Last month the rumor mill started circulating that Ziff Davis was going to sell off its 1Up.com network of gaming web sites to UGO (owned by the Hearst Corporation), Well, 1Up.com has now made that deal official; the web site has announced that UGO has bought the main site along with GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com and GameTab.com. Specific financial terms were not disclosed. Another 1Up.com site, Filefront.com, is not included in the purchase. According to an internal Ziff Davis email posted at Gamasutra, Filefront will continue on Ziff Davis' PCMag network of sites.

Also not part of the purchase is Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, the multi-platform gaming mag that has been in existence since 1989. Again the internal email stated, "With demand for print continuing to decline amongst both advertisers and readers and the content being produced by 1UP no longer available for use in the publication, it simply did not make sense for us to move forward with this business any longer." The January 2009 dated issue which was sent out in December will be the final issue. There's no word yet on how subscribers to the magazine will be compensated.

Update: Our sister site Joystiq is reporting that quite a number of 1Up.com's staff have been laid off as a result of the purchase by UGO. Our thoughts go out to all of the staff affected by this move.