It’s no secret I hate 1UP. To be fair, there are a few genuinely respectable people employed among the crew of “professional” bloggers, alcoholics, and general miscreants; if, by miscreants I mean people who don’t credit sources and call the kettle black for competitors doing the same, attacking interviewees without respect to them, and just generally not knowing when to pick their battles. But on the whole, and as I’ve said before, the inmates are running the prison, and it shows.

I only half-understand the love fest between the 1UP “celebrity” and their audience. On one side, there is the typical 18-24 year old whose eyes fill up with envy, aspiring one day to be in the industry just like them, spewing curse words and drunken diatribes for a regular paycheck. They want to be famous just like their heroes of Ziff with whom they are on a first-name basis, and have the hordes of NeoGAFers chanting their names in twenty-page threads. These kids want to make a living by being exactly what they are now: crass, inexperienced fanboys who think they are qualified to critique and report, just because they know every Halo map by heart.

But then there is the love-fest between their comrades within the industry, fellow journalists who respect 1UP for trying something different within the gaming press space. By different I guess that means any of the miscreant acts listed earlier; and yeah, I guess I can agree, because what other self-respected game site has plagiarized from lesser-known sites because they could, using their advantage in site traffic to squash the little guy, but not before pilfering from it? I ask, why would credible, news-worthy sites want to align themselves with such an organization when they are in risk of being tarnished just by association? Simple, because “celebrity” is stronger than credibility, and the kids love celebrity.

Let’s take for example one of my favorite subjects, Luke Smith. Luke turned a News Editor gig into a blog, not unlike this one, to interject his personal opinions into poorly-constructed news posts. He gained fame by being a fowl-mouthed, immature talking head to the masses, who happened to love and be good at one of the most popular video games available. A good mix, for sure.

And on the subject of Smith, is he really that naive to think his new stint at Bungie is nothing more than Public Relations, despite his expectations of transcending that position’s traditional role? He’ll have access to the inner-workings of his favorite company but will be under restrictions to talk openly about them. He won’t eliminate the middle-man, he will be the middle man, a “Major Nelson” on an intellectual playfield a mere fraction of the size; and when that Halo well runs dry, it’s only Bungie, after all. He might learn some tips on level creation but without the requisite technical knowledge, it’ll be off to PR somewhere else or humbly crawling back to 1UP with his tail between his legs.

At D.I.C.E. 2007, Doug Lowenstein issued the following blow:

I think there’s a lot of maturity that needs to happen in the gaming press. It’s not just because there’s a cozy relationship between the press and the industry they cover. That I find a little uncomfortable. But I think the games industry press needs a higher level of maturity and seriousness

In the audience, front and center, was 1UP, reporting on his words without realizing how close this warning shot hit home. Two months later, 1UP was at GDC en force, hoping to nab the next big scoop. Per Chris Kohler at Wired, covering the Microsoft RPG panel:

And there are a lot of people here. I’m sitting in the middle of a whole stack of 1up writers. Are there big announcements afoot? What’s going on? You’ll find out as soon as I do.

I don’t fault 1UP for doing this; quite the contrary. They are reporters, and they were doing their best to gain the exclusive over their competitors, despite popular opinion they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Where I do fault them is how they didn’t seize the obvious, for failing to recognize the opportunity that surrounded them.

I touched on this earlier with my assessment of Smith’s career choice. He once mentioned that he was always interested in the “business aspect” of videogames, which is a clever way of saying he can’t make them, so he had to find a way to talk about them (and business aspect does not equate to the assumed functionality of damage characteristics in first-person shooters, by the way). Now he’s going to a developer without development experience, and must find a way to adapt in his new environs when his experience, or just his ego, outgrows his fishbowl. Yet months earlier, he and his peers at 1UP were surrounded by workshops led by skilled, experienced developers talking about the science of making games. And how did they take to this, even after being slammed by the developer community for criticizing games without knowing what it takes to make one? To paraphrase, “boring”. That isn’t something I’d want to hear from my staff in private, let alone publicly.

I would be remiss not to mention the publishing arm of the Ziff Davis Game Group, the older, fallible sibling to 1UP. It’s no secret the Game Group has been on the selling block for months, and indeed with its existing web footprint it would make sense for someone to acquire it to beef up their own online presence. But ZD is looking to sell the group as a whole, which means the bleeding, anemic print business comes with, for a price. It’s not as simple as spinning off the online group separate from print, because online is what’s keeping the Game Group afloat, and why would ZD want to keep the fat while selling the meat? The Group also shares resources between print and online, so if one were to be sold, how would the assets be divided? Doing so would be like cutting off one’s nose to spite their face, as both print and online have this kind of symbiotic relationship which has been necessary for their survival thus far. Lastly, ZD couldn’t merely close the print business, because as much as it is unprofitable, it is worth more to the Group alive than dead. And in fact, it could be resurrected if properly managed – one can look at the success of Game Informer to see how partnerships can be leveraged to compliment good journalism, not to replace it.

Yes, at the end of the day we are only talking about games. But these games are a multi-billion dollar business, and within the gaming press alone there’s a pretty big slice of cake there for those poised to take it. Conversely, if the press doesn’t take itself seriously, how does it expect to have anyone else do the same? And in an industry as large as this, that’s the difference between lollipops and legitimacy.