To be honest, Ziff has a lot to be blamed as well.

Some inside skinny:

Quote:

ZD was fucking with UGO pretty hard. Hiding information, taking the negotiations on an off again and again, UGO was making their best guess. Plus, Ziff had been misleading everyone on just how successful 1up really was. Now, knowing ziff and knowing ugo wants to put the prettiest bow on the huge turd of a take over, I’m sure there’s something in the middle. ugo was going to cut the staff anyway, but not knowing who did what, they made their best guesses based on what ziff let them know

And mind you, Ziff’s headquarters are in NY. While I was working at 1UP, it never felt like we were part of Ziff proper. And because of the distance, I’m pretty sure the higher-ups really had no concrete idea of the people who worked in the Game Group. Shady corporate bull.

Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer gives UGO’s side of the story.

If UGO hadn’t bought 1UP, things could have been a lot worse. That’s what the company’s CEO told me in an interview that began with me asking: “How do you like being a bad guy”?

***

How do you like being a bad guy? That’s the first question I asked J Moses, CEO of the UGO Entertainment today, in an interview that I hoped would clear the air or at least tell the other side of the story that’s been lighting up gaming sites for the last 24 hours: the shutdown of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the firing of about 30 1UP.com employees and the purchase of 1up by UGO.

“How am I a bad guy?” Moses replied from his end of the phone. “I’m a great guy.”

On a day that many gamers are vilifying his company, Moses sounded upbeat. The reason: because he states unequivocally that his company just saved 1UP.

“We have just hired 24 people,” he said. “At a time where all you read about is layoffs we have expanded UGO by 33 percent. I don’t know of any content companies out there expanding their workforce. We did that because our business is robust and growing.”

While some gamers are lamenting what they see is a UGO-engineered gutting of 1UP, Moses argues that that interpretation is wrong. “The simple reality is that we only wanted to buy 1UP and related sites. That was our interest. We’re a dot-com company and that’s all we’ve ever been for 11 years. I’ve personally have always been a huge fan of 1UP. I’m thrilled to buy it through Hearst/UGO.”

But, I told him, some fans might argue back: why didn’t you leave it alone?

“We really have largely left it alone,” Moses replied. “We kept, we believe, the core editorial group that can continue to do great things. What we’re adding is 1up.com as an editorial site that will sit on top of the UGO publishing site. And we kept who we believe are the critical people who can make up a great site.”

Moses explains the departure of many of the people let go yesterday as the result of Ziff-directed cutting of EGM staff. UGO wasn’t trying to buy EGM, he said, so he believes that “Closing EGM has absolutely nothing to do with UGO.”

But what many gamers have reacted to is an apparent loss of 1UP’s key podcasts, shows such as 1UP Yours and the 1UP Show. “I think you will continue to see video-casts and podcasts,” Moses said. “It may not be on the exact same schedule that it was. It may not be the exact same people. But it will continue being a part of 1UP.”

Asked if 1UP Yours and the 1UP Show specifically would continue, Moses said that those decisions are still being worked through between UGO and the 1UP editorial team. What’s not encouraging for fans of those shows is the departure of the 1UP Show’s producers and one of 1UPyours’ key voices, Shane Bettenhausen. About those personnel, Moses deferred to continuing 1UP editorial director Sam Kennedy as the decision-maker about how and with whom those shows would continue. Moses did call out one person, though: “We would have loved to have had Shane join us, but Shane had other opportunities that we were informed of before we bought the site.”

(Reached for comment, Bettenhausen said he wasn’t ready to announce his new gig just yet.)

Interviewed by phone separately, Kennedy said that the Retronauts podcast will continue and that there are “some possibilities” with 1UPyours. The fate of the 1UPshow seems more up in the air.

Kennedy acknowledged that the loss of so many talented gaming reporters and personalities is a blow but drew an analogy to Saturday Night Live’s many cast changes and rebirths. He said 1UP’s voice can continue: “We’re real. We’re honest. That will never die with 1UP… We’ll introduce new stars along the way. Well try to keep people in the family if we can… as long as I’m here and all the other great people who are part of 1up here we will continue to do what we have done.”

Moses said he was expecting the reaction that has come, the anger and frustration online “I was prepared for it. The situation is what it is. A lot of people lost their jobs yesterday which was really unfortunate. But UGO was the cause of none of it. What we did is we offered 24 people jobs who may not have had jobs otherwise.

For now Moses says he thinks that most of 1UPs’ audience is in a “wait and see” mode. He hears the vocal people who are unhappy but believes that, over time, UGO will keep 1UP’s spirit intact. “Make no mistake about it, we are very intent on becoming the leader in the games space and we think, with 1Up, we are knocking on the door.”

