I remember walking down the hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center as I watched a white glossy banner pass over my head with a logo I already knew all too well. I guess a lot of us tonight are having similar memories. Yours might include a favorite review or cover art. Maybe a podcast. I didn't even work there or know most of those guys that well, and I'm finding myself extremely nostalgic and in a fuss about it.
You know, I was going to let the whole 1UP buyout sink in overnight and hope to awaken with a yawny fat optimistic face. Instead, I'm anything short of restless. It's 4 AM and find myself bristling in my room in disbelief repeating the same words over and over in my head:
My favorite childhood gaming magazine is dead. Fuck.
Some of the most talented people in games media were fired today (or coincidentally quit, as Shane blogged it), as Ziff Davis folded the business to Hearst's wannabe-IGN, a polished me-too men's interest portal that once stood for "Underground Gaming Online" but has since lost its way. The CEO said that picking up 1UP would basically finally let them buy some personality, but they ironically fired most of it on day one, causing a ten-page Internet trainwreck in their announcement thread. Despite letting go key podcast production staff, Sam Kennedy told MTV that they're going to try to maintain some semblance of a media program:
Will we have as many shows as we have in the past? Probably not, but we have – we’ve had – a lot of ideas for future shows and we’re pretty excited about what we’ll do in the future. Right now, we’re going to go through the process of really figuring out what kind of shows and products we want to keep going in the future. Our intention is to keep as many going as we can.
Nevertheless, 30 good people were let go. While many are busy flaming UGO for being money-hungry pigs with no intentions, I began to ponder the economics of the firings and did a little (highly flawed) research to dig into how an incredibly stupid call like this might make any sense in the books. I dared to piss in the wind and found numbers that sound probable.
We all know that San Francisco is not a cheap town.
According to salary aggregating service PayScale (who claims to have surveyed over 22,000 people), the median salary for seasoned Web Geeks is in the $50-80k range and upwards of $100k for director-level positions. Multiply that times 30, then add the cost of equipment and studio space, and you're easily looking at $2.5 million annually. That's a lot of ads to sell for free podcasts to break even. Unless money was being thrown at them by listeners, that team should have been disassembled a long time ago and put towards other, more profitable enterprises within 1UP. Common sense.
Thus, Ziff clearly ran the expensive operation in an attempt to win market share, but couldn't stay the course of their flawed economics. What podcast or magazine can ever hope to break even on on that kind of money in this economy? The media arm would have to do all the grunt work to turn a profit... and that's what UGO kept. Smart. Dickheaded, but smart. We knew they were gonna go. It was obviously a long time coming. And yet, it doesn't make any of this easy.
I'm now less upset at UGO for being lame and furious, and more upset that a reputable group of suits like Ziff Davis could be so bloated and mismanaged. No wonder they filed for bankrupcy. The unfortunate people whose talents could have been put to better use will be forced to move on -- hopefully with little difficulty, as many are household names to people involved in the industry. While scouring through the riot of fan outcry around the Web, one of our editors compiled a list of all of the rumored firings:
Yamaguchi, Marci
Cox, Simon
Convertito, Monique
Donahoe, Michael
Pinkham, Rosemary
Wilson, Jason
Bettenhausen, Shane
Ford, Greg
Gallegos, Anthony
Mielke, James
Bertrand, Jason
Bowen, Robert
Chandronait, Matt
Fitch, Andrew
Frechette, Justin
O'Donnell, Ryan
Pfister, Andrew
Quintero, Cesar
Scott, Ryan
Serrano, Rey
Varanini, Giancarlo
Frieg, Adrian
Garcia, Andrea
Gelfand, Leslie
Jaramillo, Jervilyn
Madu, Ndubuisi
Moran, Amy
Steel, CoyLou
Stowe, Meredith
Ubbelohde, Tipler
Boothe, Norris
Chinn, Derek
Ellis, Eric
Ross, Tammy
Tong, May
Mishra, Amy
Parsons, Doug
Rosa, Christina
Suttner, Nick
Kollar, Philip
Unbelievable.
If I can feign any optimism at this hour, I can say that where there is crisis, there is hope. Everyone at Destructoid wishes those guys the best. I strongly recommend fans to download the old podcast episodes before uncle UGO yanks them.
Despite the gloom and doom, I'd like to remind everyone (and try to make myself believe it this time so I can go to bed) that we all thought 1UP was going to suck ass and die years ago when Ziff Davis picked it up, and they instead produced a better product in the end. Sam Kennedy will still be at the masthead. UGO is sitting on a mountain of old money and people that appear to have the basic understanding of a calculator. This could provide a more stable future for 1UP despite the chopped heads. That's really the best I can muster to say.
Tonight has also forced me to look at our own economics.
