IGN president quits, but will remain on the board

Roy Bahat, the president if IGN, has today resigned from his post.

In an upbeat memo sent to all staff, he confirmed that he will remain on the board, but that CFO David Martin will become acting president.

He said: "David has my and our Board’s full confidence. Before joining IGN, he created and ran a company about our size, and he’s passionate about what we do. He’s quickly earned the respect of our leadership team, righted our finance group, and gotten particularly involved with eSports and other growing areas of our business.

"So why am I leaving? It has become clear that now is the time to refresh the process of looking at strategic options for this business. David will do that and more."

Bahat added that he will spend some time with his family, "continue on my slow attempt to learn to code, maybe help out with a few startups here and there".

Bahat’s memo took time to thank and praise all the staff’s combined efforts a the games media powerhouse.

"We’ve all worked hard so IGN’s Way is about more than any one person," he said.

"Our bet factory” distributes responsibility as widely as possible, making the organisation resilient for the future – including transitions like this one. I know you’ll continue to drive and evolve our values of fire, greatness, innovation, multiplayer, and irreverence. I can’t wait to see just how."

He heralded the strategy that recently saw the firm withdraw from areas like digital distribution, and look at how it could push its content to different audiences: "from one screen to almost 20, from being mostly about text and pictures to having two billion video views last year, from being in too many businesses to focusing on media"

His leaving note also praised the work done by the international unit, taking IGN "from a mostly-U.S. business to a real presence in 40+ countries, starting a crazy new eSports business, and reaching 50% more people every month.

"IGN can now become a truly mainstream media company."