Moses said that the 1Up site will continue to function without interruption.

Glad to know that Shane Bettenhausen is already on his feet, though I will surely miss his presence in the 1up network.  I hope he continues to do 1up yours every week.

Former 1uppers Phillip Kollar, Nick Suttner, Anthony Gallegos, Ryan O’Donnell, and Matt Chandronait start their new podcast ‘Rebel FM’ in the spirit of 1up FM.  Good for them!  I’d like to also mention that within a few hours of their release from 1up, all of their Twitter feeds exploded with well wishes – 500+ ON AVERAGE.  They now currently sit at about 1500 twitter followers each – that is the power of the 1up community.

Former VP of 1up, Simon Cox (who was also laid off) and his comments toward the ordeal:

James ‘Milky’ Mielke’s farewell blog and unveiling of the final issue EGM - a fitting Street Fighter IV exclusive cover story.

Dan ‘Shoe’ Hsu and Crispin Boyer’s analysis and sendoff of EGM from their Sore Thumbs Blog (which I hope becomes a new hub for the ex-1up Folk):

Goodbye EGM

By Shoe and Crispin

A quick time-out from the Ex-EGM Awards Ceremonies — a crapload of our buddies and former co-workers just got laid off this week because UGO took over the 1UP Network, and it didn’t seem right to be celebrating 2008 when 2009’s busy smacking our jaws with a lead pipe. We’ll finish up those awards in a bit….

Crispin and I are both extremely sorry to see these fine people lose their jobs, but we’re not terribly worried. We know they’re talented people with great resumes from working there, so they should be back working 80-hour work weeks for some other website or magazine soon enough. We just hope this economy cooperates with that theory.

Another unfortunate casualty is EGM itself. Its 20-year run came to an abrupt end with a blurry Wolverine cover (January 2009 issue) because UGO didn’t want it and Ziff couldn’t afford to keep printing it. EGM is just dead, dead, dead…gone forever…a legendary magazine that had its place in gaming history but is to be no more.

I know the guys are super bummed that the real last issue (Feb. 2009…originally planned with Street Fighter IV on the cover — a fitting end and tribute to the kabillions of SF covers in EGM’s past) won’t get to sit up on newsstands next to the latest Cat Fancy or OK or whatever the hell is still surviving in this tough magazine market. I heard a lot of great articles — including a kick-ass 20-year retrospective feature — was supposed to go into that month. The goods should show up online, though, so stay tuned to 1UP.com for that. But I don’t know if that will make the editors and writers any less mad at their former bosses who apparently knew that issue was never going to be printed, led the team to believe otherwise, and never told them until it was too late…making them work a hellish, frantic deadline for nothing.

EGM’s last issue, which will never see print. Read more about EGM’s final days on Milky’s blog. Also, 1UP just put up the original cover story, so now you can read it for free, you cheapskates.

Anyways, like Jeff said ever so bluntly like he does so well, the 1UP Network won’t be the same without some of the talent that has left and without EGM by its side (not to mention the long-gone CGW!). That doesn’t mean they won’t do well in the future under new management, though. They still have a kick-ass team (Jeremy Parish might be able to take on GameSpot all by himself), so we’ll stay tuned…although the word is several people that are still on board may not be for a lot longer, being extremely upset with current conditions and all… (hey old buddies, just count to 10…or maybe 1,000…and don’t forget what the economy looks like out there).

It just stinks we can’t have the officially last EGM to hold, read, and keep. Another Ziff Davis mag whose life got cut short without even a chance for a goodbye issue (see Computer Gaming World…screw calling it “Games for Windows Magazine”…it’ll always be CGW to me).

A lot of people out there are lashing out at UGO and its parent company Hearst for the layoffs and for EGM’s closing, but trust me…you’re barking at the wrong suits. I don’t need to say much more, because Jeff Green (former Editor-in-Chief of CGW) says it all on his must-read blog (MTV Multiplayer also sheds some light on this). In addition to everything Jeff said, do know that Ziff Davis Media was burdened with this unbelievable debt that made it near impossible for it to achieve its goals with the 1UP Network. Kill IGN or GameSpot with 1UP’s traffic? Kill Game Informer/PC Gamer with EGM/CGW’s circulations? Not with every penny you’re making going back toward massive interest payments. It was like trying to scoop out all the water in the ocean with a PlayStation 3. Why did so many people leave there over the last two years? A lot of us knew this was coming.

The post also features a walk down memory lane with their favorite memories of their former work place.

NeoGAF user Rlan on what probably happened during the sale.

What appears to have happened is an overall gutting of the website. From the reports that the firings are a “dick move” by UGO / Hearst, it sounds like it’s like how many companies that get taken over start – fire a bunch of people to show you’re in charge. Essentially like CNET did with Gerstmann.

