Topic: 1up gutted

[gpw11]

I take special interest in this because occasionally I'd be tricked into clicking on one of their articles or videos and then decide that it was the stupidest idea that anyone has ever gone through with (not involving liquid nitrogen).  Anyways, 1up got bought out by some network or something and pretty much all the hipster staff got laid off.   No more podcasts or videos, although a site will remain.  EGM is done as well.

I found this out from coming across a post on SA talking about it, and people there seemed to think that there was something shady going on here, taking things muttered by the laid off staff as evidence (ripped from twitter I think).  I suspect more melodrama and hope for a lot of over exaggerated internet tearfests and outcries because that's entertaining for me.  Deep down inside, however, I'm secretly happy that there's apparently little value in whatever style of video they'd put out there.

[scottws]

I used to like 1up when they were new.  I was tired by then of the cluelessness of the IGN staff and just never could stand how shitty Gamespot looked through that period of time.

I haven't been to any of these sites in some time though, so I can't judge any of them on their own (de)merits.  I had been hearing a lot of bad stuff about 1up more recently though, similar to what I'd hear about the IGN clowns back in the day.

[K-man]

UGO effectively took the only good people 1up/EGM had and disposed of them.

[gpw11]

I used to like 1up when they were new.  I was tired by then of the cluelessness of the IGN staff and just never could stand how shitty Gamespot looked through that period of time.

I haven't been to any of these sites in some time though, so I can't judge any of them on their own (de)merits.  I had been hearing a lot of bad stuff about 1up more recently though, similar to what I'd hear about the IGN clowns back in the day.

I can't comment on that really.  I don't take gaming 'journalism' seriously at all so I don't know if what they were saying was really any worse or more low brow than what anyone else would do.  All I know is I'd click on a video about a game and end up watching a 10 min video of a bunch of douchebags talk to each other "casually and unrehearsed" with like 3 min. of gameplay shown.   

[Quemaqua]

Ironically, I was just listening today to the last podcast that Shawn Elliot and Jeff Green did with the GWJ guys.  They were talking about this, and how it wasn't confirmed and they didn't know what the company (this was UGO's parent company, I forget the name) was going to do.

Weird to come home and see the result posted.

[Pugnate]

Wow... that's nuts. I'll miss listening to a few of the PC guys though... but everyone else was really incompetent.

[PyroMenace]

Jeff Green blogged about it if anyone is curious.

[Cobra951]

That sort of expose of the class of people leading our country to ruin has become a favorite read of mine.  It is so needed across the board, and with the highest visibility.  One mark down for not naming names beyond (and above) Sam Kennedy.  Otherwise, great stuff.  And besides, if I really wanted to, I could look them up.

[gpw11]

That sort of expose of the class of people leading our country to ruin has become a favorite read of mine.  It is so needed across the board, and with the highest visibility.  One mark down for not naming names beyond (and above) Sam Kennedy.  Otherwise, great stuff.  And besides, if I really wanted to, I could look them up.

Yeah it is generally pretty entertaining. SA now has a long thread on this and the main comment I have heard about 1up now and again (mainly from previous employees there and contract workers) is that it was impossible to monetize what they were popular for. It was only as popular as it was because of the podcasts and video shows, but they couldn't find a way to capitalize on that.   Much of that popularity never spread over to actual articles on the site, and the advertisements there were what the business model was based on.   Apparently the guys at the top tried the method of selling ads within the podcasts and videos, but the negative reactions from both the fans and the actual staff on the front lines killed it in that it actually scared off whichever advertisers were willing to go with that, meaning they'd get like one client every few months for that method.  Realistically, they should have either just thrown on a big donate button or even switched to a subscription service for their audio/visual content.

1Up as it existed previously most certainly was doomed one way or the other. Ziff Davis is basically dead, dragged down by specializing in exactly the form of print media that is affected most by the internet, and the bottom has basically fallen out on the commercialization of podcasting/videocasting.  Adam Curry's Podshow network has basically folded, cutting off stipends from all contract holding show producers and losing their XM contract and if something that blatantly exploitative can't hold it together, something is just wrong with the model in general.  Smaller podcasts can hold it together with a store, savvy budgeting, grassroots marketing, and a donate button, but most of those have negligible overhead.  1Up kind of got hit hard from both sides, and I'm sure mismanagement was an issue, but the whole thing was kind of a pipe dream as well.

[Cobra951]

Final EGM issue to be "printed" on 1UP.  This seems par for the course.