threevue

Aww, happier days…

Jane Pinckard, Luke Smith, John Davison, Mark McDonald, Kathleen Sanders, Bryan Intihar, Patrick Klepek and now Dan Hsu. It looks like it’s been a tumultuous year for the group at Ziff Davis.

Look, I’m not going to pretend to know anything about what it’s like being a full-time, professional (read: paid) Games Journalist or anything, I’m no 8bit Edward R Murrow (or Lester Bangs for that matter). But I can tell you that I would love to write about games for a living. At one point a year or so ago, I was addicted to the 1UP.com network of sites and podcasts as well as Electronic Gaming Monthly. 1UPYours was my favorite show to listen to and the weekly 1UP Show was the best 30ish minutes of “television” to be found. I posted as much as I could just to get my site rank up to “Genome Soldier”, that’s how into it I was.

But slowly, one by one, those people who were so influential to the personality of 1UP left. Pinckard (series co-creator of the 1UP Show) bolted, and soon after that Luke Smith (the perfect counterweight to Shane Bettenhausen) announced his departure to join the team at Bungie. Since then, editors and content directors have been peeling off a steady rate. I don’t like seeing one of the giants of the industry slowly crumble. The constant shuffle of staff at each of these departures can’t help the situation. Especially with the recent Chapter 11 declaration. We all know it doesn’t mean the Ziffers are cooking beans out of a tin by a garbage can fire (that’s Chapter 7, it means closure of the business and liquidation of pretty much all assets), but it sure aint good.

But what is causing the bleeding out? Is it a laissez-faire attitude copped by the writer/editor/producer/artist? Do they maintain a drifting sensibility (what most people would say is typical of people who have a hobby like video games) that weakens their connection to the company? This could be; especially when heard along with the idea that a primarily electronic lifestyle simply does not promote the best interpersonal skill set, which is necessary in forming a reciprocative position and becoming an integral part of “the company”. Or Is it the foreboding feeling of an impending death of the print medium? Opponents of this idea say that there will always be a need for physical literature, while supporters vie citing the meteoric rise of online retailers (and other sources) dispensing solely in electronic formats; iTunes, torrents… even Wal-mart. Was Patrick Klepek keen enough to get out while the getting was good? His haircut tells me otherwise (JK, Pat. I wish you had a vlog at MTV so you could do some GH power ballads).

Whatever is causing this mini-exodus, it is detrimental to Ziff (as well as any other company with a vested interest in games publishing). I hope that in a year or so from now we can all look back and remember when the shaky status of 1UP was just a short lived period fretted through while the industry gained steadier footing, and not the beginning of the end of print journalism as a whole. I really hope that.