All that’s basically left is enough to make the website appear to be in working order. Here are a list of people left. You need someone running the outfit (Sam Kennedy), someone to write and edit the news (Garnett Lee), someone to write and edit the previews (Thierry Nguyen, Alice Liang) and someone to write the features for the site (Scott Sharkey, Jeremy Parish)

The review editors / reviewers aren’t needed at this point because we’re so very early in the year and not a lot is coming out – you can get away with it.

They’ve completely left MyCheats alone (Not editorial content) and left a few people (Cornelson Laut, David Ellis) to upload new videos to GameVideos. Without the need for a 1UP Show, the 1UP Show team was destroyed. By culling the rest, there’s nobody left for Podcasting, so Skip was fired (after just getting back).

Basically, it sounds like a giant ground-up restructuring by Hearst, and by going by what I know of UGO (not a lot) They’re not to keen on this whole “personality” thing. They appear to be a fairly small outfit – it’s main draw would be “Wombat” from CheapAssGamer. Their forums are completely empty.

They weren’t culling by “who is better to keep based on their knowledge and writing ability”, they were culling based on their assigned job description.

We’ll see what ends up happening with 1UP. I’m not convinced that it can make a full comeback yet. I came for the personality and the features, and they’re only keeping one of those.

Sam Kennedy, site director of 1up.com, more candidly posting his thoughts on the situation.

Hey guys, I haven’t really read through this thread — 50+ pages! — and I probably won’t ever be able to. But I did want to hop in here since, well, this is a pretty fucking 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 sugarcoat 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. 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 coworkers and employees today.

A couple of things to realize, though:

Fact: 1UP was a business that was losing money.

Fact: This economy sucks and the ad market is diminished.

Fact: Ziff Davis has been trying to offload 1UP for years.

With those sorts of factors playing against us, something had to give. Everyone loved the stuff we did, but our business wasn’t in the best of shape (see: Ziff-Davis files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last summer).

My hope in all of this, over the last year or so, was that some company would come along and be able to buy 1UP — the entire operation — and run with it. And I think UGO had actually originally approached 1UP with those same hopes.

But the reality of the market was that no company, including UGO, was willing to sustain 1UP as it was. And that includes Ziff Davis. I hate to to break it to you, but the sad fact was that there was little hope for 1UP to continue as it had been. Not in this economy. If any company out there would have been willing to support us as we were, they certainly didn’t step up.

The only company that really did was UGO, and they did their very best to continue 1UP.

So like I said, while UGO may appear like the bad guy here, in a lot of ways, they just did what few, if any, other companies would. And, from everything they’ve indicated to us, they are completely supportive of 1UP and its people. Believe me, they were in the office today and were just as distraught about the losses of any of these shows and the people.

Of course, that doesn’t make things any better for any of us. Fact is, we — as in, the games industry, not just 1UP — are losing some great things today. I’m with you in mourning. But I have a commitment from the UGO guys that they — now, actually, we — are going to do whatever we can to help these guys out and look for ways to continue these shows with them and/or to look into possibilities for new shows in the future. I’m not saying everything will be back to “normal” as you knew it anytime soon, but I am saying there should be some good things to look forward to in the future.

But anyway, now’s not the time to think ahead — certainly not for me, at least. 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.

Jeff Green, former EIC of Computer Gaming World and Games for Windows Magazine and current Associate Producer at Electronic arts, posts on his blog about the state of 1up.com and the absolutely crappy situation Sam Kennedy is in.

No, You’re not the same 1up.

So, soon after posting my last entry, I decided that the best way to show my support and love for the dozens of my co-workers laid off yesterday was not to scribble on my blog, but to actually be there with them.

I rode my bike from EA up to San Francisco, where a lively and active and drunken wake was in progress at Steff’s Bar, the dive bar next to the (now former) Ziff Davis offices that has served as the go-to watering hole for years now. Some of those fired–like my good friends Ryan and Anthony–were not there, and knowing both those guys, I’m sure that hanging at a bar was about the last thing they felt like doing, knowing that they no longer held the jobs that they loved so dearly. But mostly everyone was there–both the fired (who were unceremoniously shoved out the door, with security guards present) and the “saved”–as well as a bevy of alumni who also came to show their support: Karen Chu, John Davison, Dana Jongewaard, Demian Linn, and many more. It’s the one thing about Ziff Davis. No matter how fucked up and ill-managed of a company it was—and, boy, was it–they always managed to hire great people who stick together even years after their departure. Alumni of that company always feel the same bond. Maybe because it was so fucked up and ill-managed. Those who get out are kind of like ex-convicts–survivors who laugh and shake their heads at their former incarceration and feel for those left behind. Or maybe that’s too dramatic and unfair. It’s hard to say when it comes to something like layoffs. Emotions run high.

