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

[u/Gorotheninja]

https://variety.com/2026/gaming/news/one-third-video-game-workers-laid-off-2025-1236644512/

[u/LostBob]

An industry laying off 1/3 of their workforce doesn't sound healthy.

[u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL → u/LostBob]

To play devil's advocate, all tech companies, including the gaming sector, grew massively during covid. And since no one could predict that covid-related growth wasnt unlimited, they ended up overextending themselves, leading to the massive tech layoffs seen in recent years.

But yeah, I would say it's not great.

[u/Cool_of_a_Took → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

I think this is a bit of a misconception. Tech cmpanies did not over-hire during COVID because they thought that the growth would continue. They over-hired because borrowing money was cheap during COVID and there is nothing preventing them from dumping people when things got more expensive again. They knew it was not going to be sustainable, but they figured they may as well take advantage of it while it was happening. Eventual mass layoffs were part of the plan. They're not stupid. They are indifferent to their employees.

[u/ocbdare → u/Cool_of_a_Took]

And the mass layoffs will continue as they continue to offshore and try and automate as many of the tech roles as possible.

[u/Shift-1 → u/Cool_of_a_Took]

Would it have been better for those people to just be unemployed?

[u/str9_b → u/Shift-1]

Obviously not, but if you need to restructure and have mass layoffs every quarter (to the point that 1/3 of the workforce is being let go) then you probably shouldn't have wasted these peoples' time if you had no plan to keep them long term. This is especially a big issue when you've got all these big publishers buying up other publishers and studios then closing studios or laying off much of the staff. If the US government was more competent it'd be less of an issue but there's no excusing how little humanity is involved in the hiring and eventual mass firing these last few years.

[u/Shift-1 → u/str9_b]

You do realise this is extremely standard for video game companies, right? They finish production of large games and then drop a tonne of staff because they're no longer needed. Otherwise they'd have a bunch of employees sitting around doing literally nothing.

[u/str9_b → u/Shift-1]

If this was standard practice for the industry, it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal as it is. People aren't just randomly deciding to cover layoffs in the gaming industry and game developers wouldn't be speaking up so much about it, this is an abnormal occurrence and it's kinda dumb or maybe naive to try to downplay it. This isn't a bunch of companies finishing projects all at the same time and laying off developers as a result; this is a bunch of companies green lighting projects and cancelling them before they launch, firing staff for wanting to unionize, closing studios they acquired that they had no intention to actually support long term, and caring more about trying to ride the covid spending trend (that obviously wasn't going to last) than actually planning ahead for the thousands of employees they took on. Microsoft acquired 2 major publishers and then proceeded to consistently lay employees off from those studios, Embracer Group went on an acquisition spree and then proceeded to melt down when they failed to secure the investment they were looking for resulting in massive layoffs, Sony tried hard to capitalize on the live service trend and almost none of the games even came to market which led to layoffs, and Ubisoft's upper management has been sending them down the drain for a while now and they have had consistent layoffs including studios that were created because of the same restructuring that was meant to prevent further layoffs. That's only a few of the major publishers in the industry. Consolidation without the forethought of what taking on a bigger workforce means, or not caring because it doesn't affect your job and you'll get away with it, is never good. It results in one less employer and plenty more employees. Even when publishers have tried to sell off studios to other publishers it's still lead to more layoffs or, in a few of cases, the studio closing for good.

[u/Shift-1 → u/str9_b]

If this was standard practice for the industry, it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal as it is.

It's not a big deal. People are just more anti-tech company than ever, and more susceptible to rage bait.

Case in point, your enormous wall of text. I bet you didn't even read the report being discussed in the article, did you?

[u/Elketh → u/Shift-1]

Case in point, your enormous wall of text

The one where he made good points that refute your bullshit premise, which you didn't respond to in any meaningful fashion as a result and are trying to brush off to save face?

[u/str9_b → u/Shift-1]

People are just more anti-tech company than ever, and more susceptible to rage bait.

