Columnist Doug T. Graham discusses how the merger affects the gaming community, 40 employees laid off.

The gaming industry was at one point thought to be “recession-proof,” but the evaporating U.S economy has proven that optimism to be misplaced.

On Tuesday, Jan. 6, it was announced via press release that 1up.com (one of the largest gaming Web sites) and its affiliate sites gamevideos.com, mycheats.com, and gametab.com had been purchased by UGO, whose parent company is the Hearst Corporation.

Confusion followed the press release, for almost an hour about which members of the editorial staff were being let go ran rampant among game related blogs and forums.

At 8:35 a.m. Pacific Time, Sam Kennedy, the founder of 1up.com and the site’s Editor-in-Chief for its five year run, posted a blog entitled “1up is now a part of UGO,” in which he cleared up what the move meant for the future of 1up.com.

He writes, “…many of the larger vide ogame Web sites have been acquired by the big media companies. GameSpot is now part of CBS, IGN is owned by FOX, GameDaily is owned by AOL, and now 1UP is owned by UGO and its parent Hearst Corporation, one of the largest and long running publishers in the nation. And, to be honest, that’s really good news. Not only do we now have the backing of a fantastic company like Hearst, but we have the support and oversight of a great group like UGO, who have the utmost belief in 1UP and the content and sites we produce…”

But there was a darker side to the deal.

“Not everyone in the 1UP family was able to make the transition and Ziff Davis let them go today,” said Kennedy in his blog. “Emotionally, that hurts. It really hurts. I can’t even begin to tell you, with many of them being some of my closest friends and people I personally hired. This has been the hardest day of my life. Believe me, I’ll have much to say on the subject in the future, not to mention the closure of EGM, the magazine that I grew up with and made me choose this as my career.”

His mention of the closure of EGM, the largest and longest running gaming magazine in America, and his hinting at the loss of staff members are what dominated the user feedback to the blog post. The first comments to his post were hopeful. The positive tone of the comments decreased rapidly with time. User Cspringer left a message saying, “…I’ve been reading EGM for over 13 years…. Best videogame site and magazine ruined. You guys laid off the soul of 1up.”

Part of the reason for this increasing backlash against the deal is the immense loss of staff: 17 out of the 34 1up network editors (including all of those who worked on legendary print magazine EGM) 3three out of 6 Designers, and nearly all of the Technology and Marketing staff. A list of all 40 people who were laid off as a result of 1up’s purchase by UGO and Hearst Corp. can be found online.

Speaking personally, the news of 1up.com’s staff exodus devastated me. I’ve been a member of the 1up community for two years and have been an active listener to four of the six audio podcasts for the same amount of time.

So fervent was my admiration for the editorial staff of 1up that not only was I too intimidated to post on their message boards (lest one of my idols comments on something I say and I pee myself).

One of the greatest thrills of my entire life was hearing my user name spoken by 1up Yours host Garnett Lee as he read a question that I had submitted to be discussed by such video game journalist gods as Stephen Totillo of the MTV Multiplayer Blog, N’Gai Croel of Newsweek, and my personal idol Shawn Elliott, formerly of 1up. The decision that changed the course of my life was made while listening to an episode of the now retired GFW radio. It was the decision of what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, and while listening to the show’s hosts talk about the state of the video game press and the opportunities of it and all emerging online media I chose to become a video game journalist.