Which is why, after getting home from the wake, I got extremely upset when I read Sam Kennedy’s “1up is Now Part of UGO” blog entry–which I’m not going to link to here because it doesn’t deserve any more clicks. Now, Sam is an incredibly nice guy, one of those guys who never, ever has a bad word to say about anyone. He’d never write, for example, what I’m about to write. And there is no doubt in my mind that he’s as bummed out as everyone else. He’s in a horrid position here, having to put a brave face on what is an unequivocally ugly mess. So I wish no ill-will on the guy, and, more important, those following this story need to know that none of this is his “fault”. All this shit happened way above him. He’s just trying to make the best of a bad situation. And to that I offer him a heartfelt and sincere good luck.

Still. That blog post? Not a good call. It reminds me a bit of George Bush, to be honest, in its tin-eared, feel-good myopic offensiveness (“You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie!”). Yeah, he had to say *something*, but this wasn’t the way to say it–not in public. I only want to comment on two lines:

“We’re still the same 1UP, and we’ll still be producing the same content…we always have”

Well, no, you’re not, and no, you won’t. You’re not the same 1UP because you just lost a gigantic chunk of what made 1up 1up. It may go on, it may in fact produce great things, but it won’t be the same. All that a company ever is is a mix of specific personalities. That’s all it is. Period. When you remove people, it may go on, but it’s never “the same.” Saying it’s the same is a disservice to all the people who just got canned. And, no, you won’t be “producing the same content” because those responsible for some of the most popular and distinctive content–the 1up Show, the podcasts–no longer work there anymore. So, again, you can’t say it’s “the same”. It’s not. (And since everyone on the Copy Desk got canned, too, it won’t be as well-edited, either.) Better to just acknowledge that, since we all know it anyway.

“…having the support of UGO and Hearst is probably the best bit of news we’ve ever had.”

Again, no. If this can be called “the best news”, I’d hate to see the bad news. In fact, it might be the best bit of news that you and the others who kept their jobs ever had, since you now don’t have to be looking for work at the start of a new year, in the worst economic climate this country has been in in the last 80 years. For everyone else–both those who lost their jobs and those who followed their work–it’s just about the worst news possible. I’ll give you an alternate choice for “the best bit of news” 1up.com ever had: The fact that so many talented, creative, funny, dedicated people busted their ass at that site to produce content they believed in, despite the fact that they were chronically underpaid, chronically under-appreciated and lied to by an incompetent upper management (I mean the New York suits) whose shitty decisions led the company to ruin, and chronically treated–ever since the Ziff family sold the once-great company–like nothing more than numbers on a bleeding-red-ink spreadsheet. That’s the best news you ever had. What happened yesterday? Yeah. Not so much.

In the cold light of day, though, another truth remains: All those still at 1up are still great writers and editors, and will, in fact, produce great things. You cannot underestimate the talents of Jeremy Parish, Thierry Nguyen, Scott Sharkey, and everyone else, and they deserve our support. I’m glad for all those who survived the cut, and will continue to read their work. And I wish Sam all the best over this difficult time of transition.

But since he’s obviously hamstrung by having to put a happy face on this bloodbath, I’ll just say what would have been nice to read, instead: “Our website is decimated. Our new owners failed to recognize the talent we had, which comes as no surprise since their own website values lowest-common-denominator pandering over quality content. We will do our best to do what we can, despite the fact that they gutted us. This fucking sucks.”

/end rant.

Good luck, all. Those now looking for a job, you know where to find me for references, advice, and beer.

–Jeff

Jenn Frank, former 1up community manager, and her sort-of-eulogy for EGM and 1up.com.

Know what got shut down yesterday?

Waterford Crystal. I saw it on the Associated Press newswire. I said to my mom, “Oh, man, hang on to those glass vases or whatever, because it’s all over for Waterford.” I mean, Waterford Wedgewood is only bankrupt, but you know what that means.

Mom and I were at dinner, still talking about Waterford vases and Wedgewood dishware, when Chuf’s roommate—why am I calling him Chuf now?—IM’d me. My phone buzzed; I spent the rest of dinner staring at it.

If you don’t know what I’m getting at, please catch up. If you don’t feel any sense of loss or regret right now, this isn’t for you; come back later. Or, if you want to hear from someone who actually suffered real loss today, that’s over here. Or all over 1UP.com. Take your pick.

Or maybe you’re looking for something really articulate. You won’t find it here.

Right now, on a popular games message board somewhere in the dark recesses of the Internet, people are posting direct download links to, and torrents for, complete collections of audio and video files, and to screenshots of EGM cover scans. The idea is to hoard them, the same way I hoarded Circus Animal cookies in August after Mother’s shuttered its factory. I went to the convenience store, looked at the bags, counted my cash, tried to Collect Them All.

