1UP Editor: "Today was the worst day of my life"

By Gamezine Staff

Video games website 1UP.com has been sold by Ziff Davis Media, resulting in a cut of thirty jobs. The website's editorial director calls it the worst day of his life.

Rumours of the 1UP Network's sale have been rife, and today it was announced that Ziff Davis Media had sold it to UGO Entertainment. The new owners have decided to scale back the company, cutting jobs and scrapping print magazine EGM.

The sale includes 1UP.com, Mycheats.com, Gametab.com, and GameVideos.com and EGM's January 2009 issue will be its last.

Ziff Davis' CEO Jason Young comments;

"We believe this is a smart transaction for Ziff Davis Media that places these market leading assets and teams in a great environment poised for further success.

"The transaction allows us to pay down debt and shift our full focus to our core PCMag Digital Network business. We thank our 1UP team members for their contributions and wish them the best of success into the future."

J Moses, CEO of UGO Entertainment is excited by the purchase and their future with the 1UP Network;

"The acquisition of 1UP, with its authentic voice, tenured editorial personalities and bustling user community, allows us to expand our base of quality content and represents a major step forward in UGO's mission to become the leader in the games space."

However, with growth and change comes necessary restructuring. Obviously the EGM Magazine staff have been cut, along with a number of 1UP.com writers and video producers.

Sam Kennedy, the remaining editorial director of the 1UP Network expresses his deep regret on the NeoGAF forum;

"[W]ell, this is a pretty f***ing 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 sugar-coat 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."

Kennedy continues, "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 co-workers and employees today."

Kennedy is still hopeful for the future though;

"Anyway, I've run 1UP when it was only six people and I've run it when it was nearly 30. We pulled off some really cool stuff in both cases, albeit one more than the other. As long as 1UP is around, we'll continue to do cool stuff."

But that's not what's on his mind at the moment;

"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."

It's not a good time for the employees at 1UP.com and our condolences go out to those who were let go. We hope they find new employment soon.