IGN‘s Summer of Gaming has become another summer of layoffs.se even more of its top talent, including some of its most public faces like long-time video hosts Seth Macy and Brian Altano
The latter has worked at IGN since 2009 and has been one of the main hosts of its popular PlayStation podcast Beyond since the departures of Kinda Funny‘s Greg Miller and Last Stand‘s Colin Moriarty more than a decade ago. Macy was a senior commerce team editor at the site and frequent host on its popular Nintendo Voice Chat podcast. He confirmed his departure on X.
IGN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
I’m so sorry to hear this, Seth. You’re a rockstar and brought so much to the IGN team across many departments that most people can’t publicly see. You didn’t deserve this. I think the world of you and am here if you ever want to chat or if I can be helpful somehow.
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) September 14, 2026
Kotaku understands that today’s layoffs have hit multiple departments across the video game website’s business. The scale of the layoffs is not yet clear, though they may be influenced in some cases by employees’ remote status and whether they were willing to relocate.
“My team had a huge content day today on IGN, covering the launch of Valve’s Steam Frame. So this seems like a good time as any to say that I was affected by today’s layoffs,” Bo Moore, senior manager of tech coverage, posted on Bluesky. “My byline is only on one of the 7 stories we posted this morning, but I edited every one, worked late last week and logged on early this morning to make sure everything was on track for one of our biggest coverage days of the year.”
The latest round of cuts comes just months after a smaller group of employees, including engineers, were laid off just days after IGN Live, the site’s annual LA event for Summer Game Fest, wrapped up. The company had “a habit of doing layoffs right after a successful event,” one IGN Creators Guild member told Aftermath at the time.
In addition to IGN Live, the website recently put on its annual on-site coverage blitz of San Diego Comic-Con earlier in the summer with interviews hosted by Altano, among others. Ziff Davis, the site’s owner, acquired a bunch of other video game websites back in 2024, includingEurogamer and Rock Paper Shotgun, and has been instituting sporadic editorial cuts ever since. IGN‘s previous publisher, John Davison, exited the company just over a year ago and was not formally replaced.
Update 9/15/2026, 12:07 a.m. ET: The IGN Creators Guild shared the following statement:
Today was an awful day at IGN. We were blindsided by the layoff of four union members and many more people across the organization who contributed years of their careers to making IGN an unparalleled voice in games and entertainment.
With each successive layoff, core parts of IGN’s operation continue to be stripped away. Today, IGN has decided to do away with many of our talented producers, editors, hosts, and other crucial roles, both within and out of the union. How many layoffs will occur before we no longer recognize the company we work for and the content that we make?
While we recognize the challenges the media industry is facing as a whole, it is difficult to understand how laying off valuable employees better positions us to meet those challenges. In turn, remaining employees bear additional workloads worsened by anxiety over the ever-looming threat of another layoff.
We are devastated, angry, and heartbroken for our colleagues.
Update 9/14/2026, 5:49 p.m. ET: Added further comments from staff.
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