My mom knows a lot of people in that office on Second Street, by the way. She’d periodically come to San Francisco, intending to ruin my life for a week at a time, and she’d start by killing my credibility in the office (thanks for the help). She’d take a cab directly to the building; she’d bring her rolling luggage right to my desk.

“Stay here,” I said to her once, putting her in my desk chair. “Play Solitaire. Here,” and then I pushed the mouse toward her, “I am giving you Solitaire.”

Other parents play Guitar Hero. Why can’t my mom play Guitar Hero?

“Where are you going? Can’t you leave work yet?” my mom wanted to know. Her rolling luggage was now in Alice Liang’s chair.

“No, play some Solitaire,” I told her. “I have to record a podcast.”

My mother looked at me sidelong. “Wearing that?” she scoffed.

Oh, my God.

Later that night, Sam Kennedy said—I think only teasingly—“Your mom has no idea what you do for a living, does she.” I laughed. I was heartbroken.

My mom is affable, and she has the best of intentions, but what she loved about my job was a magazine to put on the kitchen table, with a byline to show off to visitors. She is 77 years old. She is a willing patron, but she has no idea what you do for a living, does she.

My mom is the Betty White of corporations.

My mom reminds me, with a sigh, “Look. You need money to do what you want.” That’s true. I get that. It’s sad when you run out of money.

My mom wants to know how everyone is doing. My mom wants to know that everyone is safe. How is that nice young man, Sam? How is Garnett? (“He’s handsome and charming,” she once observed, “so stay away.”) Scott? Is Scott OK? Let’s just start with who is not OK. OK. So we go through secondhand lists of names, and she is filled with worry, even though she isn’t sure what’s going on. Me neither.

Print is dying. We all knew. “Oh, eyeballing pixels will never be as satisfying as the tactile experience of holding a magazine, book, or newspaper,” we said confidently, even as we canceled our magazine subscriptions one by one.

I don’t have a fancy business degree, but I will say they did everything right. Rule number one: Believe in what you’re selling. Done.

Rule number two: Be human. Reorganize your company quickly and carefully, so that when print media dies, you can all link arms on the lifeboats. Done.

Rule number three: All these shall be added unto you. A noble benefactor, a patron of your fine writing, will come.

And hopefully that benefactor will be a Daddy Warbucks 2.0. The alternative, of course, is a rich and stodgy Dead Tree Media Giant who pins all his hopes to the leaves of his old, dead magazines, who hopes your website will play pacemaker to all his old, dead magazines.

It’s easy to feel hopeless. This is not a culture, on the whole, that rewards writing or creativity willingly. (I don’t mean videogames’s culture, I mean Earth’s.)

Blogging for the sake of blogging does seem a little sad, doesn’t it? I thought to myself in December, shelving the Avatars drafts and dutifully feeling sorry for myself. I started work on my grad school application and on a kids’ book about head lice (based, of course, on my real life head lice trauma). I looked at my gaming blog and shrugged at it. In January I will casually mention that I’ve moved on to head lice, I thought. I will tell them that blogging merely for the sake of blogging is completely depressing, and then I’ll be done with it.

I’m glad I never typed that out in earnest, because I don’t believe it. I hope you don’t believe it. Rule number one.

Some people do believe that, though. They think that writing for the sake of writing, blogging for the sake of blogging, PageMaker and InDesign for the sake of layout, podcasting for the sake of podcasting, video-making for the sake of video-making, is total bullshit—but bullshit well worth capitalizing on, anyway—because they believe in money for the sake of money. In these hard times, it’s hard not to think about money.

But at this instant, it is also extremely difficult to understand how a noble benefactor could lay waste to so much talent. I am trying my very best to not sound angry.

Companies make money on other people’s passion. Some people make a lot of money by overseeing entire sweatshops of passion. I am trying my fucking damnedest to not sound angry.

I assure you that your favorite writers are not in it for the money. Some might be in it for the notoriety, maybe—to be fair, it is notoriety in an extremely small, sometimes creepy pond—but it’s safe to guess that most writers like writing, most filmmakers like filmmaking, most designers love bringing cosmological typeset harmony to the written word, and that we, on the whole, really do think video and computer games can change the world. Being liked, being respected, having a nice salary, this is all secondary and very unlikely: if you want to be respectable, become a travel writer, a broadcaster, do anything but this.

The blogosphere—the little blogs—are winning. Absolutely. Not this blog, because it’s not monetized and it’s too surly or too twee and the writing is awful and it has no schedule because it hates you, but some are. Low startup costs, sure, and the glass ceiling always has a sunroof, and then, of course, the credibility that comes of having few obligations to motherships. But more importantly, little blogs are gratifying to write for, and that makes them satisfying to read. Not this one, dickbags, but you know, some.