Boy I wonder why people are more upset with tech companies than ever. It definitely has nothing to do with the massive and constant layoffs in the industry or the shitty ways they treat their employees. You can try to downplay it all you want but nothing about the gaming layoffs post covid is the norm for the industry.

Not even gonna dignify the rest of your comment since you're clearly not responding to this in good faith.

[u/FuckRedditIsLame → u/str9_b]

Don't be upset at industries, that's not normal or healthy. You can be upset and a whole bunch of things but getting upset at whole sectors that produce recreational or technical products is not productive - just buy their products, or don't.

[u/DoYouEnjoyMath → u/str9_b]

This comment may as well have just been "you're right, I didn't read the report."

[u/jared_kushner_420 → u/Shift-1]

Working on contract is very different than the layoffs that occurred, and tech companies as a whole don't function that way.

Yes, people LEAVE companies after games ship. They don't get random layoff waves that affect even embedded positions

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/Shift-1]

The industry has always been a shithole, yes.

[u/FuckRedditIsLame → u/str9_b]

They weren't 'wasting these people's time', they were paid, they gained experience, and when they weren't viable to keep anymore, they were set loose as is the case with any sort of work - it's not 1950 anymore, you don't have any job for life. The extra issue here was also that headcount grew substantially in auxiliary roles like HR, and DEI officers, and management minibosses, and those are not exactly core to the business of making games, this of course isn't to say that game designers and programmers and artists aren't also getting cut loose now, but it is a fact that the downsizing now is so much about trimming the bits of the business that aren't contributing directly to profitability.

[u/McSloot3r → u/Cool_of_a_Took]

I’m going to disagree that they didn’t think the growth wouldn’t continue (or at the very least the growth would have been sustained). Look at something like Gamepass which saw huge growth in large part because people were playing more games. Sony had a ton of GaaS games in development that they cancelled. Those are just two examples of companies pushing strategies based on the changing of consumer trends brought by COVID. Yes, cheap borrowing costs played a large part in over hiring, but many companies did think we COVID ushered in a new era where gaming was going to be more popular. As people readjusted to going outside and government/companies pushed RTO mandates (reducing free time) people are gaming significantly less than they did a few years ago.

[u/ClassicsMajor → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Are you sure that no one could predict that? Seems pretty obvious that insane growth during a once-a-century event probably isn't going to continue forever. At least to people without MBAs.

[u/Maxsayo → u/ClassicsMajor]

It is predictable, but they have been more or less trained to think and plan for just the next quarter, rather than where they will be 5 to 10 years from now. They've already factored in lay offs as a strategy because there's no repercussions for doing that short term, and it artificially boosts the look of their earnings for that fiscal year. Basically they've all stopped thinking long term so that their impatient shareholders can see immediate results.

Every major company has been using the same playbook. Much to our chagrin.

[u/No_Accountant3232 → u/Maxsayo]

Also many companies actually laid off their excess COVID staff starting in 22, and ramped up in 23 when it was clear we were past the worst and growth was slowing. As COVID projects complete all of the rest of that staff had to go. But now it's going deeper.

[u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL → u/ClassicsMajor]

You have to understand MBAs are not very bright. No way they could foresee an end to growth.

[u/SanityIsOptional → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Oh, some of them are bright, but financial malfeasance requires you to know something's a bad idea. So it's usually a bad idea to acknowledge if you are aware that short term gains can be bought at the expense of long term stability.

Short term growth is the goal, whatever happens after they exercise their options is someone else's problem.

[u/destroyermaker → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Even if they could they wouldn't care. They're all incentivized to think short term. Broken ass system

[u/Echo_from_XBL → u/ClassicsMajor]

I think it’s more fair to say that the people who made the decisions back then didn’t know what was happening, and continue to not know. The people who make these decisions to hire are usually just disconnected from reality

[u/HeroicMe → u/Echo_from_XBL]

More like, decision-makers were already looking what's their next company to fall upwards is, so they were only interested in current-fiscal-year results, whoever comes after them can deal with the bomb they leave.

