At the 2007 Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, I had the rare opportunity to meet with several editors from Electronic Gaming Monthly. It was nice to finally put faces to the names of people whose work I had followed for a number of years, especially Garnett Lee and Shane Bettenhausen. Later, at the live recording of their podcast “1UP Yours,” they invited questions from the audience. I decided to ask them about the future of print media.
At the time, I knew that the 1UP Network was up for sale and that many publications were having trouble competing with online avenues and dwindling subscription rates. Blogs, generally, are much faster to bring news and offer a level of interactivity that a monthly magazine simply can’t compete with. Even as the panel rolled their eyes and assured me that magazines weren’t going anywhere soon, in the back of my mind, I felt differently. While it’s nice to have something to read in the bathroom, the break room or on your morning commute to work, it’s simply a sign of the times when gaming magazines that used to be about an inch thick are now down to a few dozen pages. The future looked grim; the reality is even more so.
On Jan. 7, the news came out that Ziff-Davis had sold its 1UP division to Hearst’s UGO Entertainment. About 40 people were then laid off, and Electronic Gaming Monthly was laid to rest, just shy of its 20th anniversary. It was a heartbreaking thing to watch as the news circulated around the Internet; I saw it first as rumors on Twitter.com, then confirmed reports from people within the company and gaming news Web sites from without. As I recalled that “1UP Yours” panel in 2007, I wondered what would happen to those talented people who had just lost their jobs. 1UP would go on, but without the creative team of people who made up the heart of the network, how could it ever be the same?
Electronic Gaming Monthly was highly regarded as one of the last few gaming publications with real, journalistic integrity. It wasn’t afraid to say a game was bad, even after game publishers pulled ads and made good on threats to break off all communication. The podcasts produced by the 1UP Radio Network were also jewels of interest and importance. Serious gaming discussion, hard-hitting facts — sure, there was a lot of silliness going on, but if you’re familiar with Shawn Elliott’s work, then you know he was as much a hardnosed journalist as he was a class clown. “Games For Windows Radio” was never the same after he left. There is some good news, however.
In the wake of this unhappy event, many of those writers and editors have been hard at work putting together their own projects to continue on. The folks over at www.Eat-Sleep-Game.com have already put out two episodes of their podcast, “Rebel FM,” to take over where they left off with “1UP FM.” Meanwhile, the people at TalkingOrange.com have been doing their best to produce a new video podcast to continue what they loved doing on “The 1UP Show.” Finally, www.GeekBox.net just launched a new podcast hosted by previous writers and editors of Games For Windows Magazine. All that leaves is the question of what will happen to “1UP Yours” now that Bettenhausen has left to pursue other opportunities within the gaming industry. According to Lee, who still works for 1UP/UGO, we should be hearing something soon.
It’s hard to know what the future holds for print media. Devices like the iPhone easily go where laptops can’t and, like magazines, there’s a podcast for nearly every interest you could think of. While it’s sad to see EGM go, at least we’ll continue to see great content and coverage from those who used to create it.
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