Sorry. I’m angry. Let me try again:

1UP, the website, started small. It sprang out of Gamers.com and, as the old campfire myth goes, some hotshot young branding team was paid beaucoup dollars to rebrand the site into a marketable Something. They tried to name it things like “He-Man Game Zone” or, no, I don’t know, but the point is, everything they came up with was awful. So Sam, who was in his mid-20s, maybe, paid the hotshot young company and dismissed them. And he gave his baby the first name that had occurred to him: “1UP.”

That’s the story. I love this story. Then 1UP gets acquired by a big publishing company, becomes EGM’s stepbrother, etc. It’s a real success story, really Arthurian. The tale isn’t special—it probably goes like every other website’s story—but it’s 1UP’s story, too. And I would tell this dumb legend breathlessly because, after all, it is our Camelot.

But like most true stories, the truth mostly depends on who you like and who you ask. You know, Arthurian.

I dare you to believe for an instant that 1UP’s invention didn’t do something for all of you. For you professional games journalists, it gave you a successful business model of community structure and, for better or for worse, of translating personality cults into monthly uniques. For a lot of you kids, it gave you dreams and aspirations. For all of us unprofessionals, it gave us a safe place to congregate.

Gaming community was new back then. And it was important that community finally for-real-happened, because gaming used to be such a lonely thing. The PS2’s online community was bogus, you had to “tunnel” the GameCube, and no, I didn’t have an Xbox until Jon’s Xbox moved in.

My friend Bekah would come over to Nik’s and my Chicago apartment to play Mario Party and Mario Party only, provided we invited her husband Jeremy along, but we needed beer and food and a day off, and the stars needed to align and Mercury needed to be in Neptune’s house. So there I was, a lonely gamer. When I saw a 1UP ad in OPM, full of smiling normal-people-gamer-faces, I ran for the computer. “WE KNOW GAMERS,” the two-page spread had said. This was it. And I blogged, and I made friends. And one day I was sitting at a retail toy store and I checked my email, and finally, my life would start! And I gave the most legendarily shitty interview you can imagine, with Milky and Garnett and John and Sam all sitting there staring, and then I put everything I owned into boxes into a car, and I sped off toward California with Nik.

And you’re right, none of this is about me. But for everyone who was laid off, or who quits or who stays, that’s probably their story, too: uprooted, and uprooted again. But it’s also my story, and I tell it breathlessly.

Also, this. My story, from user registration to being hired, is two years long. Get it? Everything always seems so abrupt, even when it isn’t.

But there was a culture of workplace paranoia—“You don’t make enough to be dispensable,” Shawn Elliott once assured me, early on—and that paranoia was inspired by Ziff Davis itself.

When I say Ziff Davis, I don’t mean to confuse that name with 1UP or the magazines, even though we called ourselves Ziff Davis, too. But in a way, Ziff Davis was just the family name that we took on when someone married someone: Ziff Davis proper was, in actuality, that distant father in the sky (well, New York City), that drunk daddy we were unsure of, but loved, but were scared of, who we avoided phoning unless there were legal issues or a payroll problem to sort out. Sometimes dad would visit us from New York and persuade us that everything was fine, that we would be OK, and then he’d congratulate us with free beer. We lived for that.

Do you understand? We longed for divorce. We hoped we’d be adopted by a new parent company soon. “I won’t give you up to just anybody,” Ziff assured us.

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. When we wanted divorce, we didn’t know what we were asking for.

I’m an industry outsider, just some peripheral character with alarmingly inaccurate anecdotes, so I think I can get away with saying all this. And I do feel credible in saying that Ziff Davis, our Ziff Davis, was a family. And that family—complete with its own black sheep, scapegoats, dysfunctional holiday parties, and total, unconditional love—that family did its very best. You couldn’t have done any better, guys.

I am so, so sorry.

And I’m angry. I keep expecting myself to suddenly type something encouraging or reassuring, but each time I try, I have to start over. I think it just isn’t in my nature. “These things happen,” that’s the only thought that helps me reconcile anything. “All good things, like all bad things, go the way of the buffalo”—that’s what I keep typing. “All castles are built on sand”—trite, depressing, frustrating. “You will always look back,” maybe.

But all small sites eventually languish and die (this one) or are gobbled up by bigger, faster websites (that one). Or, in limited, anomalous cases of lasting success, enormous moneymaking sites deftly masquerade as small, intimate sites, I guess. The point? The point. This is the nature of things, the perpetual rise and fall in which no matter is ever created or destroyed. This is, I fear, the furthest thing from reassuring.

