The IGN Union announced a six-month work-to-rule campaign starting immediately, which means workers will do exactly what their contracts require—nothing more, nothing less.
This comes after parent company Ziff Davis laid off multiple IGN employees. The union made it clear they won’t be absorbing the work those fired colleagues used to handle. Their message was blunt: “Ziff Davis and IGN routinely decide that work done by our laid off colleagues is not important. But inevitably, that crucial work falls onto those who remain. Not this time. Not anymore.”
Instead of going on strike, employees follow every single workplace rule to the letter. They work their scheduled hours. They follow every approval process. They don’t check Slack after hours. They don’t rush through legal reviews to hit embargo deadlines.
For readers, this means IGN’s coverage might look different over the next six months. Late-night news drops might not get covered until the next morning. Reviews could take longer to publish if every editing step needs to happen during business hours. Live event coverage might be limited to whoever’s actually scheduled to work that day.
The timing hits during a rough period for games media. Major outlets have been cutting staff throughout 2024, with writers, video producers, and editors losing their jobs across the industry. IGN itself has been through multiple rounds of layoffs as Ziff Davis reshapes its media properties.
When following the rules breaks everything
What makes work-to-rule effective is that it exposes how much unpaid overtime keeps media companies running. Most gaming outlets rely on staff working evenings to cover surprise announcements, weekends for tournament coverage, and constant availability during big events like Summer Game Fest. When everyone stops doing that extra work, the whole system slows down.
The union also mentioned fighting for a recall list that would give laid-off workers priority for future openings. Meanwhile, Ziff Davis recently reported its strongest quarterly revenue growth since 2021, which probably doesn’t make the layoffs easier to swallow for the remaining staff now handling a bigger workload.
