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As I was drinking my morning coffee, I learned that Ziff Davis is in the process of shutting down 1Up, UGO, and GameSpy. This made me sad. Obviously I feel for everyone at those sites that lost their jobs, as well as the people cut from IGN, but the GameSpy closure is…personal. Although I had numerous problems with the site during my last year there, those first two years were fantastic — definitely the second-best work experience of my life. While the site never became everything it could be, it helped me improve as a profesional, become a better person, and make some great friends. Here are some random thoughts on my time at GameSpy.
Mark Surfas: Let’s start at the top, with the company founder and CEO. He was easily the coolest CEO I’ve ever worked for. He really cared about his company and his employees. Mark created a fun environment, but also expected results. He was very generous to his employees, providing healthy stock options (which resulted in the biggest check I’ve ever received) and medical insurance that was covered 100 percent by the company (does that happen anymore?).
My favorite thing about Mark was that he was accessible and human, despite being really sharp and very successful. One time I went to his office with a small bottle of hair gel and said, “Fix your hair Mark. It looks stupid.” The day he drove to the office in a new Hummer, I marched up to his office and said, “You know that car makes you a dick, right?” When he asked that GameSpy editors wear company polo shirts to press events, he kindly granted me an exception to wear GameSpy-branded Roots hoodies instead. Thankfully, he tolerated my behavior and seemed mildly amused by it.
I’ve told him a few times in recent years, “Thank you for everything at GameSpy, Mark. It was one of the best times of my life. I was too young and too stupid to appreciate everything you did for me.”
John Keefer: GameSpy’s managing editor was a pleasure to work for. I never had a boss that was so selfless. Keefer was all about putting his guys in a position to succeed and selling their results to upper management. At times, Keefer’s generosity was disarming and I didn’t know what to do with it. As I got to know him better, I found that it was genuine — just a remarkable and rare thing. In pro-wrestling terms, he sold for his team the way that Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels sold for their opponents. He made you look damn good.
The Fab Four: The site’s console team consisted of Christian Nutt, Ben Turner, Bryn Williams, and me. It was so much fun managing and working with those cats. We complemented each other’s skills perfectly — just four very different people that worked really well together and had lots of fun outside of the office too. I miss them all, but especially miss who and how we were from 2002-2005 (we’re all better people now, but I miss being that young and dumb). As some of you know, Christian and I ended up being roommates; I don’t see him much these days, but he’s still very dear to me. Ben and I had a little rift, but I still wish him the best. Bryn moved back to Sheffield Manchester and I miss him a ton. Those guys made working hard so much fun.
Ryan: Working with Ryan O’Donnell was tremendously enjoyable and I learned so much from him. He opened my eyes to the possibilities of what video content could be. He changed my perception of video and still influences a lot of the things I try to do today. It’s because of him that I pursued and created the Reset show for Yahoo! Those road trips we had — Japan, WWE events, Nintendo 3DS launch event — were awesome and he was a fantastic traveling companion. My only regret was that I didn’t pick his brain more about shooting and editing. Today I’m somewhat competent at editing and I still suck at shooting. As much as I learned from watching Ryan work, I should have learned more.
The End: Of course, all good things come to an end. Right around the two-year mark of my GameSpy stint, Mark sold the company to IGN. As I mentioned earlier, the stock options made it lucrative for me and it was a smart deal to make. The environment changed dramatically and I wasn’t experienced enough to adjust. IGN was far more business minded; at the time, I had no businesses sense whatsoever and was solely focused on creating fun content. I rolled with the changes at first, but couldn’t deal with the hits that came later. While I maintain that my stance to getting a review score changed and column pulled was correct, I acknowledge that I could have dealt with those things in a more constructive way. Instead, my last year at GameSpy wasn’t nearly as fun or productive as my first two. My heart just wasn’t into it and I failed to adapt. On the plus side, I learned to take my frustrations out on Will Tuttle by throwing things at him and saying that I was doing a Gambit impersonation.
So yeah! GameSpy is going away and will soon join Happy Puppy on the list of dead web sites I’ve put my heart into. While I’m sure memories of the web site will fade, I’ll never forget my time at GameSpy. Thanks to everyone involved with the company for an amazing ride!
You’re obviously a big part of why I cashed a decent amount of checks from GameSpy. As I said on Bryn’s FB, it got me through my post-GI days. I remember coming out to interview, and Keefer really pushing hard to make me a full-time member. Part of me regrets turning him down because he was just such an earnest and genuine guy, but I believe Kate and I made the right decision to pick LA over Irvine, and her Activision job over me working there.
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
One thing I don’t miss about GameSpy was living in Irvine. Ha! You would have been fine with Kate, but still would have suffered bouts of boredom.