“According to the company, the layoffs are a result of a Ziff Davis mandate to reduce expenses, despite several consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth. IGN Entertainment responded to this by targeting our members’ jobs,” the guild explains. “This decision is baffling to us since we have been repeatedly informed that IGN Entertainment has experienced a highly successful year due to their dedicated efforts.”
Hunter Paniagua, a representative of the Pacific Media Workers Guild—which represents the IGN Creators Guild—reports to The Verge that an employee in the engineering department was also laid off.
Ziff Davis has not yet commented in response to a request for information. According to an SEC filing from last year, the company employed around 3,800 individuals across all its divisions.
Last year, IGN expanded by acquiring the Gamer Network portfolio, which includes publications such as Eurogamer, Gamesindustry.biz, and Rock Paper Shotgun. The terms of that acquisition were not made public at the time.
“The union’s inquiries about whether the budget for future acquisitions will be reconsidered as a cost-saving measure in tandem with these staff reductions have gone unanswered by the company,” the IGN Creators Guild states.
