“EGM folding feels vaguely like my childhood home being sold.”, read one Twitter post this morning. “My first exposure to games journalism — shit, journalism altogether — was EGM. I can’t believe its gone.”, read another. These statements echo those held by me, blogger/writer/freelance journalist Ben Gilbert, implicitly. Yesterday afternoon, after the majority of the blogosphere had signed off for the day and some of us (ahem) were eating dinner, 1UP.com announced via their website that, “UGO Entertainment and parent Hearst Corporation have acquired 1UP and its associated sites GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com, and GameTab.com.” While the piece posted on their site outlines the aquisition as if it were a blessing, they fail to mention the massive fallout surrounding it: nearly 20-year-old Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine is no more and over 30 employees were fired (including a gaggle of game writing veterans, like Shane Bettenhausen and James “Milkman” Mielke).
1UP.com Site Director Sam Kennedy spoke to MTV Multiplayer, regarding the stable of audio and video podcasts that have become 1UP’s raison d’etre over the past few years, last night, ““We’re going to try and maintain a lot of the audio and video going forward. Will we have as many shows as we have in the past? Probably not, but we have – we’ve had – a lot of ideas for future shows and we’re pretty excited about what we’ll do in the future.” And so while I’ll miss listening to the assorted personalities I’ve come to know as well as (and sometimes better than) my own friends and I’ll miss receiving my EGM in the mail each month, it’s with a heavy heart that Geekadelphia.com and myself wish those affected by the recent “acquisition” (death sentence) the best of luck in all their future endeavors. You will be missed.
(Image courtesy of Shawn Elliott)
sigh @ big business.
Breaks my heart man. I pick up EGM off the newsstands every month. Gamepro and Game Informer and no where NEAR as good as that publication. RIP.
I still got them in the mail. It’s sad. It is/was the few magazines I buy. It’s pretty sad.
GUH!?
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