1UP sold to UGO/Hearst. EGM gone. 1up show & podcasts gone. 40 1up/EGM employees gone

[VicViper]

This is horrible. When the news first broke, I was still in denial about the whole thing. Seeing how it all unfolds now, I'm at a loss of words and totally shocked. Best wishes to all involved.

This is a sad day for gamers.

[bistromathics]

double post :/

[bistromathics]

E......B.......A *clap*

hahah

GAF != THE INTERNET. GAF != THE GAMER COMMUNITY. GAF IS NOT A QUALIFIED GAME ANALYST.

hahaha

[Zissou]

Agghh. This is shitty. I'm really curious about what Shawn is alluding to. The sooner the truth gets dug up, the better.

[Dreams-Visions]

goodbye then, EGM.

thanks for helping make my gaming experience what it was in the 90s. good memories.

gonna see if I still have any of my old mags. they'd be some serious classics. '93/'94/'95 stuff.

[RubberJohnny]

Sorry to hear this guys, now's a bad time to be unemployed in any industry.

[zewone]

I'll miss EGM. I remember when I was in elementary school that my dream job was to work at EGM. I've always loved and respected the magazine, sad to see it go out like this.

I'll never go to UGO's site.

And, I hope my boy, rock (Nick), finds himself a new job in the industry quickly. He definitely deserves it.

[BitchTits]

:(

I absolutely loved the 1up show and caught 1up yours podcast on occasion too, this is terrible news. I hope everyone who lost their jobs goes onto great things, good luck guys.

[DieH@rd]

OH MY GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOES!


Mangod is fired!!!!!!!!!! :'( No more weekends confirmed :(

[Gomu Gomu]

first three, or so, major game developers are gone, & now this. WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO THIS INDUSTRY.

[Schrade]

I'm really sorry to hear about this. 1UP Show and 1UP Yours are my favorite podcasts. I'll miss them dearly. Good luck everyone and great work.

OH MY GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOES! Mangod is fired!!!!!!!!!! :'( No more weekends confirmed :(

Actually, he quit.

[Luckyman]

53 pages? Seriously.. seriously?

[Rez]

53 pages? Seriously.. seriously?

I agree, I would've expected much more honestly

[k3nji]

such a sad sad day :(

[DieH@rd]

DAMN, so epic
http://www.christilton.com/mp3/1upSh..._Orchestra.mp3

[nny]

Oh. Terrible news to start the day. Crap. Thanks for everything guys, all the content, all the laughs, all the entertainment. I'm sure you'll all be back on your feet soon; after all, you're among the best at what you do. Thanks again and best of luck.

Fuck. :|

[STG]

53 pages? Seriously.. seriously?

27!

[K.Jack]

53 pages? Seriously.. seriously?

53? It's time for 100 posts per page man. Do it for the 1up crew.

[x3n05]

53? It's time for 100 posts per page man. Do it for the 1up crew.

I just did this because of this thread but I took it one step further and have newest posts first, power surfing ftw

[voltron]

So it seems likely that Garnett will continue 'Yours with David Ellis. I just have one concern... I hope UGO doesnt mind John coming over and participating. Without him it just will not be worth listening to.

I realise Ziff was cool with it because of Johns past association with 1up, but maybe UGO isnt as cool.

Then again maybe this fear is totally unfounded and they wont give two shits whether John is on or not. Hopefully thats the case, because a 1upyours with John, David, Garnett and maybe Jeremy (or Sam) will at least be something.

[Schrade]

Holy crap.. I'm in the process of downloading all the 1UP Yours episodes and it's looking like it'll be about 7-8 gigs total. Wow.

If no one has offered up a torrent of them by the time I finish downloading them, renaming them and adding in descriptions I may just do it. I work full time though so might not be able to get to it til the weekend.

I want to do the same thing for all the 1UP Show episodes but I fear a lot of the older show links are dead.

[McBradders]

Not a good thing to wake up to. Not at all.

All the best to those affected, I hope you can all land on your feet and keep talking to us somehow, your podcasts have been keeping me company on the way to and from work, I'll miss them terribly.

[Gazunta]

Anyone remember Expert Gamer (EGM2 for you old fellas) or GameNow? Those were the days.

My fave Expert Gamer story...

It's 4 AM and the phone rings downstairs. I stumble down in a panic, trying to think of who could have died, and answer the phone. It was the editor of Expert Gamer - Dan Leahy, I think? He told me that Che gave him my number and started asking me what I knew about Digimon. They were all hard up against a deadline and they needed a full page preview written up about the latest Digimon GBA game ASAP.

