With the former Newscorp family of online games publications having recently changed hands to Ziff Davis, the new owner has commenced a restructuring process, signalling layoffs at IGN, and the eventual shuttering of long-running websites 1Up, GameSpy, and UGO.

A company memo sent by Ziff Davis CEO was obtained by Polygon, and gingerly explains the new boss' strategy (via Polygon):

The changes we made today are designed to allow us to Simplify and Focus. Our goal is to do fewer things and to do them exceptionally well. In that vein, we want to direct all of our energy and work behind our two flagship brands: IGN and AskMen. They are both category killers and share a vision of a multi-screen (PCs, tablets, smartphones, TV) and multi-format (text, photos and video) world.

As a result of our decision to focus on our core brands, we are:
· Winding down 1UP.com, UGO.com and GameSpy.com;
· No longer ad repping 3rd party sites such as GameStop.com and FamilyGuy.com;
· Actively engaged with parties interested in acquiring IPL. IGN's role going forward will be to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events;
· Dividing our ad sales team into two: one focused on IGN and the other focused on AskMen.

Our condolences go out to our fellow industry writers and content contributors.