Actually it was yesterday. This is a pretty major bummer. Craptacular web portal ‘ugo’ purchased 1up.com yesterday, shuttered EGM, laid off a significant percentage of the staff, and canceled all 1up podcasts and the 1up Show video blog. This has been rumored to be in the works for a while, but the extent of the changes is surprising. EGM was one of the longest in-print gaming magazine and one of the few remaining ones published in the US, and while I was never a regular reader I was a huge fan of the podcasts and video blog that it spawned – I was listening to at least 5-6 hours of 1up audio content a week and I’m really sad to see them end. Here’s hoping they land on their feet in this down economy. Meanwhile, this is further evidence of the death of print, which seems to be happening faster than most folks, myself included, thought it would. There’s a good piece over here by Clay Shirky that talks about this and other media-related subjects.

Related articles:

• EGM Shuts Down, More Than 30 Ziff Davis Employees Laid Off
• Official: UGO buys 1UP, EGM dead [update]
• Ziff-Davis: The Legendary Magazine Publisher Publishes Magazines No More
• Report: 1UP Sold To Hearst Corporation, EGM To Close [Journalism]