"Dan...I'm in Australia, it's four in the freakin' morning!"
"Oh! God, I'm so so sorry! I had no idea about the time zone difference! I'll let you go..."
"No no no, look, it's 4am, I can get you the piece by 7am if that's OK..."

Three hours later I submit the piece, it runs in the magazine (allegedly, I never saw it since Expert Gamer was rarely on the shelves here) and a week later I got paid - which was a marked difference to the four month turnaround I would usually have to suffer waiting for a Ziff cheque :P Was a fun way to add a magazine title to my CV over breakfast.

To this day I don't know a God damn thing about Digimon

[Visualante]

Holy crap.. I'm in the process of downloading all the 1UP Yours episodes and it's looking like it'll be about 7-8 gigs total. Wow. If no one has offered up a torrent of them by the time I finish downloading them, renaming them and adding in descriptions I may just do it. I work full time though so might not be able to get to it til the weekend. I want to do the same thing for all the 1UP Show episodes but I fear a lot of the older show links are dead.

Is putting .torrents up of old 1UP media the best idea? If people hammer the 1UP servers to download them it will be a sign to UGO that people enjoy this media.

[ShinoguTakeruKoeru]

After that pilot ep over at WhatTheyPlay that John Davison did, I wonder if he knew what was up too. ._.

If no one has offered up a torrent of them by the time I finish downloading them, renaming them and adding in descriptions I may just do it. I work full time though so might not be able to get to it til the weekend.

I know not everybody uses iTunes, but I've got the assumption that these files would add in as Music and not Podcasts to the library? I'm a stickler about these things.

[Shawsie64]

Im downloading all the brodeos atm, heres the torrent if anyone missed it a few pages back

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2154829

Even though GFW ended a while back (my favourite podcast from 1up) im still extremely saddened by this news as i used to listen to 1up yours regularly.. the end of an era. Thanks for getting me through all the long tedeous days in the office 1up! :'(

[Johnkers]

My fave Expert Gamer story... It's 4 AM and the phone rings downstairs. I stumble down in a panic, trying to think of who could have died, and answer the phone. It was the editor of Expert Gamer - Dan Leahy, I think? He told me that Che gave him my number and started asking me what I knew about Digimon. They were all hard up against a deadline and they needed a full page preview written up about the latest Digimon GBA game ASAP. "Dan...I'm in Australia, it's four in the freakin' morning!" "Oh! God, I'm so so sorry! I had no idea about the time zone difference! I'll let you go..." "No no no, look, it's 4am, I can get you the piece by 7am if that's OK..." Three hours later I submit the piece, it runs in the magazine (allegedly, I never saw it since Expert Gamer was rarely on the shelves here) and a week later I got paid - which was a marked difference to the four month turnaround I would usually have to suffer waiting for a Ziff cheque :P Was a fun way to add a magazine title to my CV over breakfast. To this day I don't know a God damn thing about Digimon

That's fantastic

Is putting .torrents up of old 1UP media the best idea? If people hammer the 1UP servers to download them it will be a sign to UGO that people enjoy this media.

If it isn't clear to them at this point, I can't imagine anything changing their mind.

[Wes]

:(

[capnsmak]

Hey guys, I haven't really read through this thread -- 50+ pages! -- and I probably won't ever be able to. But I did want to hop in here since, well, this is a pretty fucking big deal, I just lost almost half my staff, and God knows what sort of hate is flying around right now.

There's no way to rationalize this for most people, and I don't want to sugarcoat anything. My blog (for anyone that actually read all of it) was sincere -- this is a great thing for 1UP. Lord knows we need some better infrastructure and backing. As for many of the podcasts and other shows that we worked so hard on -- and the people that produced them -- obviously, not so much. And I'm not saying that's OK, and I'm not saying you should even be remotely fine with that -- it kills me (and, to be perfectly honest, even the UGO people), that not everything could be preserved.

And I'm not here to defend this. It freaking sucks. But from my vantage point, UGO did what they could to, what I consider, "save" 1UP. Obviously, all of us would have wanted to see things go differently -- most of all me, considering I just lost many of my closest friends as coworkers and employees today.

A couple of things to realize, though:

Fact: 1UP was a business that was losing money.

Fact: This economy sucks and the ad market is diminished.

Fact: Ziff Davis has been trying to offload 1UP for years.

