1989-2009 - EGM is Dead - RIP

M

Megadrive1988

Veteran
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21759

Breaking: Ziff Davis Sells 1UP To UGO/Hearst, Closes EGM Following repeated rumors to the effect, Gamasutra has learned that Ziff Davis has sold its 1UP division to Hearst's UGO Entertainment, and is shutting long-running print magazine EGM in the process.

According to a statement received by Gamasutra, Ziff Davis Media has now officially announced the sale of the 1UP Digital Network to Hearst's UGO Entertainment division.

The sale includes 1UP.com, Mycheats.com, Gametab.com, and
GameVideos.com, and specific financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In association with this, Ziff Davis Media's EGM Magazine, a consumer game print mainstay since 1989, will be discontinued. The January 2009 issue will be the final printed issue.
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Sad news, I got into gaming mainly because of EGM's preview of the 16-bit consoles, this issue in fact:
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Never thought the day would come that my favorite magazine would die. Obviously print media became much less relevant a decade ago with the popularity of the internet/world wide web, and now another decade has gone by making print media completely obsolete. Still, it sucks.
 
From what I can tell, not much is left of 1up either. They're shutting down all the podcasts, both video and not, and fired up to 30 people.
 
Wow...I remember buying the very first couple of issues of EGM from TRU with articles about the PC Engine. I especially liked Quartermann's rumor section.

GameFan, Edge, GamePro...

I disagree that print media is irrelevent now because of the internet. I stil receive magazines in the mail from National Geographic, Time Magazine, Western Interiors etc. I actually enjoy receiving the hard copies. Western Interiors has an online version of the magazine but I'd rather read the magazine than the online version.
 
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This is really a shame. I guess it's true it is harder to print magazines to compete against the multitude of online sources for reviews, news, and information in the gaming world. It is hard to compete with sources that are up to date and getting lots of ad revenue from hits.

I will miss EGM quite a bit. Back in the 90's they were an excellent source for reviews and I especially loved how the staff would also put in their own score of a game as to give a different analysis of a game.

My favorite magazine that went the way of the dodo was Next-Generation. They always had excellent articles relating to the industry and the editorials were also quite good.

Gamefan was another great one where it was just a bunch of hardcore gamers going at it and making the best possible magazine they could. They also had great quality screen shots. The format wasn't so clean but damn it was something special.
 
Sonic said:
This is really a shame. I guess it's true it is harder to print magazines to compete against the multitude of online sources for reviews, news, and information in the gaming world. It is hard to compete with sources that are up to date and getting lots of ad revenue from hits.

I will miss EGM quite a bit. Back in the 90's they were an excellent source for reviews and I especially loved how the staff would also put in their own score of a game as to give a different analysis of a game.

My favorite magazine that went the way of the dodo was Next-Generation. They always had excellent articles relating to the industry and the editorials were also quite good.

Gamefan was another great one where it was just a bunch of hardcore gamers going at it and making the best possible magazine they could. They also had great quality screen shots. The format wasn't so clean but damn it was something special.
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The problem with Gamefan was they almost never did anything but rave about a game. Scores belw 90 in the reviews were almost unheard of, and previews were constantly gushing as well, As I understand all this was decreed by the head man Halverson.

It had it's strong points as well, a guerilla feel, tons more pics than even EGM had (Egm had partly gotten big by trouncing mags like VG&CE in number of pics).

Anyways, besides the obvious reminiscing about EGM that I share (they were my foundation in gaming before the internet, and I literally used to scour various stores in hopes of finding the next issue faster), of more relevance to me today is losing the 1up your podcast..that's been a part of my life for quite some time now. Guess I will have to find another podcast to fill that void if possible..

I'm rather pissed after all theyve been through, 1upyours cant do a proper send off final podcast to wrap things up. I understand people are busy and they'd no longer be allowed to use UGO's equipment, but by the nature of podcasts, how hard would it be to gather around a macbook with some cheap mics at somebodys house in their off time??? Geez. Yet according to the comments leaking from the 1upers, a final podcast would somehow be completely logistically impossible or something, I dont get it or buy it..
 
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sad....very sad....

I remember buying EGM when they went through their period of huge releases of 200-300 pages.

yes, there were lots of ads, but it made great toliet reading material >,>

they also got me hugely hyped up that the Nintendo 64 was going to destroy the PS1....

there had that one issue where they previewed like 30 games to get excited about

that one laughable screenshot of final fantasy 64 and kirby air ride kept my hope alive for a long time until reality set in :/

ps: wtf, 1up have killed their podcasts and video show? how am I going to replace that 10 hours of weekly procrastination.
 
Rangers said:
The problem with Gamefan was they almost never did anything but rave about a game. Scores belw 90 in the reviews were almost unheard of, and previews were constantly gushing as well, As I understand all this was decreed by the head man Halverson.

