IGN has laid off eight members of its unionized creative staff following a directive from parent company Ziff Davis. The cuts, announced on July 9, 2024, came at a particularly surprising time—immediately after IGN successfully hosted two major live events: IGN Live and San Diego Comic-Con.
The timing has definitely caught people’s attention throughout the industry. These layoffs followed not only the two high-profile events but also came shortly after another corporate acquisition by Ziff Davis. According to sources, the eight staff members represent about 12% of IGN’s unionized creative team, though they’re a smaller slice of IGN’s overall workforce of over 250 employees.
The IGN union publicly announced the layoffs on social media, describing the departing employees as “extremely valuable” and expressing disappointment over the timing of the cuts. The union specifically called out the disconnect between the company’s recent achievements and the decision to cut staff.
Ziff Davis, which owns several other tech and media brands including PCMag, Mashable, and Speedtest.net alongside IGN, has apparently faced some money troubles lately. The company’s stock hasn’t been doing all that well, which might be leading to cost-cutting efforts across their various brands. So far, neither IGN nor Ziff Davis has put out a statement about the job cuts.
The situation at IGN is the latest example of what’s happening across the gaming media world. The industry has been dealing with problems such as declining ad revenue, changes in how search engines rank content, and intense competition from YouTube and Twitch.
Many gaming websites have shifted toward evergreen content such as guides and walkthroughs—something IGN has always been strong at—since regular news and reviews just don’t pull in as much attention or cash as they used to.
Unionization in games media has been on the rise lately, mainly as a response to the shaky job climate. IGN’s union is pretty unique in an industry where unions aren’t that common. The fact that even unionized employees are getting let go really shows just how tough things are for digital media companies right now.
Similar job cuts have rolled through other major gaming outlets like Polygon and GameSpot lately. The whole ad-supported gaming journalism model is under serious pressure as tech giants like Google and Facebook grab more and more of the online ad money.
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What stands out most is that IGN is reportedly still making money, unlike some competitors who are struggling just to break even. That makes it look like these cuts have more to do with big-picture corporate goals and keeping investors happy, instead of urgent money woes at IGN itself.
For the eight people who lost their jobs, it’s a harsh reality—celebrating major wins for the company one moment, only to get layoff notices the next.