With those sorts of factors playing against us, something had to give. Everyone loved the stuff we did, but our business wasn't in the best of shape (see: Ziff-Davis files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last summer).

My hope in all of this, over the last year or so, was that some company would come along and be able to buy 1UP -- the entire operation -- and run with it. And I think UGO had actually originally approached 1UP with those same hopes.

But the reality of the market was that no company, including UGO, was willing to sustain 1UP as it was. And that includes Ziff Davis. I hate to to break it to you, but the sad fact was that there was little hope for 1UP to continue as it had been. Not in this economy. If any company out there would have been willing to support us as we were, they certainly didn't step up.

The only company that really did was UGO, and they did their very best to continue 1UP.

So like I said, while UGO may appear like the bad guy here, in a lot of ways, they just did what few, if any, other companies would. And, from everything they've indicated to us, they are completely supportive of 1UP and its people. Believe me, they were in the office today and were just as distraught about the losses of any of these shows and the people.

Of course, that doesn't make things any better for any of us. Fact is, we -- as in, the games industry, not just 1UP -- are losing some great things today. I'm with you in mourning. But I have a commitment from the UGO guys that they -- now, actually, we -- are going to do whatever we can to help these guys out and look for ways to continue these shows with them and/or to look into possibilities for new shows in the future. I'm not saying everything will be back to "normal" as you knew it anytime soon, but I am saying there should be some good things to look forward to in the future.

But anyway, now's not the time to think ahead -- certainly not for me, at least. Right now I'm just concerned about my friends. I just came back from a night of drinks at our regular spot, where lots of the games industry showed up to show their support for the guys. Honestly, it was so great to see everyone come out for the team. While a part of me is certainly happy about what UGO/Hearst has just done for 1UP -- because, like I said, it could have been a lot worse -- today was the worst day of my life.

[Kulock]

So... about those polybags...

:(

This is a real shame, and Hearst are fools to let some of that talent go. And for all those people losing their jobs, that's just terrible. Best of luck to them, whatever they can manage.

[Zen]

- Get out a drink at 4AM
- Set 1up Orchestral Theme to 'loop'
- Sets Volume to 'Max'

-snip-

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Good luck man.

[VicViper]

Then again maybe this fear is totally unfounded and they wont give two shits whether John is on or not. Hopefully thats the case, because a 1upyours with John, David, Garnett and maybe Jeremy (or Sam) will at least be something.

It's also questionable if they will be allowed to keep the tone of the show as "mature" as it's been for all this time. It's one of the things that made Yours feel so authentic but I doubt a lot of companies are going to be OK with that.

[voltron]

Sam the only question I have is this:

What point is there in continuing 1up in this state? Youve lost the only things that made 1up so great, and now its just another games site with reviews and news. Without the people and just as importantly the podcast and 1upshow, there is nothing superior about 1up.

To be more specific, what made 1up what it was for many people is 1upyours and the 1up Show. Why should we care anymore?

[Omikaru]

I was following the news last night and I was totally devastated then, as I am now. Sorry to hear about all the cuts, and I hope all the EGM/1up'ers who got the chop land well on their feet very soon!

[Benjamin1981]

Can't wait to see Wombats first article published on 1UP. It is very sad, UGO needs to fuck off :(

[dioxys]

I'm really curious what will happen to the cast now, allthough.. Garnett, if you're reading this, keep the podcast alive for f**k sake!

[voltron]

I'm really curious what will happen to the cast now, allthough.. Garnett, if you're reading this, keep the podcast alive for f**k sake!

to all the awesome tweets for us, thank you more than I can say, and yes, there will be future confirmation of weekends about 6 hours ago from twitli

.

emphasis added

[Lee N]

Can't wait to see Wombats first article published on 1UP. It is very sad, UGO needs to fuck off :(

I'm pretty sure Wombat was let go. It seemed like it in the latest episode of the cheap ass gamer podcast, he pretty much said he wouldn't be writing for UGO anymore.

[PuppetMaster]

Sam the only question I have is this: What point is there in continuing 1up in this state? Youve lost the only things that made 1up so great, and now its just another games site with reviews and news. Without the people and just as importantly the podcast and 1upshow, there is nothing superior about 1up.

He has the welfare of the rest of the staff who stayed on to worry about. He is just trying to make the best of a bad situation. Cut him some slack.

Just throwing your hands in the air and calling it quits just because things are depressing is not something a good leader would do. He does not have the luxury of being able to cry about it at the moment like we do.

