Farewell EGM: 1UP Sold to UGO/Hearst

egmI remember one of the coolest things when I was a kid was getting a subscription to Nintendo Power. The idea of getting a printed magazine each month about video games was incredible, and through the years I moved around to different gaming mags. While the Internet is a great and wonderful thing, it has slowly and inevitably contributed to the death of print media.

Which brings us to the news that broke today: Ziff Davis has sold 1UP to Hearst’s UGO Entertainment. While this means that changes are coming to one of the Web’s biggest gaming hubs, it also means that EGM will stop printing. The new January 2009 issue will be the publication’s last. On top of all of this, many employees have been fired from 1UP as well.

So, a sad farewell to a long standing gaming mag. I’ll definitely miss purchasing EGM on the occasional stop at the grocery store or at the airport. I’ve always enjoyed their features. Who else is sad to see EGM go?

Source- Gamasutra

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I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

12 thoughts on “Farewell EGM: 1UP Sold to UGO/Hearst”

  4. [quote comment=”3580″]Meh. I prefer GameInformer a lot better, they are the best gaming magazine in my opinion.[/quote]

    “Meh” is a little harsh to say about a bunch of people losing their jobs, don’t you think?

    Anywho, I think the thing that people are going to miss about EGM is that no matter what people thought of them, we knew they were honest about finishing games and about being paid off by advertisers.

    Often, they would drop reviewing certain companies’ games because that company would demand that they start reviewing them better. Also, they’re usually the last to review most games because they commit to finishing them first. They really did have a lot of integrity, and I don’t think too many other websites or magazines have that kind of quality.

  5. [quote comment=”3580″]Meh. I prefer GameInformer a lot better, they are the best gaming magazine in my opinion.[/quote]
    This is much bigger than, “oh I like this magazine or that magazine.” This could be the first step towards the death of gaming print media, which was already struggling BEFORE the recession. It also means that two of the 1UP podcasts, which are great, are gone too. There were a lot of great people that were let go yesterday, some people that have been there for 10+ years. Just show a little respect man.

  6. First off, Game Informer is ok. Not better than EGM, as Game Informer rarely gives a game a bad score. Even crappy games get 7’s from them, it seems. Also, they always focus too much on story over gameplay when previewing a title and I could not care less about a story when first learning about a game.

    I have subscribed to EGM for 7 years and this is truly a blow. They were the one magazine I could point to and say that they were journalists first.

    A sad day, indeed.

  7. [quote comment=”3580″]Meh. I prefer GameInformer a lot better, they are the best gaming magazine in my opinion.[/quote]

    Look, I’m going to refrain from calling you a total tool, because that’s not the point. The point is that EGM, 1UP and it’s podcasts were a shining beacon of good journalism in a world of shitty reviews. They were, first and foremost, JOURNALISTS, and gamers second. The writers always tried to produce good, comprehensive analysis of games, the editing staff was top-notch, and there was nothing more sublime than hearing them all sound off in the podcasts.

    So, sure, get mad at them because they didn’t give GTA IV a 10/10 score. I don’t give a damn. When the games audience gets more mature, outlets such as 1UP, staffed by talented, dedicated people, will crop back up.

  9. [quote comment=”3589″]EGM actually chose to review MGS4 a month late because they did not agree with the restrictions imposed on them. That took balls.[/quote]

    I know. They have always had moral standards that were higher than the rest of the industry. At one point, they experimented with not giving out review scores, because they are not conducive to good, thoughtful review/critique work. It’s too bad a lot of the readers didn’t like it.

  12. [quote comment=”3593″]EGM was the standard. I actually had dreams about working there.[/quote]

    They made me want to stop studying for my biomedical engineering degree. They made me seriously consider journalism. Now they’ve been bought out by the geniuses that gave us this bit of journalistic excellence: http://tinyurl.com/7ngh6b

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