Ziff Davis laid off multiple IGN staff members, including prominent video presenters Seth Macy and Brian Altano, just two months before Grand Theft Auto VI's release—one of the year's biggest gaming news events. The layoffs affected various departments across the gaming website and its sister publications, prompting criticism from IGN's union about timing and lack of advance notice during a critical period for games media.
IGN has laid off multiple employees across departments, including long-time hosts Seth Macy and Brian Altano. The cuts follow a pattern of layoffs after major events and are part of broader restructuring by parent company Ziff Davis, which acquired several gaming websites in 2024.
Matthew Macy was contracted to port WireGuard into FreeBSD's kernel for Netgate's routers, but his implementation contained numerous bugs and security issues that went largely unreviewed before being committed to FreeBSD 13.0. WireGuard founder Jason Donenfeld discovered the problems and, along with Kyle Evans and Matt Dunwoodie, replaced nearly all of Macy's code in an intensive week-long effort to fix critical issues before release.