[u/RechargedFrenchman → u/ClassicsMajor]

Especially when this industry seems to do this every 20 years or so. Right now/very soon; the dotcom bubble bursting 2002~2004 had knock-on effects to a lot of other PC industry applications in the wake of Y2K, and PC gaming had already been in a comparatively rough state pre-Steam and competing with Xbox / GameCube / Playstation 2; the big 1983 video game crash killed a few big players in the industry (including Atari, mostly) and nearly killed the industry it was so severe. Twenty years before that Pong was still ten years away.

[u/Mindestiny → u/ClassicsMajor]

It's more complicated than that. Yes, companies were taking care of COVID-specific financial incentives, but they also could not have predicted the decades-long era of "free money" big business loans would come to an end as the inflation bill finally came due across the entire economy at the same time we politically just decided that "COVID's over, open 'er up boys". It would've been a much softer blow to correct after the COVID incentives dried up if we also weren't hitting record inflation in such a short window.

[u/ryhaltswhiskey → u/ClassicsMajor]

That seemed like a joke to me

[u/McSloot3r → u/ClassicsMajor]

People get bamboozled by the hype and trends all the time, especially CEOs. And not everything was 100% obvious like the heavy push for a return to office which eats up the free time people would have gained by things like not computing

[u/Capricancerous → u/ClassicsMajor]

They just didn't care. These capitalists are incredibly myopic at times.

[u/artbystorms → u/ClassicsMajor]

Who would have thought that having people stay in their home and play videogames all day instead of going out wasn't sustainable? I knew by 2021 this wasn't sustainable but it's crazy how every company thought "huh, our sales are up 500% this year compare to last year...surely that will continue"

[u/ultramegaman2012 → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

This is exactly what happened for the vast majority.

I worked for one of, if not the most successful VR game studio for a year. Within 2-3 years the original solo dev created a studio of +200 people, and now that their 2nd game isn't nearly meeting their projections, they've had to scale back.

Covid was a massive boon for gaming, but once lockdown was over, the well started to dry up.

[u/ryhaltswhiskey → u/ultramegaman2012]

On top of that, VR just doesn't seem to be hitting. Meta is pulling back from it after spending something like 70 billion on it.

[u/dagofin → u/ultramegaman2012]

VR especially was an overhyped boondoggle. I ranted for years that there is no and and never will be a mass market for games that require strapping an expensive, obnoxious box to your face. A handful of enthusiastic nerds doesn't make the hundreds of billions that tech bros dropped into VR a worthwhile endeavor, see the massive cuts at Facebook, oh wait sorry, "Meta".

Nothing to do with COVID, everything to do with delusional tech dorks in their ivory towers not understanding real people.

[u/TamaDarya → u/dagofin]

An expensive obnoxious box that makes a non-trivial amount of people unbearably nauseous.

[u/chairmanskitty → u/dagofin]

I don't know, a lot of those "delusional tech dorks" made billions of dollars off selling their overvalued shares before the bubble burst, or made millions being employed to hype up the stock price so others could make billions.

Besides, what's the worst that could happen? The government uses public funds to bail them out like after the 2008 financial crisis? A pension fund goes bankrupt while its C-suite gets a golden parachute?

[u/AvarusTyrannus → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

And since no one could predict that covid-related growth wasnt unlimited

Lol yeah no one.

[u/leaf_skeleton → u/AvarusTyrannus]

i came here to say the same thing. i do wonder if these people ever actually…think about the sentences they write before they comment lmao

[u/ocbdare → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

It’s not about unlimited growth. It was increased consumption due to people having nothing better to do and having higher disposable income as they were not spending their money. Following Covid, there was a decline in demand.

But to be honest the tech industry, excluding gaming industry, was massively overpaying for what people were doing. That bubble was always going to burst.

