January 6, 2009 - The end of an era might be dawning for a stalwart of the videogame industry -- Electronic Gaming Monthly might be closing for good.
Today,
paidContent.org, website devoted to the business of digital content, ran a story titled "Ziff Davis sells 1UP digital network to Hearst, shutters EGM." In the article, which has since been removed, paidContent states that publisher Ziff Davis Media is closing EGM with this month's issue being the 20-year-old publication's last and selling the 1UP Digital Network to the Hearst Corporation. Under Hearst, 1UP would fall under the UGO Entertainment umbrella. Ziff Davis Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2008.
A spokesperson at 1UP refused to comment this afternoon and directed questions to Jason Young, Ziff Davis CEO. A message left for Young, an e-mail to paidContent Managing Editor Ernie Sanders, and a message for paidContent Publisher and Editor Rafat Ali were not immediately returned this afternoon. Meanwhile, a UGO spokesperson did not return a phone call.
Today, former 1UP Editorial Director and EGM Editor-in-Chief John Davison wrote an article about the paidContent brouhaha on
What They Play, a gaming site he co-founded. Davidson also couldn't get a straight answer as to what is going on in EGM/1UP land, but in an update he stated "Sources have indicated that details will be forthcoming as to the validity of the story by tomorrow morning."
UPDATE: 1UP has posted
a story confirming the site's sale -- along with GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com, and GameTab.com -- to UGO, but it doesn't mention anything about EGM.
UPDATE No. 2: Gamasutra has posted what it claims is a leaked e-mail to Ziff Davis employees from CEO Jason Young confirming the EGM closure. "With this transaction happening, we have also made the decision to discontinue publication of EGM. The January 2009 issue will be the final issue of the publication. With demand for print continuing to decline amongst both advertisers and readers and the content being produced by 1UP no longer available for use in the publication, it simply did not make sense for us to move forward with this business any longer."
