For those of you who enjoy the often month-old, yet still highly informative and entertaining, gaming news found in Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, or even the up-to-date news and media sites 1UP.com and GameVideos.com, then you know that the company that owns all three is in a lot of trouble. When William Ziff's publishing portion of the company sold for $1.4 billion in the middle 1990s, things were looking good. Then, Japanese company Softbank later bought the publishing portion for $2 billion and things peaked, promising an eventful future. Unfortunately the events were less than desirable, and Softbank sold their involvement for a measly $780 million. Ziff Davis continued to show signs of weakness a few months ago when they announced that their U.S. PlayStation Magazine would be discontinued in January of 2007. No biggy, they moved on at Titanic speeds, Dan Hsu got his aristocratic naked portrait, and the iceberg tore a whole in the company that ensured its death. If there was a 911-style conspiracy video covering all of these events, this would be when the Fight Club background ambient music picks up and starts to get into the depressing lyrics.
1UP even tried sleeping with ESPN to help save them, but Ziff Davis announced a while back that they would be selling EGM, 1UP, and other legendary gaming news sources to the highest bidder after a fiscal quarter brought a half million dollar loss in revenue. I naively thought Z to the D had nothing to worry about, they'd pull an Enron or sleep with some other company, but it appears that they will not be receiving a shitty football movie happy ending in the fourth quarter. It appears that the deadline has come, and the fate will be decided in the next day or two, leaving their gaming baby businesses separated to different families and living in a broken home lifestyle from here on out:
It's sad to see the big guys going down fast. Baseball and football super stars only fall from fame if their drinking habits get the best of them, it sucks to see some of the first well known gaming writers get their retro rugs pulled out from underneath of them. Good luck fellow gaming writers.
What's your guys' opinion on all of this? On one hand, EGM isn't as great as it used to be, but I don't think a pitchfork riot is justified. But if anything drastic happens then the gaming industry might suffer. There's plenty of other gaming sites ready to step up, but when a magazine charges $10,000 per one page ad in their monthly publishings, you can tell that the companies really rely on them to help game sales. Magazines are definitely a thing of the past for gaming news, but it'll blow if their Internet brother gets the brought down with it.
Source: the last boss
1UP even tried sleeping with ESPN to help save them, but Ziff Davis announced a while back that they would be selling EGM, 1UP, and other legendary gaming news sources to the highest bidder after a fiscal quarter brought a half million dollar loss in revenue. I naively thought Z to the D had nothing to worry about, they'd pull an Enron or sleep with some other company, but it appears that they will not be receiving a shitty football movie happy ending in the fourth quarter. It appears that the deadline has come, and the fate will be decided in the next day or two, leaving their gaming baby businesses separated to different families and living in a broken home lifestyle from here on out:
"For the current bust-up, the company is being split into the gaming group, which includes video gaming magazines and Web sites, and the enterprise division, which includes PC Magazine - once the biggest magazine tracked by the Publishers Information Bureau in terms of ad pages.
Bidders still looking at parts of the company include Apprise Media and Viacom's MTV publishing unit. Quadrangle is said to have dropped out."
Nothing great can come from that, Ziff Davis has met its Clubber Lang and the end is inevitable. Looks like it's time to run that million penny scheme floppy disc, grab your staplers, and fly to a foreign country. We now await with watchful eyes - if black smoke comes out of the 1UP headquarter chimneys, then they have been sold off but the 1UP employees get to keep their jobs. And if we see white smoke? Then it's their ashes.Bidders still looking at parts of the company include Apprise Media and Viacom's MTV publishing unit. Quadrangle is said to have dropped out."
It's sad to see the big guys going down fast. Baseball and football super stars only fall from fame if their drinking habits get the best of them, it sucks to see some of the first well known gaming writers get their retro rugs pulled out from underneath of them. Good luck fellow gaming writers.
What's your guys' opinion on all of this? On one hand, EGM isn't as great as it used to be, but I don't think a pitchfork riot is justified. But if anything drastic happens then the gaming industry might suffer. There's plenty of other gaming sites ready to step up, but when a magazine charges $10,000 per one page ad in their monthly publishings, you can tell that the companies really rely on them to help game sales. Magazines are definitely a thing of the past for gaming news, but it'll blow if their Internet brother gets the brought down with it.
Source: the last boss
