, but the podcasts have still been a good source of entertainment for me driving to work or on occasional my 4-hour car trips. 1up FM was a big improvement over EGM Live.
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The one podcast that I will truly miss ... 1UP FM. That show is far superior to the rest. I do hope Nick and Philip find a good place to go.
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This issue of EGM was the first magazine I ever read. I was five or six at the time, maybe.
I want to be a little sad about this (end of an era and all), but even Dan Hsu got off that sinking ship. This has been a long time coming and everyone knows it.
EDIT: Hell, I got interested in graphic design as a young pup because it seemed like a good way to get hired by a video game magazine. EGM influenced my entire career path because of that, and I still can't manage to be a little sad about this.
I don't really give a shit about EGM, and the site itself is terrible.
We were already coming down the mountain when Luke Smith joined Bungie. Man I remember the good old days of 1up Yours with him versus shane. After that the levels of accuracy, especially on sales, plummeted.
Though I feel sad for James Mielke, that man is an editing machine.
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Oh freaking fantastic. I was planning on downloading all the GFW podcasts and keeping those when I finally got my PC up and running again, but it looks like I won't get the chance now. :x
It would have been awesome to have a radio station in GTA IV dedicated solely to the Brodeo.
Also, over a year or so ago, I signed up for a free year of GFW. When that was shuttered, it was replaced with EGM (and strangely, they kept sending me free mags). I wonder what magazine I'll get as a replacement now, if any?
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It was a good magazine, altho like most made up about 60% ad pages
I really enjoyed the last season.
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Game fucking over, man.
Fuuuuck. I still think 1up Yours is good, and Retronauts is my absolute favorite podcast. Even if the quality fluctuates, they're still on the forefront as far as game podcasts go.
What a shitty way to end it.
Fuck you EGM. I feel bad for Seanbaby but that's about it. Then again, was he even still part of the magazine any more? Hard to tell with all the fucking ads in that thing.
Fuck you man dozens of people are losing their jobs because of this. I liked 1UP.
and even if it was, this sucks. I bought so many of these to read at school, and right around 1998 was the best time of the magazine, it was huge, all the previews were really solid, all that stuff
I will buy the last issue, no questions asked.
Print media is dead. Long live the internet!
Anyway, looking at NeoGAF (I know, it makes my eyes bleed) and the 1UP.com forums, it's a bit amusing to see how highly some gamers view 1UP/EGM. They see it as a "mature site for gamers", better than everything else. Really? Really?
Maybe in comparison to IGN or UGO or other gaming sites that I don't frequent, maybe 1UP and EGM were "better" or "more mature", but it's certainly not like the Wall Street Journal of game journalism, by any means. I guess what made it stand-out is that its podcasts were quite popular and personalized the news, previews, reviews, etc. a lot more than other venues. Hearing what certain folks thought about games and various gaming trends, is what I'll miss. Thankfully, though, there are plenty of other venues to go to (and likely 1UP/Ziff-Davis folk may be joining plenty of those podcasts).
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Well they didn't rely on the previews, reviews, interviews AND HEY HERE ARE SOME TITS formula that a lot of game sites rely on. They've also been able to stand up to some publishers bullshit.
I'll give them credit for that. As someone who seems to want to get into the whole writing about video games thing, I think they're one of the groups who got things right.
You're forgetting SHAWWWWNNNNN
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Ah right, I spelled it wrong, but Sean Malloy is gone too. Brodeo was so good. Now the person who only ever said like two sentences in a whole podcast, Ryan, is now hosting it. Kind of a funny switch.
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