Jarratt first to jump from Future Publishing

Steve Jarratt will leave Future Publishing next month, MCV understands.

He is the first big name to leave the firm after it said the UK operation will be downsized by 10 per cent.

Jarratt will depart at the end of the consultation period, which Future hopes to have wrapped up by the end of September.

He was named Games Media Legend at the 2008 Games Media Awards. His games and technology journalism career has spanned over 25 years and touched all the iconic UK games magazines.

In working for Newsfield and EMAP and a much-respected tenure at Future, he was staff writer and then deputy editor of Zzap!64 and then editor of Crash. He also worked on ACE, Commodore Format and Total! Nintendo. He was launch editor for Edge, Official UK PlayStation Magazine and T3.

He also oversaw the redesigns of PC Format, Official Xbox 360, PC Gamer and many others.

Future’s company review is underway after a trading statement showed Group revenues down as pressure mounts on its magazine business. 100 of its 1,000 staff in the UK will be made redundant. It plans to sell off a number of print titles, and could close more.