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Ziff Davis selling 1up, EGM, rest of game division.

M

Matix

Member
cartman414 said:
Wouldn't it be funny if it were c|net? Gamespot and EGM under the same wing again.
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ezekial45 said:
They own Gamefaqs as well. Imagine the insanity!
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th_manson.jpg
 
B

bill0527

Member
Can someone shed some insight as to why EGM moved from Chicago to San Francisco a while back?

San Francisco has the most expensive real estate in the country and I can't imagine that operating expenses would be cheaper than operating out of Chicago.
 
E

ezekial45

Banned
bill0527 said:
Can someone shed some insight as to why EGM moved from Chicago to San Francisco a while back?

San Francisco has the most expensive real estate in the country and I can't imagine that operating expenses would be cheaper than operating out of Chicago.
Click to expand...

San Francisco is one of the most high-tech cities in the country. Not to mention it's apart of the Silicon Valley. So a lot of media outlets focusing on Tech is located in the Bay Area(SF to San Jose) .

Did they move to San Francisco during the ".com" boom?
 
Z

Zenith

Banned
Flynn said:
Yeah, Destructoid has it's heart in the right place -- trying to be a Defamer for games -- but few of their bloggers are up to the task.
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no, Destructoid is just bad. really, really bad. even reading ******* beats going to their site.

so is one of you going to write a response in your blog or something? if you do can you please include how destructoid claimed that their style of blogging is "too extreme and out there for 'the man' to take it" after some suit blanked them at a games convention because they just started shouting questions at him whilst in the crowd (and wearing a robot mask made out of tinfoil).
 
J

JoDark

MS Viral Marketing
I stopped reading any game mag years ago. OK, an EDGE on occasion.

BUT, the 1up show is the best thing going in gaming over the last few months. I thought it was going to fail with Che off to MS, but it has only gotten better and better. (though I miss Che and Jane).

PLEASE nothing happen to one of our fav weekly topics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
L

Lo-Volt

Member
Not exactly surprised since this has become such a difficult business for the companies that get involved in it, but I am shocked nonetheless. I didn't always like what I read out of 1UP, to be honest, but I've gotten to enjoy the site as its developed regardless. I hope the division makes it through intact and sustainable. Land on your feet, people. :)

PS Please don't get purchased by Rupert Murdoch for God's sake.
 
V

Vibri

Banned
I wonder which major media companies are left out there who could buy them?

News Corp = already has IGN
AOL = already has GameDaily
Comcast = already has G4
Viacom = already had Gametrailers.com
Cnet = already has Gamespot
 
B

bill0527

Member
ezekial45 said:
San Francisco is one of the most high-tech cities in the country. Not to mention it's apart of the Silicon Valley. So a lot of media outlets focusing on Tech is located in the Bay Area(SF to San Jose) .

Did they move to San Francisco during the ".com" boom?
Click to expand...

While this is true, its also one of the most expensive places to try and run a business, especially a business that's on the decline such as magazine publishing.
 
E

ezekial45

Banned
bill0527 said:
While this is true, its also one of the most expensive places to try and run a business, especially a business that's on the decline such as magazine publishing.
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True. Thats one of the reasons why the ".com" boom didn't turn out well for a lot companies.
 
N

Nick

Junior Member
EGM is the only gaming magazine that matters, and 1up is the only game site that matters outside of IGN. Get rid of the fat and we'll be cool.
 
M

Mr_Furious

Member
bill0527 said:
Can someone shed some insight as to why EGM moved from Chicago to San Francisco a while back?

San Francisco has the most expensive real estate in the country and I can't imagine that operating expenses would be cheaper than operating out of Chicago.
Click to expand...
The Bay area had the largest concentration of video game companies back then. Now there's a much larger number of companies in southern California.
 
D

DOBERMAN INC

Member
Damn i hope it does not effect anyone at 1up.

without the 1upshow and 1upyours friday nights just wont feel right.

lets just hope Microsoft,Nintendo or Sony is not the buyer.

Roman Abramovich FTW! :D
 
C

Chris Remo

Member
bill0527 said:
Can someone shed some insight as to why EGM moved from Chicago to San Francisco a while back?

San Francisco has the most expensive real estate in the country and I can't imagine that operating expenses would be cheaper than operating out of Chicago.
Click to expand...
I can't imagine trying to operate a video game media outlet out of Chicago rather than San Francisco. There's just too much industry press-related stuff that happens in this city. Believe me I'd probably be living elsewhere (even elsewhere in the Bay Area) but my job basically requires I be here.
 
U

UncleGuito

Banned
Ziff has made many bad choices in the past few years, this doesn't surprise me.

I liked the 1up network, it has the most character out of any of the gaming publications/sites. Hopefully it finds a good home.
 
C

chespace

It's not actually trolling if you don't admit it
How is this even news to anyone who reads GAF?

What the article essentially says is "Ziff is selling the game group. We don't know anything else." A conclusion we could have drawn from their press release over the summer. :p
 
G

Gowans

Member
I don't see anything changing for a while but I gota say im a big 1up fan, I like there style.

The 1up Show, 1up Yours & the sites news, features & blogs are always great reading
 
D

Diablos

Member
The Internet is slowly but surely killing off magazines. Especially gaming ones. Why wait for the latest issue of EGM when you can just browse a gaming forum?
 
M

Mau ®

Member
It would be a sad thing to see EGM go. I don't care much about 1up since that has never load up on any computer I use. I can count the times Ive seen the site with 1 hand.

