1up Network Hit With Major Layoffs

What started out as a big news, ended up getting ugly. 1up network was reportedly bought by UGO network. The story didn't end there. News started seeping out that people were quiting their jobs and even many people getting fired.

Jeff Green(former GFW editor) wrote in his blog:

A sad day for all the folks at 1up.com, the vast majority of whom lost their jobs today. I'll try to post a longer blog about this--I've been in meetings the whole time the proverbial merde hit the fan--but this is just a quick note to say that my condolences go out to all those now looking for work. The list of people they decided to lay off is just crazy. Don't ask me to make any sense of it, because I don't see any.

Gamasutra reported that Ziff Davis was in talks with UGO for sometime now and thought:

"We believe this is a smart transaction for Ziff Davis Media that places these market leading assets and teams in a great environment poised for further success. The transaction allows us to pay down debt and shift our full focus to our core PCMag Digital Network business. We thank our 1UP team members for their contributions and wish them the best of success into the future", said Ziff Davis Media CEO Jason Young.

That report was update with this later on:

According to information obtained by Gamasutra, around 30 employees of Ziff Davis' Game Group were laid off immediately following today's announcement, including the staff of EGM Magazine, but also some elements of the 1UP Network's web staff, including podcast and video producers.

EGM is officially closed for real now. Rumours where swirling before that Ziff Davis was intending to close it down earlier. Matt Chandronait posted this on his blog:

The news has gone out. With the buyout by UGO, many of us here won't be moving on into the new organization. That includes most of Gamevideos and the entire crew of The 1UP Show.

The end of the 1up show. I personally feel for these guys. Been an ardent fan of 1up and the 1up show. I think 1up show is without a doubt the highest quality web video game show. I truly hope that the guys can pick themselves up from this and continue to do awesome stuff.

This is a sad day. :(