[Schrade]

Jesus. The 1UP Yours total file size is 7.22GBs total. Here's a picture of my directory:



/tear such memories.

[Rez]

Hey guys, I haven't really read through this thread -- 50+ pages! -- and I probably won't ever be able to. But I did want to hop in here since, well, this is a pretty fucking big deal, I just lost almost half my staff, and God knows what sort of hate is flying around right now. There's no way to rationalize this for most people, and I don't want to sugarcoat anything. My blog (for anyone that actually read all of it) was sincere -- this is a great thing for 1UP. Lord knows we need some better infrastructure and backing. As for many of the podcasts and other shows that we worked so hard on -- and the people that produced them -- obviously, not so much. And I'm not saying that's OK, and I'm not saying you should even be remotely fine with that -- it kills me (and, to be perfectly honest, even the UGO people), that not everything could be preserved. And I'm not here to defend this. It freaking sucks. But from my vantage point, UGO did what they could to, what I consider, "save" 1UP. Obviously, all of us would have wanted to see things go differently -- most of all me, considering I just lost many of my closest friends as coworkers and employees today. A couple of things to realize, though: Fact: 1UP was a business that was losing money. Fact: This economy sucks and the ad market is diminished. Fact: Ziff Davis has been trying to offload 1UP for years. With those sorts of factors playing against us, something had to give. Everyone loved the stuff we did, but our business wasn't in the best of shape (see: Ziff-Davis files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last summer). My hope in all of this, over the last year or so, was that some company would come along and be able to buy 1UP -- the entire operation -- and run with it. And I think UGO had actually originally approached 1UP with those same hopes. But the reality of the market was that no company, including UGO, was willing to sustain 1UP as it was. And that includes Ziff Davis. I hate to to break it to you, but the sad fact was that there was little hope for 1UP to continue as it had been. Not in this economy. If any company out there would have been willing to support us as we were, they certainly didn't step up. The only company that really did was UGO, and they did their very best to continue 1UP. So like I said, while UGO may appear like the bad guy here, in a lot of ways, they just did what few, if any, other companies would. And, from everything they've indicated to us, they are completely supportive of 1UP and its people. Believe me, they were in the office today and were just as distraught about the losses of any of these shows and the people. Of course, that doesn't make things any better for any of us. Fact is, we -- as in, the games industry, not just 1UP -- are losing some great things today. I'm with you in mourning. But I have a commitment from the UGO guys that they -- now, actually, we -- are going to do whatever we can to help these guys out and look for ways to continue these shows with them and/or to look into possibilities for new shows in the future. I'm not saying everything will be back to "normal" as you knew it anytime soon, but I am saying there should be some good things to look forward to in the future. But anyway, now's not the time to think ahead -- certainly not for me, at least. Right now I'm just concerned about my friends. I just came back from a night of drinks at our regular spot, where lots of the games industry showed up to show their support for the guys. Honestly, it was so great to see everyone come out for the team. While a part of me is certainly happy about what UGO/Hearst has just done for 1UP -- because, like I said, it could have been a lot worse -- today was the worst day of my life.

Thanks for taking the time to write up and post this Sam. Appreciated.

[The Crimson Blur]

Terrible, terrible news. I can't believe I just heard about this.

:(

[bistromathics]

I just did this because of this thread but I took it one step further and have newest posts first, power surfing ftw

*mind blown*

[Tormentoso]

Nice maybe now they can fire some of the writers on the site which are fan boys and clean up their act.

[Aaron]

--snip--

Good luck with everything ahead. I can't imagine a harder transition, and don't let those quick to doubt the future get you down. 1up survived and can still be great. I'm sure the sour feelings in this thread will be forgotten in a month or so.

[chase]

Jesus Christ @ this thread.

[Bidermaier]

1up survived and can still be great

What phase of loss are we in now? Some kind of second denial?

[Shake Appeal]

--Unbridled sense and rationality--

Thanks for that, hopefully some of the more excitable types in this thread can take this on board.

But yeah, this is terrible news affecting a bunch of talented, enthusiastic people who couldn't deserve it less.

[Rez]

Nice maybe now they can fire some of the writers on the site which are fan boys and clean up their act.

You're either young or stupid. Possibly both.

[zenbot]

Thanks for posting, Sam.

Shit sucks, no doubt. I'm really curious to see what everyone goes on to do from here, though. Simon Cox? James Mielke? There are big-picture dudes. A Giant Bomb-esque neo-1UP isn't too much to hope for, is it?!