It’s a bit of a sad day. 1UP as we know it will cease to exist very soon as it has been bought from Ziff Davis Media by UGO Entertainment, who have immediately set about making some changes in the staff. Mainly by laying 30 of them off. Ouch.

Hit the jump for the info on what is a pretty dark day for the world of independent gaming journalism.

But first, I’m getting one thing out of the way. Once again…Lono was right. Not content with being right about a multitude of things before, he’s gone and predicted 1UP’s demise, in September no less. There, that’s out the way, I’ll leave him to rub that in everyone’s faces on the next Red Show. Now then, our feature presentation.

UGO Entertainment has announced that they’ve bought up 1UP.com (and sister sites such as GameVideos.com) and have immediately set about reorganizing everything. By “reorganizing”, I mean “firing 30 staff members and ending podcasts”. In short, you can kiss goodbye to some of the best writers on the internet, the 1UP Show and the audio podcast. Due to these unfortunate circumstances, Ziff Davis Media is ending the publication of Electronic Gaming Monthly, with the latest issue on the shelves immediately becoming the final one.

Joystiq has a list of everyone who has been let go, and the list includes Matt Chandronait, Shane Bettenhausen, Nick Suttner, James “Milkman” Mielke and many more contributors to both 1UP and the former EGM. In other words, 1UP.com is all but dead, and any attempt by UGO to try and disguise this is ineffective. The chances are 1UP.com itself will probably be integrated with UGO completely in the near future.

Any attempt to understand why so many people were let go will probably be fruitless, unless you look at it from an economical point of view. Niero over at Destructoid did a little math and worked out that UGO will probably save $2.5million a year by downsizing the staff that they have. I know that times are tough, but these guys have put in a lot of work for a long time; was it really worth letting them go in such a brutal takeover?

Reception has hardly been kindly, as one of the best indie gaming sites out there has gone corporate, and has changed in what we can safely call a major fashion. While changes wont be instant, they will come over time and they will be noticeable. The true shame here is what has become of the 30-odd staff who have been laid off. It’s already hard finding a job at the moment but we can only wish the now redundant staff of 1UP.com and EGM the best of luck in their futures.

With a great publication gone, and a great site almost as dead, what does the future hold for these staff? We can only hope it’s something good, as they didn’t deserve to be played by UGO in the slightest. Screw capitalism. I want 1UP back!

This is like Schwin buying Porsche and firing all of the designers.  Can anyone even name a SINGLE person from UGO?

UGO Acquires 1UP…Mass Layoffs…EGM Dead – GamePolitics