Say goodbye to EGM Magazine

[Link5084]

http://kotaku.com/5124928/1up-sold-to-hear...se-%5Bupdate%5D

R.I.P. EGM

Team:

We are announcing today the sale of our 1UP digital business to UGO Entertainment, a dvision of Hearst Corporation.

Over the course of the last 4 years we have built the 1UP sites into a top tier gaming digital destination. While our growth has been sharp, it has become apparent that more scale is necessary to effectively compete in this market segment.

We made the decision that the best path to putting our award winning 1UP brand and content in a more competitive position was to combine it with the operations of another publisher. We received much interest from other parties.

After a comprehensive process, this morning we completed a deal with Hearst Interactive, the owner and operator of UGO Entertainment. 1UP.com, MyCheats.com, Gamevideos.com, and Gametab.com will now all be part of the UGO Entertainment business. Many of our employees will travel with this business and become part of the UGO team.

With this transaction happening, we have also made the decision to discontinue publication of EGM. The January 2009 issue will be the final issue of the publication. With demand for print continuing to decline amongst both advertisers and readers and the content being produced by 1UP no longer available for use in the publication, it simply did not make sense for us to move forward with this business any longer.

We will continue to operate the Filefront business as a part of the PCMag Digital Network. In the coming months we will determine the best ways to leverage the scale and functionality of this digital property to expand our business position.

The Ziff Davis position in the gaming market has been significant and important to our company and the market itself. While many of our assets in the PCMag Digital Network (including Filefront now) will continue to cover this market, it's important that we celebrate all that we have achieved over the last 25 years.

Our leadership in print for decades with titles like Computer Gaming World and EGM which in turn translated into the build out of one of the leading digital gaming media assets in 1UP are prime examples of the skill, passion, and expertise of our teams.and what they achieved.

It's incredible to compare the 1UP.com of today versus that of 12 months ago. I want to thank everybody in our Game Group for their important contributions over the years.

For Ziff Davis Media, our attention and focus now shifts squarely to the PC Mag Digital Network. The proceeds from this transaction will be used to pay down debt. One of the primary objectives of our business plan is ensuring that we have plenty of room to service our debt obligations into the future, and manage for growth in what will be a challenging year in the advertising market.

While the market will be tough, we are confident our position is well aligned to where the demand is most active. We move forward as a 100% digital business with tenured brand position, and powerful capabilities to drive results for our customers. I look forward to sharing more updates in the coming weeks.

JY.

 

[juggernaut911]

NOOOOO!!!! They rule(d)! I enjoyed their reviews much better than stupid GI!

 

[SaltyDog]

And, so ends the long legacy of another magazine...

 

[DeMoN]

I somehow acquired a years subscription of EGM free through some online promotion, and I didn't really like this magazine at all. (I even liked Nintendo Power better, and that's saying something).
Pity, because EGM really used to be the best gaming magazine out there, but that throne hjas been replaced by Game Informer.

 

[Extreme Coder]

That's pretty sad

EGM is a pretty known name in terms of video game magazines (atleast where I live)..

 

[KingAsix]

wow ironic for me as yesterday one of my classmates were reading an EGM magazine in ROTC class (kinda like a pre-military class in my public school) and our instructor took it up and threw it in the trash.......So ends EGM

 

[Awdofgum]

That's a shame.
What sucks about it is that 30 well known employees were fired.

 

[gblock247]

Fondess memories of EGM is during the 16 bit era looking through the ads and seeing all the price list of games I thought I'd never be able to afford.....thanks god for emulators. Bye EGM

 

[thieves like us]

I know that I'll draw heat from my comments, but EGM was nothing but a mere shadow of it's former self for the past 5 or so years. the last 2 years has been comic book thin crap with more ads than content.

however, I don't believe that print is dead, otherwise famitsu (which clocks in at 200-250pp per weekly issue) would be dead as well and it is still going strong after 1,000 issues of publication.

it's really a matter of what they chose to focus their efforts on and capsule reviews of games already in the stores or quarter page previews with content and images which had been circulating on the internet obviously didn't set them apart from the rest of the publications.

about the only thing that I'll miss from EGM is seanbaby's "the rest of the crap"

 

[VmprHntrD]

Good bye and good riddance...