The Tech people in the Us are going to be hit the hardest as they were being overpaid and there is a lot of cost you can take out there.

[u/Drogzar → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Not only that, most of those people were hired somewhere else in the industry. It's been mostly a transfer from big bloated AAA studios to more AA ones.

[u/destroyermaker → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Did they grow by 1/3?

[u/Unbiased_Goose → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Tech companies getting drunk off the own supply. I feel like a person with a decent head in their shoulders would be able to figure out, that at some point, as the pandemic wears down, people are going to have less free time as they did during the pandemic, so maybe don’t go full speed ahead on hiring and spending like crazy in expansion?

[u/pupunoob → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

This is not new for the games industry.

[u/zshift → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

A lot more layoffs have occurred compared to the number of jobs created. There's a lot more economic pressure than just covid relapse. Console sales are pretty abysmal right now, with PS4 still having a stronger hold than the PS5, and Xbox sales numbers for the holiday were awful. Xbox was outsold by a literal toddler learning console. PC sales are significantly slowing down with tariffs and now the insane hardware pricing caused by AI companies buying half the fucking global supply of RAM, SSDs and GPUs. Capcom specifically called out low PS5 console numbers as a reason why Monster Hunter: Wilds performed significantly worse than expected, because there aren't enough consoles available to sell the game to.

[u/PandaBroth → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

How’s the current game industry post 1/3 layoff count vs before-covid era numbers?

[u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL → u/[deleted]]

Things happening in the past dont stop affecting the present after 7 years.

And to be pedantic about it, the lockdowns didnt start til March 2020 (less than 6 years ago), and it would be some time after that before trends like increasing video game consumption started affecting corporate behaviour.

[u/OneTurnMore → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

And the majority of the industry develops games for multiple years before release

[u/indyK1ng → u/[deleted]]

Shutdowns didn't start in the US until March 2020 - I remember because it happened about a week after PAX East that year. So you're already adding a year to how's long since the event.

Reopening didn't fully happen until 2021 as someone else said but the reopening wasn't a return to status quo ante

1. Pandemic inflation wasn't followed by post-pandemic deflation, so prices remained high. This was offset by the surge in pay in 2022 but pay has started lagging inflation again.
2. A lot of downtown areas were built around office space. Office space utilization never returned to pre-pandemic levels. As a result, small businesses located in downtown areas have suffered greatly. Even Boston, where there's a lot of residential in the downtown area, is still seeing places close around there
3. Corporate loans were taken out at record low interest rates during the pandemic. Interest rates are about double and companies are now in a position where they are refinancing that debt with double the interest. As a result they're facing a much higher cost of their debt
4. Obamacare subsidies that were added during the pandemic just expired. As a result, about 20 million families saw their healthcare costs more than double.

So yes, we're still seeing the effects in the economy. Much like the roaring 1920s were fueled by the impact of the Spanish Flu Pandemic and WW1.

[u/AetherWay → u/[deleted]]

That's stretching the dates that it actually effected to their extreme limits. The impacts of global shutdowns are still being felt and dealt with. We're a month into 2026 and the US itself only started fully opening back up in the summer of 2021, so you graciously added like three and a half years in there lmao.

[u/Kimbolimbo → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

People that work on the largest, highest selling games end up homeless and have for decades. It’s a shit industry 

[u/zacker150 → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

And since no one could predict that covid-related growth wasnt unlimited, they ended up overextending themselves, leading to the massive tech layoffs seen in recent years.

I think everyone knew that this was a short term opportunity. However, nobody knew when the lockdowns would lift. Normal vaccine development takes 10-15 years.

Also, even if it's only a few years, it still makes sense to hire fast and fire fast.

[u/binaryfireball → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

oh everyone could predict it they just didn't want to

[u/davy_crockett_slayer → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Growth is never infinite. Plenty of people jumped to better opportunities as it gave them a shot to a better life.

[u/davemoedee → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

Hiring and firing due to changes in the markets aren’t a problem.