EGM was awesome but ever since they changed to the new layout and page desing its been quite meh.

But anyway its a good magazine and I would hate to see it go. First OPM and now this.

Will GI be the only gaming magazine in the future, thanks to its killer exclusives.
 
S

Segata Sanshiro

Member
Diablos said:
The Internet is slowly but surely killing off magazines. Especially gaming ones. Why wait for the latest issue of EGM when you can just browse a gaming forum?
Click to expand...

Well, there are a lot of reasons to go with a print magazine.
- Exclusive content
- Attractive and easy to read formatting
- Portability
- Easy to flip through a large source of information
- The space limit also ensures more concise writing, often leading to higher quality writing that gets to the point
- Reading a mag isn't as hard on the eyes as reading off a screen
- No pop-up or pop-under noisy animated ads
- When I turn the page, it works every time. Not so every time I click a link!

Probably more I could think of with time, but the point remains. Magazines and websites complement each other, like EGM and 1up do. I wouldn't want to see mags go anywhere.
 
K

Kittonwy

Banned
Segata Sanshiro said:
Well, there are a lot of reasons to go with a print magazine.
- Exclusive content
- Attractive and easy to read formatting
- pottybility
- Easy to flip through a large source of information
- The space limit also ensures more concise writing, often leading to higher quality writing that gets to the point
- Reading a mag isn't as hard on the eyes as reading off a screen
- No pop-up or pop-under noisy animated ads
- When I turn the page, it works every time. Not so every time I click a link!

Probably more I could think of with time, but the point remains. Magazines and websites complement each other, like EGM and 1up do. I wouldn't want to see mags go anywhere.
Click to expand...

That's right.
 
R

Rlan

Member
Why are people not realising that the initial post is just complete bullshit? They went from "Ziff Davis is trying to make 1up and EGM look great so they can sell it and make some cash off it" to "1up is a sinking ship! Dive Dive Dive!"

What sort of idiot organisation would buy a company just to kill it? God, it's no different to the IGN buy a year or so ago. NOTHING will change.
 
S

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
The odd thing here is this is the second time that ZD has done a sale of this nature. (They used to own Gamespot till it was sold to Cnet.)
 
S

Segata Sanshiro

Member
Rlan said:
Why are people not realising that the initial post is just complete bullshit? They went from "Ziff Davis is trying to make 1up and EGM look great so they can sell it and make some cash off it" to "1up is a sinking ship! Dive Dive Dive!"

What sort of idiot organisation would buy a company just to kill it? God, it's no different to the IGN buy a year or so ago. NOTHING will change.
Click to expand...

Maybe people are reacting to the less-than-happy financial news moreso than the buyout news, or perhaps people think that just because someone buys a bundle, they won't neccessarily keep the parts that are losing a lot of money. There are many more explanations for this behaviour than a simple "Doom and Gloom" conclusion-jump.
 
S

stewy

Member
Rlan said:
Why are people not realising that the initial post is just complete bullshit? They went from "Ziff Davis is trying to make 1up and EGM look great so they can sell it and make some cash off it" to "1up is a sinking ship! Dive Dive Dive!"

What sort of idiot organisation would buy a company just to kill it? God, it's no different to the IGN buy a year or so ago. NOTHING will change.
Click to expand...

Well they wouldn't buy a company to kill it, but there's no guarantee they wouldn't buy a company kill of part of it. If 1UP/EGM/GFW are a package deal, and buyers are forced to purchase the entire thing, but they only really want the 1UP network, that puts the future of the print mags in jeopardy. They could either kill off what they don't want, or turn around and try to sell the divisions they don't want.

That scenario is in no way based on fact as far as the state of the various ZD properties, just a hypothetical.

As to why EGM moved from Chi-town to SanFran, well, basically the entire game industry operates out of the U.S. west coast, LA and San Fran. While cost of living is definitely cheaper in the midwest, it made running a magazine very difficult in a bunch of ways. I was working there during the move, and let me tell you, EGM missed out on a lot of stuff being so far away from SF. Be they publicity events, or just hands-on time with products, face time with industry players, and so forth. Normally events on the west coast meant we had to either pony up the cash to send an editor out west for a couple days (ZD has a strict policy that airfare/hotels cannot be paid for by game publishers or PR firms), or just miss out. That cash adds up over a year.

I honestly don't know the numbers regarding trade off. Obviously they have to pay their people more to live on the west coast (though you'll notice a lot of people working there live with roommates, so most of them aren't making huge bucks), and operation costs are definitely higher. But I figure the cost of being there as opposed to constantly travelling there must have, at least back then, been the lesser of two evils.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Hopefully all the 1up/EGM people make it through the eventual transition.

drohne said:
their transition to microsoft advertorial will be so subtle that you'll hardly notice the difference!
Click to expand...

wow :lol
 
F

Fewr

Member
If it wasn't for the excellent witty banter of Jeremy Parish and those other veterans I'd have long cancelled my subscription.
Click to expand...
QFT, though I don't have a subscription; I go to the store and buy it.
 
S

stewy

Member
Shard said:
The odd thing here is this is the second time that ZD has done a sale of this nature. (They used to own Gamespot till it was sold to Cnet.)
Click to expand...

It's not that odd. Various parts of what is now ZD have been sold and re-sold multiple times.
 
S

sprsk

force push the doodoo rock
You guys just wait till all the 1up editors get modship here! It's too bad were going to have to get rid of 1up yours though. That's a shame. Oh well, they will always have a seat as special guests on the gafcast.
 
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