If I could pretend to be wise, I would say: Be your own benefactor.

But I’m no fortune cookie, and anyway, easier said than done. Instead, here are some life lessons I learned from some very good people:

“You can’t expect anything if you don’t ask for it.” -Garnett Lee

“Family first. Family always comes first. And, uh, your pet rat—that’s family.” -the unbelievably compassionate Sam Kennedy

“Everyone, even if they don’t know how, everyone should make videos. Just… make videos.” -Cesar Quintero

“Watch out for stalkers. One guy followed me to my house.” -Jen Tsao

[after having just met him, and after losing a long document on a computer without saving] “Do it again, and this time, do it better.” -Garnett Lee

“Are you ready to leave your life behind? It really tests your mettle, lets you see what you’re really made of.” -Demian Linn

Of course, these are transcribed from memory, the least reliable narrator of all—memory is sappier than real life—but I tried to get close.

In the interest of closure, here is a quick confession, and it is for Vanessa Alvarado, former Marketing Coordinator: I stole all of the black permanent markers out of your desk cupboard while you were out of town. We were upset because your markers were thin-tipped, but by God, we used them, assuming you wouldn’t mind. After we ran your markers dry, I carefully boxed your markers and put them back in your desk cupboard. I hope you hadn’t purchased them yourself. There you go, your mystery solved.

It was for a good cause, though.

I think, with the pressure of grief and the late hour, I might be typing some weird things, or maybe the conflation of feeling is just that hard to do justice. So I give up.

But this is what 1UP very literally means: you will always get to have one more life to play on, because you fucking earned it.

Godspeed ex-1up staff, you are my best friends I’ve never met. To the survivors…keep the boat sailing.

Edit: Just wanted to add that I will be continuing to visit 1up.com as I am still a fan of the surviving editors’ work (Jeremy Parish and Garnett Lee immediately spring to mind). However, to say that 1up is the same is just a fallacy.

The continued rise of music games is the next big theme of the conference as Nintendo joined the fray with Activision’s Guitar Hero World Tour and Harmonix’ Rock band.   Shane Bettenhausen on 1up Yours described the trend of how important it was to get one’s instrument peripherals into the homes of consumers as the plastic drum set cold war.  Although the music genre has long since been a vehicle for the casual market to get into gaming, the Guitar Hero franchise seems to be taking the series in a more hardcore direction by allowing the player to create new songs.  Newcomer Nintendo is seemingly trying to take up the mantle of “casual music game” by removing the instruments from the game and replacing it with Wiimote/nunchuk pantomiming while removing the game aspects of the genre by having it be subject to “Nintendo Fairness”, the phenomena where everyone has an equal chance of winning (see Mario Kart Wii’s power up system).  While Nintendo’s idea isn’t fully baked just yet, the potential for something truly great is possible with Wii Music, despite its laughable and embarassing presentation at E3.

The notion of accessibility and being easy to get into was also prominent at this year’s conference.  With Xbox Live’s new interface, It is very clear that Microsoft wants some of the casual market pie that Nintendo owns.  Nintendo’s continuing along with it’s Wii-game series with Wii-Resort and Wii Music, two very simple and straight forward games targeted at the masses.  Both Sony and Microsoft are doing the movie-through-the-console thing.  Everyone’s a gamer now to some degree and the Big 3 all want to capitalize on their presence.

The shifting of focus from the core to the casual gamer meant that a lot of the show just wasn’t meant for us, the rabid fanbase.  Chris Kohler of Wired Game|Life wrote up a satirical article on how the Nintendo Conference should have been.  Funny stuff, and I definitely think it would have worked out better if it happened the way Chris lays it out.  But I concede that we aren’t E3′s intended audience.

Whilst sorting through all of the doom and gloom news to come out of E3 2008, I was pleasantly surprised to find that a couple of my predictions were actually on target.  More retro remakes of games?  Check:  Galaga Legions!  Rez for PSN?  Not really, but the demo of Flower by thatgamecompany looks like an absolute dreamscape of an experience similar to the Rez experience.  Final Fantasy XIII mention?  Boom, bombshell, Xbox360 bound.  I guess the last two don’t really count, but I think it’s close enough to actually squeak out a win.  As for Earthbound for VC and Kid Icarus?  Salty tears indeed.