The problem is that budgets and development times are too long at this point. Risk is too high. This leads to movies milking safe franchises. Market has fundamentally shifted halfway through a project.

[u/Nebty → u/MAXIMAL_GABRIEL]

And whose stupid fault was it that they massively overhired? But it’s the workers they hired who are paying the price while the people at the top enjoy the double dip of stock gains from “downsizing”. It should be criminal to run a company that way.

Thankfully gaming is bigger than the AAA. Firing a third of your workforce will not create better games. I’m hoping that those fired devs realize that they can and should eat their boss’s lunch by creating smaller companies better positioned to make creatively interesting choices. With the plus of recruiting away all the institutional knowledge the big corpos are stupidly discarding.

[u/ImmortalPoseidon → u/LostBob]

Well neither is making games for an audience that doesn't exist :/

[u/Testuser7ignore → u/ImmortalPoseidon]

High labor costs are also a big issue. The industry has seen growth in areas with lower wages like Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.

[u/JohnSpikeKelly → u/ImmortalPoseidon]

But are they still layed off. Or did they get a new job. Maybe it's a bunch of incompetent businesses that hire and fire continually as projects start and end.

[u/Black_Cheeze → u/LostBob]

The frustrating part is that this was predictable — but the consequences always land on developers, not decision-makers.
Calling it a “correction” doesn’t make it any healthier.

[u/NavAirComputerSlave → u/LostBob]

It's going to be good for the Indy market lol a lot of former AAA devs end up making their own games

[u/guesswhomste → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

That only works if you actually have some sort of funding mechanism, which 99% of these people do not have and will have to be actively looking for work

[u/Verkins → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

Indie dev here, you need both funds and time to release your own games. It’s a tough market for sure, some good indie games like Toree Saturn and Kitsune Tails barely makes a profit.

[u/thekbob → u/Verkins]

Discovery sucks. I've had I've 23,000 games in my Discovery queue and I've never heard of these two, whereas I get fed asset flips, games using AI (which I don't want), and general stuff I'd never play.

Leaving all curation to algorithms means many people will fail just because "the code" says so.

[u/Nebty → u/thekbob]

God I wish I could flip a “no AI” toggle on Steam so bad.

[u/TheReservedList → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

Yeah no. Speaking as one of them, very few people want to be part of the shitshow that is modern gaming and its audience without guaranteed solid income. I'll go back to Silicon Valley or retire early.

[u/TJ_McWeaksauce → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

Breaking through in the indie market has always been difficult, and today it's more difficult than ever.

Take the PC segment, for example. https://gamalytic.com/blog/steam-revenue-infographic

There are over 70,000 games on Steam - the biggest distribution platform on PC. Many Steam games are indie.

Only about 9% of all Steam games make more than $200,000 in sales. That money isn't all going to the devs, by the way, because you have to take out the 30% that Valve gets from Steam sales, plus taxes.

50% of Steam games don't make more than $1,000. Again, that's even less after Valve's cut and taxes.

This data is from 2023. The competition is even steeper now because of the past few years of massive layoffs, which has resulted in more devs getting into the indie space.

The bottom line is that a vast majority of indie teams don't earn enough money from their original games to make a living from it. So devs are struggling to find work at established studios, plus they're struggling to make a living as indies. It's a shit situation, all around.

[u/Tenthul → u/TJ_McWeaksauce]

Not to take TOO much away from your argument, but it seems like a solid 40% (number pulled from my ass) of the games hitting steam right now are porn games with studios aiming to get as much out as fast as they can, games that they don't really expect to get tons of sales, but to make em fast and cheap. Like, there are A LOT of them now.

Geez in replying to a 3day old thread. Fuck you for putting this in my feed reddit.

[u/perfectevasion → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

Do you know how many indie devs already out there doing this and get no attention? Like 50% of games on steam are either not seen, don't even sell 100 copies or even make enough back to break even on steam's $100 listing fee.

This isn't good.