It had it's strong points as well, a guerilla feel, tons more pics than even EGM had (Egm had partly gotten big by trouncing mags like VG&CE in number of pics).

Anyways, besides the obvious reminiscing about EGM that I share (they were my foundation in gaming before the internet, and I literally used to scour various stores in hopes of finding the next issue faster), of more relevance to me today is losing the 1up your podcast..that's been a part of my life for quite some time now. Guess I will have to find another podcast to fill that void if possible..

I'm rather pissed after all theyve been through, 1upyours cant do a proper send off final podcast to wrap things up. I understand people are busy and they'd no longer be allowed to use UGO's equipment, but by the nature of podcasts, how hard would it be to gather around a macbook with some cheap mics at somebodys house in their off time??? Geez. Yet according to the comments leaking from the 1upers, a final podcast would somehow be completely logistically impossible or something, I dont get it or buy it..
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Yeah. That's what I liked about Gamefan. I could feel their passion for games just screaming from every last page. I remember when they reviewed Sonic Adventure and gave it like 8 or 10 pages with such beautiful pics. You're right on about the guerilla feel to it.

I've never heard the 1up podcasts but am sure I would love them if I did. I got out of the whole gaming mag, site, and craziness once Gamefan and Next-Gen stopped publication.

It would be pretty cool to start up a new gaming mag and website just to see how it takes off. The problem here is that I've got so many other interests now that if I ran it it would include artists working on different games and have full write ups about their work and how challenging it was for this game and that game.
 
I would really like Revision3 to hire some of those laid off and come up with a gaming specific site just to see how far they could take it.
 
I would pay to keep the 1up yours team together...same deal with retronauts......especially Shane Bettenhausen and John Davidson

Yes, he is abit of a troll to Wii fans, but he has such an encylopedic memory of videogame history...... had such enjoyment listening to him talking about Sega's past glories.

Surely there are enough gaffers willing to donate small amounts via paypal.

President Obama has shown how much moolah can be raised from a dedicated grassroots fanbase.
 
Dr Evil said:
What is the source of this information?
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Twitters, joystiq, gaf posts. Joystiq had a list of about 40 people let go. I know for sure that Andrew Pfister, the podcast producer is gone, as are the podcasts, this from a GAF post. Ryan O'Donnell, Matt Chandronait and Jay Fresh also said so on their twitter. Anthony Gallegos (and supposedly Ryan Scott, but I don't think anyone got confirmation from him) from GFW/Lan Party are also gone. So are Nick Suttner and Phil Kollar from 1up FM, also from twitter, as is Shane Bettenhausen, Ryan O'Donnell confirmed it on his twitter and supposedly his facebook says something to the effect.
 
obonicus said:
Twitters, joystiq, gaf posts. Joystiq had a list of about 40 people let go. I know for sure that Andrew Pfister, the podcast producer is gone, as are the podcasts, this from a GAF post. Ryan O'Donnell, Matt Chandronait and Jay Fresh also said so on their twitter. Anthony Gallegos (and supposedly Ryan Scott, but I don't think anyone got confirmation from him) from GFW/Lan Party are also gone. So are Nick Suttner and Phil Kollar from 1up FM, also from twitter, as is Shane Bettenhausen, Ryan O'Donnell confirmed it on his twitter and supposedly his facebook says something to the effect.
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Ok thanks, I was too lazy to google :)

I wonder what the new owner is going to do with 1up then?
 
Shame, I liked them during the SNES/Genesis era. Did they get to review SF4 ? Their Shen Long finally made it into the game.
 
Why didn't they scrap 1up.com instead of EGM? :( EGM was their magnus opus - much better journalism in there.

Edit: I know the answer why - 1up.com makes much more money.
 
DieH@rd said:
Sad news indeed. I will miss 1up podcasts so much... :'(
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Ditto! I was a very faithful listener. Hopefully the guys involved will keep it up regardless in some way or other, similar to the bombcast people.
 
Sad but some paper media just dont have that much right to survive. Gaming news goes fast, just like normal news (newspaper sales are down everywhere too) and with most people in the western world having a computer and more and more also getting mobile devices that can go online what is the need for a paper version? You can get your news faster and you can even check more sources on the same news given that often atleast in newspapers some news is represented in a total different way than a other paper.

Someone mention NG magazines, that is totally different. Their articles arnt outdated after 24 hours, a day or even a couple of years in some cases. Because their content is more about quality than how fast you deliver it they got alot more right to exist.
 
I'm extremely sad about this too :(

Listening to their podcasts during my commutes or otherwise had become a normal part of my life over the past 3 years or so. Both the 1UP Show and the audio podcasts. They were one of the joys in my week to look forward to. And now it is gone.
 
THe 1up site was a horrible mess , but the podcasts and video casts were amazing.

The sad thing is that many of the listeners would easily have paid $5-$10 a month for those and it would have been an easy way for them to gain back revenue .
 
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