But even so, there were a couple of games that interested me from this year’s show.  Here’s my Top 5 games I look forward to playing because of E3:

• Little Big Planet – The most right game of this generation; the first user generated social networking game?  Admittedly, I didn’t pay that much to this game before.  But there was something about the inclusion of LBP in Sony’s press conference and seeing the castles built from playing in that sandbox that just flipped a switch in my head.  Plus, you might be able to sell your creations as a level builder.
• Fat Princess – This game is on my list because it looks hilarious.  A combination of Team Fortress 2, Zelda, and Rampart, this game looks like it would be an absolute riot to play with other folks.  If it only had voice chat…
• Flower – I’ve heard of this game only once before and paid no attention to it because I was not a fan of fl0w.  After seeing the video and hearing everyone praise the game, my old sentiments changed.  And there’s something innately soothing about flying through a field collecting petals.
• PixelJunk Eden – Another chill out game that tugs at all my artistic strings.  This and Flower both round out PSN’s ownership of the artsy, experimental game-o-sphere.  Can’t wait for it to come out at the end of the month.
• Megaman 9 – I need not say too much here.  I am, however, glad to hear that the demo at E3 was deviously hard.

A recurring theme throughout the conference was high level Nintendo executives demoing and “having a lot of fun” with the peripherals.  Which I suppose is cool though I do not feel that it was meant for us hardcore gamers.  Or perhaps Nintendo is now truly redefining ‘core gamer’ in terms of their success with the new demographic.  Anyway, The conference opened with the Shaun White snowboarding game using the Wii Balance Board.   Ok, I can see potential with that: I’m glad the bathroom scale is being used for other applications as skateboard and snowboarding really does make sense.   We even saw Cammie Dunaway, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, partake in some half-pipe snowboarding.  Admittedly, this is pretty cool, but it’s a no brainer: we knew applications like this were on the way.

Next came the confirmation of Animal Crossing for the Wii. Dubbed “City Folk”, it looks exactly like previous Animal Crossing games.   Hooray.  Boring.  What’s different this time?   Well for one, it’s very online oriented allowing Wii owners to visit other cities (presumably powered by Friend Codes), as well as talk in chat rooms with the Wii Speak microphone peripheral.  This microphone allows the Animal Crossing chat room denizens to communicate with each other.  Hey, voicechat…on a Wii game!  I’m glad Nintendo is taking steps to modernize itself with the online world, but yeah…I’m not really feeling this at all.  BUT IT HAS FOUR PLAYER COOPERATIVE FISHING.  Yeah..

Wii Motion Plus was next on the list, to be packaged with Wii Sports Resort which according to Ms. Dunaway is “Literally a day at the beach”.   A dog-catching-frisbee demo featuring the 1:1 motion sensing was shown on stage. This was followed by a sword duel (on a beach?) between Reggie and Cammie where supposedly they both hand each others asses to each other to the cheers of the audience.  Sounded like a great tech demo for the peripheral, but obviously very shallow since it’s meant to showcase the new hardware.  Another point I failed to pick up on intially was touched on the most recent episode of 1up Yours that by releasing such a peripheral, Nintendo is falling into the same trap that Microsoft stumbled into with the multiple SKUs of Xbox 360s: they would effectively be splitting up the market to those consumers that have the peripheral and those that don’t.   I remember the sad days of me lacking a N64 RAM addon pack where I couldn’t play Perfect Dark or Majora’s Mask on my home console. Except, this has the potential to be even worse since this directly affects game play and not just graphics.   Or maybe not considering the WMP is being packaged with Wii Sports Resort similar to the super-duper-mega-multiplatinum Wii Play (AKA, the controller packaged with a game).

At the heart of the conference Nintendo reintroduced Wii Music, which was a neat tech demo when the Wii was introduced at E3 two years ago.  Back then it seemed to be a simple orchestra conducting game.  That has evolved into something different, perhaps an attempt to cash in on the Rock Band/Guitar Hero music game genre.   The catch is that they aren’t requiring plastic instrument controllers like the aforementioned titles but instead you’re holding the Wiimote in different configurations and waggling/pressing buttons to emulate a sound.  So instead of looking retarded with plastic instruments, you can look retarded playing make believe violins with Wiimote and Nunchuk air gesturing instead!  This was demonstrated by folks at Nintendo (I forget who, I think their Treehouse localization team) playing a jam session rendition of a tune from F-Zero and Super Mario Brothers.  The folks at 1up Yours described it as “A horrible Caribbean band on crack.”  In tune, but horrible.  This seems like another piece of software for the casual crowd…this really almost sounds like a toddler’s game.  Killer app for the hardcore gamer, this is not.  Ugh.

There was a quick mention of the Mario and Zelda teams working on a new project.  That’s more along the lines of what I wanted to hear.  And Rockstar is working on Grand Theft Auto DS: China Town Wars.  Whoa…really?  Old GTA top-down style with text?  Interesting, but I’m still underwhelmed.

So Nintendo.  Where was that core gamer game you promised would be announced at E3 a couple weeks ago?  This conference was a snooze fest.  Three major games.  None of them for me.