As we try to determine what the future holds without EGM and a reformed 1UP.com, we must ask ourselves how this all came to be.  Is there one single person to blame, and if not, what factors created the circumstances for the death of the 1UP network. 

More after the jump.

Surly there is no single person to blame for the collapse of EGM.  It has been no secret to anyone that print media has become a relic of a long forgotten era.  The creation of Gutenberg, print media has not truly evolved until the digital age.  Perhaps this is why it comes as such a shock to see such a massive giant like EGM die.  Until the beginnings of the digital age, what other medium was there to read all of the news you needed. 

However, this introduces a unique paradigm.  EGM has helped create its own demise.  You may be shocked or you may think I'm right but the fact remains:  EGM was first and foremost a technology magazine that helped build up a massive website in 1UP.  This fact alone could have easily brought down EGM, however it may have been able to survive somewhat longer if it were not for their former owners, Ziff Davis. 

If you frequent gaming sites much you will see a lot of analysis over the next few days about what the death of EGM and 1Up mean for gaming. Probably the most frequent statement will be how this means that the industry is no longer about "hard core" gamers but the casual market. There have been many other indications that this is true, most notably the success of the Wii and the recent Nielsen report that says the PS2 is still the most played console in the US. Welcome to last gen gaming.

What this also says to me is that the industry (finally?) learned a lesson, perhaps the hard way, but learn it they did. It cost them what was once one of the most loved genres in video gaming, the flight simulator, but in the long run that loss may save the industry. (how after the jump)

When I got my first PC, I had been a gamer for a long time. Primarily my gaming had been done in arcades, starting with Space Invaders and going through most of the classic arcade games of the early '80s. I had also played some of friend's Atari systems; some on a TRS-80; and some on a Nintendo NES, primarily Tetris and Rygar. But the PC opened up many new genres, from text based adventure games, to submarine simulators (Silent Service II and Red Storm Rising), and the much loved at the time flight simulators.

Flying an F15 was exciting. However, to get my point you need to understand how inappropriate it was calling these flight simulators. There was precious little simulation to these games. Sure, you could use a joystick to manuever, but you pulled the trigger to fire a machine gun and pushed a button to fire a missile. You might have to keep the target within a window for a brief period to "lock" the missile to the target. You might even have to try a couple of times before you get the hang of landing. But this was no simulation of real combat flying.

Last night marked a major event for gaming journalism.  With the closing of EGM and the absorption of 1UP into the UGO network, we've heard that 40 Ziff Davis employees have been laid off.  After comparing the names on "The List" to those on the 1UP staff page, it's become a painful reality that over HALF of the 1UP staff has been laid off.  Without a doubt, this has ruined most of the good will that 1UP has developed over the years.  Where does this leave the once proud site?

The answer after the jump.

When I began writing for TAG, I was an avid listener to the 1UP podcasts.  My favorites were GFW Radio and Retronauts.  When Jeff Green and Shaun Elliot left, the show became a mere shell of its former self.  While LAN Party still had a great deal of the original show intact, there was always something missing.  Ryan Scott did a fantastic job with what he had, and I will consistently commend him for his work.  Now that most of the 1UP podcasts are dead, I'm forced to wonder where I'm going to get my Robert Ashley fix.

Perhaps the worst of the podcast's, however, was EGM Live.  However, after a massive reconstruction, the show evolved into 1UP FM and was a constant companion in my MP3 player.  The fact that the show was basically a dead horse that was brought back to life is amazing.  The Backlog segment was pure genius and I only wish that I would have actually finished my copy of Beyond Good and Evil so I could have listened to the final installment.  Also, there were some killer interviews.  My favorite was their interview with Starbreeze Studios, makers of my Game of the Year 2007, The Darkness.

The news from yesterday, announcing the retirement of Electronic Gaming Monthly as well as the sale of 1Up, has hit me hard.  Harder than I'd like to admit, and harder than I expected.  Granted, the writing had been on the wall for at least a year, with dwindling subscription numbers for EGM, all kinds of financial woes for Ziff Davis, and the departure of Dan "Shoe" Hsu from the halls of the legendary magazine.  In my mind, Shoe leaving was the beginning of the end.  I honestly believe that Shoe saw this coming, and jumped ship while it still made sense.

But despite the fact that I (and many others) saw this coming, it still blows chunks.  EGM was one of the first gaming magazines I ever read.  It's the only one I continue to read, two decades later.  There were issues of the magazine that just blew me away, especially the January 2007 issue when Shoe called Jack Tretton on the carpet for the failed PS3 launch, and asked him all the hard hitting questions that had been on my mind, and the minds of many gamers, since the launch.

And despite the fact that the inevitable death of print media was always pressing... it doesn't change the fact that yesterday marked the death of (arguable) the most important player in gaming journalism.   In some ways, it marks the end of an era, as well.  And this is to say nothing of the loss of 1Up, one of the key members of the online gaming media.  Sure, they were sold off to another giant multimedia corporation, but look at who got let go.  1Up will end up as a shell of what it used to be.

I don't want to put all my thoughts on this subject out there.  I'm sure we'll be talking about this on UncleGamer Radio this week.   The Force-Ghost of Parris appeared to me last night, and said that this will almost definitely be our focal point for the next show.  That's one nice thing about sharing a brain with your co-host.  You can communicate without even talking to one another.  :D