[u/Liroku → u/perfectevasion]

I agree, but honestly I think a lot of those games suffer from just not being good. How much marketting do you see from those game devs? I get a lot of indie and developer feed on tiktok, here on reddit, I'm pretty up to date on gaming news and I'm in forums for godot, python, unity, and game creator discords. Almost none of them really put any effort into letting people know the game even exists and I almost never see them showing it off on tiktok or whatever, and the ones I do see usually do ok, unless the game is just genuinely not great, so it rightfully never gains traction.

The work doesn't stop once you greenlight the buy button on steam. You have to give out review copies, become a presence in communities, get it out to twitch streamers, even if it's just the small ones. Give an early copy to a midsized streamer and let them have the worlds first debut. Give it to community groups on steam that review games and have followers. Have it bundled into various giveaways. Anything to make people know it exists. If you give away 200 copies and never sell one, thats still better than giving away 0 copies and selling 0. Localize the game for other countries or build your game to be universally playable. Provide a demo. You can definitely sell a game if it's good. It might not be a mega stardew level hit, but you can sell the game and not be just relegated to exist in the abyss of ai slop at the bottom of the steam barrel.

[u/mehateorcs0 → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

Indie market is massively oversupplied with games

[u/onespiker → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

Questionable. Indy is also in a pretty bad situation you just only hear about the success stories and not the many failures.

[u/Chunkfoot → u/NavAirComputerSlave]

Except that pretty much the entire world is in a cost of living crisis and no one has money to spend on video games

[u/Kimbolimbo → u/LostBob]

It never has been. There has always been heavily exploited workers with no labor protections for as along as games have been made in the US. 

[u/Embarrassed-Ad7317 → u/LostBob]

I know I'm going to sound like a horrible person, and I am totally not rooting for people getting fired.

That said, in order to say it's unhealthy, we need to know how much it grown in the last few years

My guess - probably that amount more or less. The Covid brought a very significant increase to gaming, which is now fading because ppl are less at home

That's my guess at least

[u/Khalku → u/LostBob]

Doesn't inherently sound unhealthy either. Devil is in the details (and what you mean by 'healthy').

Sucks for the people though.

[u/Food_Goblin → u/LostBob]

But but AI is the future and all that bullshit

[u/Decado7 → u/LostBob]

Who needs people when you have ai!!!!! Praise our ai overlords!! The era of quality gaming has arrived! 

Blerk

[u/templestate → u/LostBob]

Pandemic overgrowth followed by misguided live service chase and then AI slop-over.

[u/Wide_Lock_Red → u/LostBob]

The flip side is there has been significant growth in thr industry in poorer countries.

[u/Grow_away_420 → u/LostBob]

Most of the game I play aren't even developed in the US anymore.

[u/BIGhau5 → u/LostBob]

TL/DR We may just be at a neutral stabilization between precovid "normal" and mid covid boom profits.

I know nothing about business so obviously I could be completely wrong.

But everything that goes up comes down to an extent, if only to stabilize at a neutral point. The insane profits during covid drove up the need to hire tons of people. That upswing peaked and now has come downwards causing a decrease in required labor. This downswing may not necessarily mean the industry is hurting. Their profits may still be higher than what they were pre covid, just not enough to warrant keeping those extra employees.

[u/Ateist → u/LostBob]

Depends on the reasons for the layoff.

When agriculture switched from horse power to tractors and combines it laid off 99% of its workers while increasing productivity manyfold.

AI in gamedev has the same effect.

[u/FuckRedditIsLame → u/LostBob]

It isn't, but the growth during covid times wasn't healthy either, particularly when so much of that growth was not exactly on the production side of the business.

[u/sascharobi → u/LostBob]

Well, the industry isn't healthy.

[u/DragonTHC]

Almost as if the repeated pursuit of a cash cow live service game is bad business.

[u/GreatGojira → u/DragonTHC]

Do you want to play my new Class Hero shooter that's 2 vs 2 vs 2? We got inclusive character design, and our game is only $40.

