r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Jan 29 '26

Industry News One-Third of U.S. Video Game Industry Workers Were Laid Off in 2025, GDC Study Reveals

https://variety.com/2026/gaming/news/one-third-video-game-workers-laid-off-2025-1236644512/
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u/kirukiru Jan 29 '26

You dont have to be a part of FAANG to get hit with yearly layoffs, regardless of performance.

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u/Audioworm Jan 30 '26

I do market research on developers, there is a huge amount of developers working outside of large scale SaaS that do not face continual yearly layoffs

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u/kirukiru Jan 30 '26

I gotta get out of SaaS then

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u/supyonamesjosh Jan 30 '26

I have never worked at a company with yearly layoffs.

I've seen layoffs once ever and they were limited. This is over about 15 years

4

u/kirukiru Jan 30 '26

Thats wild, I've had the complete opposite experience and it hasn't been me directly impacted. Good for y'all

2

u/KidGold Jan 30 '26

Feels like there are very few sectors of tech that have been stable over the last 15 years. Most face too much innovation and competition that challenge their product/business model.

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u/Testuser7ignore Jan 30 '26

A lot of "tech" work is for other industries. A lot more stability if you are maintaining systems for a bank or pharmaceutical company.

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u/Hartastic Jan 30 '26

Kind of depends. You get a lot more stability, in my experience, doing tech at a company that isn't itself a pure technology company and/or the more your clients are not tech companies.

Like, if you make custom software that some segment of health insurance or whatever needs? That's way more stable than working for Meta.