Update: What the Ex-1UP Staff is Up to Now
Not all of us have had such a great start to the new year. If you remember back to January 6th, you might remember hearing about Ziff Davis closing EGM and selling 1up.com to Hearst leading them to lay off over two-thirds of their staff. It was a sad day for many gamers, setting in the reality of America’s economic situation and signaling the end of an era of great podcasts and one of the better video game magazines. However, many of the former 1UPers have successfully transplanted their following into new ventures. The following are the new ventures known as of now:
Eat. Sleep. Game.:
Eat. Sleep. Game. is a site that was created by Anthony Gallegos and Arthur Gies before Gallegos got a job with 1UP. The site had to be dusted after being, for the most part, unattended for a long while. Despite this, Gallegos and Gies now continue their blogging with Nick Suttner and Philip Kollar, also from 1UP. Possibly the most exciting thing the group is doing is the podcast Rebel FM. The show features the bloggers and various guests continuing the ways of 1UP FM; they have seemingly random discussions and play through old games with audience participation. At one point this show even reached the #1 spot on iTunes for any podcast. A new show can be found every Wednesday on their website or on iTunes.
The Geekbox:
Filling another gap in our hearts is Geekbox, a blog headed by Ryan Scott. This is another pre-1up blog, reanimated after the fact. Here you can find anything geek – from comic books to computers, Scott has you covered. Following Rebel FM’s example, the first episode of The Geekbox can also be found on iTunes, as well as geekbox.net. The first episode features Ryan Scott, Karen Chu, Andrew Fitch, Greg Ford, Ryan Higgins and Ernie P. sitting in a comic book store after hours, reminiscing and listing their top games of the year. The next show will be released Wednesday.
Area 5:
The guys who made the 1UP show did a classy job. Unfortunately, they were some of the first to get the boot when Ziff and 1UP disbanded. They took the longest to surface after the layoffs simply because video editing is much harder than its auditory counterpart. Named after a level from the game Rez, Area 5 has resurfaced with a video podcast, which is more than comparable to The 1UP Show, called CO-OP. The first episode launched today and can be found on their website or on YouTube.
Sources: What They Play, Eat. Sleep. Game., The Geekbox, Area 5
Comments (0)