The head of the biggest gaming site in the world is leaving the company at the end of August, Kotaku has learned. John Davison, who has been IGN‘s publisher since joining back in 2019, told staff on Monday it was time for “the next chapter.” The high-profile departure comes shortly after a big round of layoffs that saw multiple departments across the company impacted.
Arriving just months before the start of the 2020 pandemic, Davison’s tenure at IGN saw the site expand into events like IGN Live and a market analytics platform called Gaming Trends. Under parent-company Ziff Davis, IGN also made a massive acquisition last year in the form of the Gamer Network, a suite of European-facing gaming sites like Eurogamer, VG247, and Rock Paper Shotgun. Many of those sites were hit with mass layoffs at the time of the deal, and GamesIndustry.biz was gutted. One of the most valuable parts of that package, Digital Foundry, announced just last week that it had purchased all outstanding equity to allow it to leave IGN and go fully independent.
Davison, whose 25+ years in games media include stints at EGM, Official PlayStation Magazine, and GameSpot, will be leaving IGN at a time when its future trajectory has never been more uncertain. A reporting, news, and features operation that expanded under previous EIC Tina Amini has suffered cuts in recent years due to multiple rounds of layoffs and buyouts. Amini, who left in 2022 and now works at Xbox, was never replaced. Davison reported to Ziff Davis president of gaming and entertainment Yael Prough, and it’s not yet clear if the parent company plans on backfilling his role.
Davison and IGN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
IGN laid off over a dozen staff earlier this month, which included approximately 12 percent members in its editorial union. “The company has told us that the reason for this layoff stems from a Ziff Davis mandate to cut costs despite several quarters in a row of year-over-year revenue increases, to which IGN Entertainment responded by coming for our members’ jobs,” the IGN Creators Guild wrote at the time. “This is perplexing to us, as we are told again and again that IGN Entertainment has had a tremendously successful year thus far thanks to their hard work.”
“It’s been an honor to work alongside such talented, passionate people, and I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together,” Davison wrote in a message to staff today. “I’m excited for what comes next.”
