1UP, UGO & Gamespy Have Closed

[Badnik Mechanic]

An internal memo has been posted online that seems to indicate 1Up UGO and Gamespy are to be shut down at some point during 2013.
 
Editorial staff from the sites have been laid off today and several employes on the sites have already posted goodbye/***** is doomed tweets on twitter.
 
IGN are aparently trying to streamline their network, some employes will be offered roles in the main IGN editorial system, but others are expected to go all together.
 
The full memo is as follows.
 

From: Vivek Shah
Date: February 21, 2013
Subject: Staff Announcement

Today, we took some difficult but important actions that will ensure the continued growth and health of IGN and AskMen. Before I go into more details about the changes, you should know that they resulted in the elimination of jobs at IGN. It's always upsetting to say goodbye to colleagues and let's do what we can to help these employees as they seek new opportunities.

It's also important for you to know that we are absolutely confident that we now have the best structure and team to successfully move the company forward and that there are no further planned reductions.

The changes we made today are designed to allow us to Simplify and Focus. Our goal is to do fewer things and to do them exceptionally well. In that vein, we want to direct all of our energy and work behind our two flagship brands: IGN and AskMen. They are both category killers and share a vision of a multi-screen (PCs, tablets, smartphones, TV) and multi-format (text, photos and video) world.

As a result of our decision to focus on our core brands, we are:
· Winding down 1UP.com, UGO.com and GameSpy.com;
· No longer ad repping 3rd party sites such as GameStop.com and FamilyGuy.com;
· Actively engaged with parties interested in acquiring IPL. IGN's role going forward will be to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events;
· Dividing our ad sales team into two: one focused on IGN and the other focused on AskMen.

On the IGN front, Peer Schneider will continue to oversee all of editorial and product, focusing those resources exclusively on IGN. The foundation of this entire company is its content and we will continue to have the best people in the industry producing it.

Charlie Barrett will oversee the monetization of IGN everywhere in the U.S. - PCs, tablets, smartphones, YouTube, consoles - and now be able to concentrate the sales and ad ops teams' efforts where they can make the most impact.

Frank Puma will assume an exciting new role as executive director of programs and solutions, reporting to Charlie. The sales development, design and creative teams will report to Frank, whose charge is to deliver world-class advertising experiences.
A new head of engineering and technology for IGN will be recruited as quickly as possible. Tech has a monumental role to play in the growth of IGN and will be committed to working hand-in-glove with edit, product and sales.

On the AskMen front, Ric Poupada will continue to oversee all aspects of the AskMen organization and is excited to have a new VP of sales, Paul Chenier, reporting to him. Paul has been a longtime advocate of the AskMen brand and is one of the most talented sales executives in our organization. Having him build a dedicated AskMen ad sales team will do wonders for the business.

Ian Chambers will continue to run International out of the UK for both IGN and AskMen and we're thrilled with the performance of our businesses overseas.

Mike Etheridge will be the VP of finance and operations for IGN and AskMen, working across all of the departments to ensure that we're growing our business, expanding our margins and making metric-based decisions.

Rachelle Igoe will be the head of human resources for IGN and AskMen, ensuring that we continue to nurture, attract and retain the best talent in the industry.

I'm sure that there will be a number of questions in the days and weeks ahead but please know that we will be a better functioning and nimbler organization from this moment forward.

As I said on day one, openness and transparency are important, so please email me at [removed] if you have any questions, thoughts or ideas.

Well, magazines where going bye bye last year, didn't expect to see internet sites like those do the same so soon. Anyone still visit those places?

Source: http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/21/4014196/ign-layoffs-1up-ugo-and-gamespy-shutting-down

[Blue Blood]

I have no idea who UGO is, but 1up? Really? Damn.

[Kuzu]

Wow, it seems they only want the biggest names as the primary gaming sites.

 

What does this mean for sites like Gamespot?

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

:/

 

Really does put it all in a very different light.

 

Whats UGO

 

It's a pop/geek culture site, it looked kinda cool too. But they're got an update on their main page confirming the closure.

[Yoko/葉子]

This is very bad news seeing as 1up now owns Twin Galaxies. I can hear the bells of angry competitive gamers tolling....

[Linkabel]

I visited UGO and 1UP a lot, in the morning I saw the bad news on their facebooks so yeah pretty sad seeing them go. Especially 1UP since it had cool blogs by the members there and that's where I won my 20th anniversary statue.

[Detective Shadzter]

It's sad, but I can't say I've visited UGO, 1UP or GameSpy very often in the last 6 years or so. I used to visit 1UP and UGO occasionally and GameSpy quite a lot in the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox days. Hope the staff will all find other jobs soon. 

[SuperLink]

Kinda says a lot about the increasingly corrupt and controlled state of video game journalism huh.

 

I'm really sorry for all the genuinely talented writers who enjoyed their jobs and have lost them, it's ridiculous and a totally unnecessary move. I can't see how this'll do anything except make IGN's users more angered with how it's run, and it's already not got the best reputation in the world.

 

Need to see more smaller indie sites getting the spotlight, get in there and show em how it's done TSS. (and Cubed3, [/shamelessplug]

[Jix Hedgehog]

X

Edited August 14, 2015 by Jix Hedgehog

[PC the Hedgehog]

While being aware of UGO and Gamespy, I honestly never paid them much heed.

1Up, on the other hand, I'll miss. Dang.

[EmmBee]

Wasn't GameSpy hosting a lot of Dreamcast servers still? I guess that means the end of those too, huh?

Either way, I never followed any of those sites, and IGN is usually garbage for the most part.

[Badnik Mechanic]

I've just realised. 1UP was one of the few sites that still has (somewhere) articles claiming that Sonic Heroes was going to be Sonic Adventure 3 =p

 

In fact thinking about Gamespy, theres so many old articles/forum posts there which date back well over a decade. They'll probably go too.

[goku262002]

Well guys if you need any assets sonic or other game related from gamespy (which I admit keeps a good archive) to back up or just want to screenshot some articles or pages better get on it.

Its sad. Gamespy was like my go-to when I was starting out on the net, it had almost everything I was looking for. Farewell Gamespy and fuck off Ziff Davis.

[Barry the Nomad]

1up asked SEGAbits for quotes in one of their last SEGA features... RIP

 

http://segabits.com/blog/2012/12/14/segabits-contributes-to-1up-com-cover-story-a-dream-deferred-when-sega-got-out-at-the-right-time/

[Blue Wisp]

1up is going down?

That's... Horrible really. It's a nice site. :/

[Patticus]

Strangely enough actually, I've definitely found myself reading many less videogame previews, reviews, features et al, since I stopped purchasing gaming magazines on a regular basis. When online, you can just quickly look at the score, read the closing paragraph and move on. It has sort of devalued everything really, as have the recent scandals. 

It doesn't help that the majority of the stuff on game sites is total dogshit, and Twitter has done a wonderful job of making various writers look like monumental wankers.