Glad to see them go in all honesty. Over 10years ago I got their magazine and for a stretch it was tolerable but eventually the magazine decided taking sides and omitting facts in their stories and reviews were good business. As a Nintendo owner, but also of another system they directly helped to destroy I fairly well have hated them and have only off and on had their mag as a free 1yr sub in more recent years. Since the SNES, but really the N64 days they continually had some ass comments to make being very unprofessional, and they'd fabricate things about a game in a review to give the Nintendo ones at times a lower score. Some of it I found comical early on saying that a Genesis game 'looked better' or was 'more colorful' and other comical crud, but then it got into writing a few reviews and saying it was on X Y and Z system, but leave out Nintendo. Most recently I've seen it in the last couple editions in relation to COD World at War saying it only came to the PC, PS3, and 360...no mention of the other two which I found manipulative and offensive. They also were admittedly handheld haters early on regularly mocking GB and to a far lesser degree it's DOA competition and me being a player of that stuff didn't help. To me really they were by and far the most unprofessional group of gaming media writers who slanted reviews and omitted info, or in some cases just blatantly lied so I'm happy to see them eat shat and die. But, I will also say personal feelings of their writing aside, it's sad to see a major gaming mag go down as it shows everything is moving away from that due to profit margins.

 

[NeSchn]

Man that blows... I used to love reading EGM on the shitter.

 

[Mangofett]

nooo i had about 9 months of free subscription of that magazine left

 

[feds4u]

I worry that most/all video game magazines will go belly up in the next couple of years.

Spoiler

However, I have strong reason to believe that EGM had become nothing more than a gigantic paid advertisement. This includes all review content. The tradition began in the mid to late 90s. It worsened under the leadership of former Editor Dan Hsu, who was completely "whored out" to the will of a single company. Readership suffered not because of the Internet but because some people were smart enough to see the obvious bias. 1up.com however, has always been a joke. Oh the stories...

Let's hope at least one magazine survives. I wouldn't bring my PC into the loo and neither would most people.

-

 

[Rock Raiyu]

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=34909

Heheh, Kanye West style-rapping.

 

[cupajoe]

I've been a game informer reader most of my life, so I'm glad they aren't gone. But they could be next...

 

[Pizzaroo]

Awwww, I loved 1up podcasts on my iPod, prolly stopping of all of those too D:

 

[LightyKD]

Good reddens... The only days they were ever good were during the days they were covering "GBC, PS1, N64, and Dreamcast". Lately they been pretty sucky, especially if you're a Nintendo fan like me. I had a subscription but there's hardly and Wii reviews or news for that matter... Very biased against Ninty

 

[Ferrariman]

Good reddens... The only days they were ever good were during the days they were covering "GBC, PS1, N64, and Dreamcast". Lately they been pretty sucky, especially if you're a Nintendo fan like me. I had a subscription but there's hardly and Wii reviews or news for that matter... Very biased against Ninty

That's because there aren't that many games to review.

I loved EGM, they were pretty reliable.

 

[Joe88]

first OPM now EGM
I have no magazines left besides Consumer Reports and PC World

can I still get a refund?

 

[LightyKD]

Good reddens... The only days they were ever good were during the days they were covering "GBC, PS1, N64, and Dreamcast". Lately they been pretty sucky, especially if you're a Nintendo fan like me. I had a subscription but there's hardly and Wii reviews or news for that matter... Very biased against Ninty

That's because there aren't that many games to review.

I loved EGM, they were pretty reliable.

BULL! I find it utterly atrocious when there's a multi-console game that comes out and they cant even spend the time, to review the Wii version which, would obviously be a totally different experience. They did this with many games and after a while that started to piss me off.