UGO Makes Significant Cuts to the 1UP Staff — More Than 2/3 Let Go

Tue, Jan 6, 2009

1UP was officially purchased by Hearst only a short while ago, and already ramifications are being felt among its core staff. Remember how Ziff Davis CEO Jason Young said that “many” employees would become part of the new UGO/1UP team? Turns out I was (unfortunately) right; that was just polite corporate talk, as—so far—more than 30 employees from 1UP and its network have been let go.

Thanks to the Internet--and in large part this massive NeoGAF thread--we’ve been able to learn about several high-profile layoffs from a variety of tweets, forum posts, or Facebook status updates. As of now, Andrew “Skip” Pfister, Phillip Kollar, James “Milkman” Mielke, Nick Suttner, Anthony Gallegos, Jay Fresh, Ryan O’Donnell, Cesar Quintero, Matt Chandronait, and almost all of the GameVideos crew are without jobs. Contrary to earlier reports, it seems Shane Bettenhausen had already planned on leaving 1UP anyway (to work on a secret project with Kojima, perhaps?) so his removal from 1UP was more a product of ironic timing than anything else.

Here’s the (tentative) full list of those 1UP lost as a result of (or during) the UGO buyout, put together by a variety of users and posters all over the Internet:

Adrian Frieg
Amy Mishra
Amy Moran
Andrea Garcia
Andrew Fitch
Andrew "Skip" Pfister
Anthony Gallegos
Cesar Quintero
Christina Rosa
CoyLou Steel
Derek Chinn
Doug Parsons
Eric Ellis
Giancarlo Varanini
Greg Ford
James "Milkman" Mielke
Jason Bertrand
Jason Wilson
Jervilyn Jaramillo
Justin Frechette
Leslie Gelfand
Marci Yamaguchi
Matt Chandronait
May Tong
Meredith Stowe
Michael Donahoe
Monique Convertito
Ndubuisi Madu
Nick Suttner
Norris Boothe
Philip Kollar
Rey Serrano
Robert Bowen
Rosemary Pinkham
Ryan O'Donnell
Ryan Scott
Shane Bettenhausen
Simon Cox
Tammy Ross
Tipler Ubbelohde

Perhaps one of the least talked about casualties of the merger is the freelance staff employed by 1UP. According to various people I’ve contacted, it seems like a large majority of the freelancers have also been let go. Unlike the big guns, though, it’s going to be a bit harder to land another job in the industry.

Once again, my condolences to anyone who lost their job over the issue, and trust me, I’m just as perplexed with UGO’s actions as you are. You’d think when they say that “1UP is all about its personalities” in their own write-up about the purchase, they’d at least keep some of said personalities around.