PixlBit

Greetings, Pixlbit!  

My name is Dave, and I'm a transplant from 1UP.com.  Today I prepare to back up dozens of blogs from there.  It's such a depressing, monotonous task, I am reluctant to start.

When I first heard the news of 1UP.com shuttering, I was stunned, but not surprised.  Any regular member of 1UP.com knew it was coming.  Despite this strong nagging sensation that something needed to be said or done to possibly prevent it, I chose to not center any blogs around the topic.  

It wasn't because I didn't have any facts. Indeed, 1up's web-traffic data at Alexa.com painted a grim picture.  One could hop on a toboggan and sled down the graph data curve with very few bumbs along the way.

It wasn't because I didn't have any ideas.  Some may remember "Dave's Summertime DLC Contest" I held at my blog last summer, where 10 bucks worth of digital console currency was given away about every 2 weeks.  That contest was a direct result of my 1-man brainstorming mission to test the idea of such a contest, how popular it would be at 1UP.  

The contest was also my way of giving back to the 1UP community in a monetary way, because I knew the end was coming.  The new ideas promoted by 1up.com just weren't catching on.  They tried a print magazine, new podcast formats, and went back to the weekly features structure that worked well a few years ago.  None of it seemed to work.

One can read between the lines only for so long before the inevitable becomes clear.  It's at that point when one makes a choice:  either accept reality, or go into denial.  I chose the latter.

If I could, I'd buy Parish and the crew a beer.  Or maybe a case, each.  They deserve it.  If I could tell the end of 1UP was coming, I'm sure they could.  And, despite thei best efforts, over the last few months there was no disguising the fact that 1UP was a shell of its former self.  

There's nothing wrong with 4 guys doing their damnedest to keep a website afloat against all odds.  The problem was that 1UP began to feel that way on the consumer end, at least to me.  There was a sense of urgeny, or falling behind.  More typos crept into articles.  Weekend material was nonexistant or sparce.  Depsite the quality of their writing, the Fab Four's work just didn't offer enough quantity and diversity to maintain the proper 1UP identity.  I believe no 4 humans on Earth could do it, and I hope very much that the circumstances weren't too stressful on any of them over the past year or so.

Like I said, I was in denial - literally deep, rooted, compartmentalized - about the fate of 1UP, so its shuttering stunned me pretty hard, despite its inevitability.  In fact, I'm still mourning, literally crying tears of sadness.  To be honest, it caught me on a bad week.  There's a lot of stress hitting me on numerous fronts, the shuttering finally tipped me to the spilling point.  

My relationship with 1UP stems to when I was about 13 years old (1989).  It was then that I discovered EGM magazine, this wonderfully written, edited, informative complement to my gaming hobby.  Although I started gaming at an earlier age, it was around that time when I really began to understand the hobby's depth, possibilities, and competition.  It was back during the old Nintendo vs. Sega days, and EGM, back then, was like the monthly Bible of gaming.  

Want to know specs on the next gen of systems?  Read EGM.  

Want to know a finishing move for MK2 in the arcade?  Read EGM.  

Want to know if a game on your radar is worth purchasing or not?  Read EGM.

Want exclusive, clever material like Sushi X, Quarterman, large scale April Fool's jokes, etc?  Read EGM.

We all know what happened to EGM, and 1UP's fate stings familiar.  The difference, now, is that when EGM shuttered, 1UP was able to carry the torch.  Now I have no journalistic brand that connects back to my youth.  It's true that many of EGM/1UP's journalists are still in the biz, which is great.  They're just not collected together like we remember, during an era when it was feasible to afford, and new enough to be exciting and wildly entertaining.  

And yes, it's true that EGM rebooted and also prints magazines (to which I subscribe), but it's not the same.  This era is different.  The 24-hour real-time information age in which we now live bridges the gap between fanciful curiosity of the future and cold hard truth faster than ever before.  There is no possible way to emulate the ignorant bliss of decades past.  The internet is too ingrained into our gadgets.  Ii's in our computers, our phones, handhelds and consoles.  

I think that about does it for this blog entry.  I still have a locker to clean out at 1UP.  I'll be checking out this site more, looking for familiar faces from 1UP.  If you recognize me, please add me as a friend!