As a micro-publisher of a smaller site, it makes me wonder what I could possibly do to prevent a similar fate down the line. This makes every challenge and drama I've faced at Destructoid seem a little petty in scale. I hope everyone who operates a gaming Web site -- or does anything for the love or enthusiasm of it -- takes a good, hard look at how one of the most loved legacy brands spun out of control and let its overhead walk it out the door. I can't stress enough how important it is to remain independent for as long as your frail little brain can bear to protect your readers from completely losing the things they've come to love.
And there it is. I know what's finally keeping me up. I'm afraid it might someday happen to Destructoid, too. Hey kids, turn off those ad blockers, won't ya?
*Knocks on wood, calls it a night*
Contest:
1:50 AM on 01.07.2009
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I have strong faith, and only look forward to the future.
D:
Nuuuuuuuuu
Here's to fiscal responsibility, Ziff Davis. Die in a fire.
This ol' place will be fine. Just stay true to yourself and the community will do the rest, have no fear.
Also, I'll write and podcast for peanuts. Or free!
Also, am I the only one who doesn't use ad blockers mainly because they leave giant empty spaces in site design that look really strange?
After poring over a good twenty pages at the 1 UP forums it feels like we're all in accordance and can agree that a sizable piece of our gaming family has died. 1 UP was one of the last bastions of real games journalism and now UGO will undoubtedly run it into the ground.
Indeed Redzie, UGO can die in a fire and then its ashes can then go and proceed to fuck themselves, hard.
Best of wishes to everyone involved. You got where you were by kicking ass. Keep it up and I'm sure you'll find your way back to the top again. <3
Excellent post. I think the question of prevention is one of direction and value. Pick a direction, stick to it, and know what is truly valuable (people). You also need to know what is classically valuable (ads). The challenge is to find the balance between them, and it's fucking hard.
Dtoid is a touch better of and less-prone to these kind of giant business cockups for several reasons. Being independent is a huge bonus. You, Niero, have ultimate control. You can see the fine detail and stop things before they erode value. Suits simply cant. They see charts and bullshit.
Dtoid also maintains much lower overheads (I assume) than the larger sites. It's kept a lot of the bonuses from having a small site, yet managed to (against all odds) grow.
The openness in which you conduct business here has built up trust with us. Something the other sites will basically fail at achieving.
That's plenty of unhelpful vague business waffle for now. The site is behind you, and has confidence in your leadership abilities.
On a related note, I've been reading a book called Wikinomics. It could provide some interesting "how to do business and not be a dick" advice. I dunno.
its a damn shame... I hope the writers find good home... but cant help but think how gaming related websites have mushroomed over the last coupla years... and how many are still in business...
1up show was great... gonna miss that the most...
I still remember being amazed at the pictures of E3 years ago and dreaming of the day I could go. So much for that dream.
I know this sounds lame, but I've replayed the 1Up show's theme like 5 times just now.
It all just feels...surreal.
I love there podcasts, and there editors and writers are quite entertaining.
No more Retronauts D: :(
It's only a matter of time.
Yes.
But who will be the One Free Man?
Oh wait...
problem is... not many people bought their PC magazine... so that had to go... then... not many people bought EGM... so that had to go...
its like an avalanche of shit storms... thats my layman ANALysis...
dont worry Niero... the minute you sell our to a company... we will all happily put a bullet to your head to end your suffering... and then Chad will go around on a old lady-hitting spree...
If it's not profitable, that means the money they could get wasn't worth the cost of paying for it, basically meaning in real terms that the costs weren't worth the benefits. People could have paid, but they don't do that, that's not worth it to them, neither is shutting off their ad blocker on their website or not pirating the magazine etc. etc. Consumers drive these things.
Unfortunately cult fandoms like this just don't command that much in the real economy. If we want to stop things like this, we should be going to war against pirating/cheap skate take it for granted youth culture today, not corporations that understand the laws of economics. And reality.
So they should continually pay people to do something consumers aren't willing to pay more than that for receiving? Why? I know it plays into our cartoonish fantasies of a business monster out to get us, but Scrouge McDuck did not shut down this magazine because he wanted to ruin our day.
/me whitelists the whole site in adblock
maybe they could have kept all those people... because now UGO and 1up gets a lotta negative goodwill... and all there best writers are going to work for different companies...
Gamespot laid off some people too... its just sad...
Adblockers suck ass.
Yours,
The Ad-mafia
It makes me sad that mediocrity seems to be the only thing that keeps businesses afloat. How to solve it? I don't even know.
Teenah
Garnett
end of list?
Dayam, i really hope those that lost their jobs find something awesome, just like Shawn Elliot, Luke Smith, Jeff Green did.. or the guys from Giant Bomb. There's still room for a Renegade 1up website.. isn't there?