Ziff Davis Cuts Hit Eurogamer and Outside Xbox Amid Ongoing Games Media Crisis

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The parent company of IGN Entertainment, Ziff Davis, has carried out another round of editorial layoffs at Eurogamer and the video-focused Outside Xbox / Outside Xtra brands. All of them became part of the Gamer Network portfolio when Ziff Davis acquired it in May 2024. This is now at least the second major wave of cuts since that deal.

From what’s being reported, Eurogamer lost several experienced editors along with its entire four-person video team, though one of those roles seems to have moved over to IGN. Outside Xbox was also hit, particularly on the production side, which feels surprising considering the channels have more than 3.5 million subscribers and recently wrapped a UK tour.

It fits into the wider shake-up that’s been happening since the acquisition. We’ve already seen the closure of Dicebreaker, major voluntary redundancies at GamesIndustry.biz, Digital Foundry going independent, and VG247 scaling back heavily. Even Eurogamer’s editor-in-chief moved over to IGN. Piece by piece, these outlets don’t feel quite the same as they did just a couple of years ago.

So far, neither Ziff Davis nor the affected teams have said much publicly, which leaves a lot of uncertainty hanging over the remaining staff. The news was first reported by Video Games Chronicle, and while industry insiders have been reacting online, the wider response has been fairly muted. That probably says a lot about how common layoffs have become in games media lately.

Over the past two years, the sector has reportedly lost around a quarter of its journalists worldwide. The reasons are familiar: falling ad revenue after the pandemic boom, search traffic dropping, ad blockers cutting into income, and a heavy reliance on unstable revenue streams.

We’ve already seen similar layoffs hit places like Polygon, Giant Bomb, TheGamer, and Windows Central. Even IGN itself wasn’t immune last year. Personally, it feels like the business model behind a lot of gaming media has been shaky for a while now. Many outlets depend heavily on ads, affiliate links, or sponsorships, and when traffic drops, everything else starts to wobble too.

If there’s a way forward, it probably involves smaller, more focused teams and stronger reader support instead of chasing scale at all costs. Otherwise, we may keep seeing talent move toward platforms like YouTube, newsletters, or community-backed projects that feel more stable and more directly valued by their audiences.