At least four members of IGN Entertainment's editorial team have been laid off, according to reports coming out of the company today.
Dana Jongewaard, IGN's editor-in-chief for "expanded audience," posted on Facebook today that she has left the company after starting there in 2009. During her tenure, Jongewaard worked on IGN's female-focused Greenpixels site and Girlfight podcast, among other positions.
Fellow Girlfight host and IGN writer Nicole Tanner also confirmed via Twitter that she has been laid off today. The future status of that podcast is unknown at this time.
Gamasutra has also learned that GameSpy editor-in-chief Will Tuttle and editorial team member Scott Bromley have also been let go.
Former IGN.com editor-in-chief Hilary Goldstein tweeted, "good thoughts to anyone @IGN who lost their job today." Goldstein left his post after nearly ten years with the company last week, citing a desire to have more time to enjoy life. He said today he was not aware of the layoffs in advance.
Reports claim that News Corp. is bulking up its video game news and entertainment unit in order to split it off as a separate business, possibly selling it off.
News. Corp.-owned IGN Entertainment has expanded steadily over the years to encompass a small gaming media empire that includes network-technology and editorial site GameSpy, family game site What They Play, and PC download site FilePlanet, among others. Last month, the company sold digital distribution hub Direct2Drive to game rent-by-mail service GameFly.
Update: While Gamasutra can confirm that no one from 1UP.com was affected by today's layoffs, word is coming out that the IGN layoffs have spread to UGO.com, as reported by 1UP director Sam Kennedy on Twitter.
"This also confirms my unsupported theory that everything in the world is owned by a dozen people." Sounds like you are waking up - give Daily Source Code episode 781 a listen. Then you will be ready to listen to No Agenda.
Sorry to hear about the layoffs, but is IGN really owned by...News Corp? That probably explains why they slammed Wii Play Motion for promoting the "global warming myth" and "socialism."
ratings are just as bad on other sites. Look at Destructoid, they gave Vanquish a 5/10, whereas gears got like a 9. I know what you mean, but if IGN blows its reviews so do the other guys. I've even heard Yahtzee mess up a few. There is no standard of how to review games in the media, and if there is it certainly isnt spelt out to us beforehand.
Yeah, you know, I saw that Wii Play Motion review on IGN too, I guess they knew they were getting fired and thought, fuck it, I hate motion games anyway.. boo to this!
But as a slight aside, the critics can barely be bothered to turn up just to chide that game.. you know.. the game who's predecessor is the biggest selling non-bundled game of All Time.... of All Time, yo...
This also confirms my unsupported theory that everything in the world is owned by a dozen people.
But as a slight aside, the critics can barely be bothered to turn up just to chide that game.. you know.. the game who's predecessor is the biggest selling non-bundled game of All Time.... of All Time, yo...