John Davison Leaves 1UP

Ziff Davis Media loses its gaming group’s lead content director.

Today, it was confirmed that John Davison, 1UP’s Senior Vice President and Editorial Director with the British accent, will be leaving the company after this Friday in order to launch a family-oriented entertainment website with fellow Ziff Davis executive Ira Becker, Executive Vice President of the Ziff Davis Game Group.

Dan ‘Hsu’ Chan will take up the reigns as Editorial Director while remaining Editor-in-Chief at the Electronic Gaming Monthly publication. Simon Cox, previously Creative Director at 1UP and the incoming Senior Vice President, discussed Davison’s departure: “I am thrilled to be leading the 1UP Network into the next cycle of its evolution as the top video game enthusiast media group. The Game Group has never been stronger, as shown by the many successes of our properties. I’m confident we are poised for even greater strides in the coming year. Stay tuned for some exciting things to happen in the near future.”

1UP’s statement reaffirms that Davison’s new venture won’t be a competitor to his previous employer:

To end other rumors, John’s new venture has absolutely, nothing to do with crafting a competitor to 1UP — unless a family-friendly project is suddenly going to destroy the amazing content the folks at the 1UP Network do their best to deliver every day of the week. We aren’t going anywhere. Plus, anyone who’s listened to 1UP Yours in the past year probably knew something like this was coming. One day, everything must come to an end.

John will be utterly, incredibly, massively missed by everyone at the 1UP Network — he’s been an incredible boss and a great friend — but just like when you lose anybody that’s important, there’s no choice but to move forward and that is the plan, like always. Hell, we all wish there could be one giant party for John’s leaving, but a bunch of us are rocking out in Leipzig, Germany covering Games Convention 2007 for you all!