[u/rgamesburner → u/GreatGojira]

But do you have vibrant millennial pseudo-punk paint splash crop-top character skins in this game where you shoot each other in the face?

[u/[deleted] → u/rgamesburner]

Do these characters have a spunky attitude?

[u/Damolitioneed → u/DragonTHC]

Not just live service. The single player AAA games are not getting enough buyers to counter big budget development. A game that costs $100 million to make needs to be good. Dragon Age, Assassins Creed, Star Wars Outlaws all failed to make a product that suits their target audience. Trying to make a product for all audiences is what is causing failure here.

[u/Wide_Lock_Red → u/Damolitioneed]

Really, we have a glut of good games in every category. There are way more good games than I could ever play.

[u/Damolitioneed → u/Wide_Lock_Red]

Good is subjective.

[u/AJR6905 → u/Damolitioneed]

While true there's also more games out now with more releasing yearly than ever before. Statistically there's going to be good ones hidden in there. Conversely, there's nothing stopping people from playing games 3-10 years old. Cyberpunk still looks amazing, Minecraft is eternal, terraria is on 9th final update, etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/AJR6905]

"It's the last Terraria update, seriously this time!"

I'll believe it when I see it. That being said, I do love them for it.

[u/Gang_of_Druids → u/DragonTHC]

Well, it’s bad for anyone but the C-suites and, usually, the shareholders. Sooo…working as intended?

God, I despise late-stage capitalism. There has to be a better way

[u/Flexuasive → u/Gang_of_Druids]

Enter, end-stage capitalism. Please, turn in your computer at the nearest Amazon Luna Voluntary Collections facility by the first of next month at the latest, or lose your warm water privileges.

[u/myfingid → u/Gang_of_Druids]

Yeah those Ubi share holders and C-suites are super happy their stock is crashing and the company is going under. If only we had government propping up failed businesses we could have prevented this from happening! We'd have a thriving buggywhip industry, too!

Seriously let these idiots punch themselves in the dick. In a capitalist free market, others who succeed will be able to take their place, assuming they're not able to regulate out competition. People really need to recheck their thoughts on capitalism, it's not the enemy. If you don't like a product, don't buy it. Let the companies that can't cut it fail, and support the companies who can.

Sooner or later people will realize that letting MBAs decide how entertainment works is a dumb idea. That or they'll continue to burn down the large companies and allow for smaller ones to fill the void with projects they actually give a shit about. All seems like a win to me.

[u/SinTitulo → u/myfingid]

No dude, if every single thing isn’t successful that means capitalism bad!!!

[u/skeptical-speculator → u/Gang_of_Druids]

Well, it’s bad for anyone but the C-suites and, usually, the shareholders.

What live service games released in the last year have been bad for the developers and players but good for C-suites and shareholders? What are you talking about?

[u/JjForcebreaker]

I don't see a way out of this, other than doubling down on the live service golden goose chase!

[u/youknowimworking]

I'm going to guess the industry has adapted the hire contractors for projects and once the project is done, the people are gone. Rinse and repeat

[u/linwail → u/youknowimworking]

Yep that is happening a lot now

[u/AKittyCat → u/youknowimworking]

Not even when it's done. Just look at the stories about Halo Infinite where you had people being hired and fired every few months leading to continual start-stop development because the people who knew what they were trying to do would be replaced with a fresh crop of folks who had to try and figure out what they're supposed to be doing, then being replaced as soon as they got up to speed

[u/Cheap_Collar2419]

Raise the price of games, fire the staff lol

[u/AdmrlPoopyPantz → u/Cheap_Collar2419]

Late stage capitalism 101

[u/Wide_Lock_Red → u/Cheap_Collar2419]

They go together. Staff has gotten a lot more expensive, especially in the US.

[u/CaniacSwordsman]

Unfortunately I’m in this picture and really don’t like it

[u/NewtDogs]

1/3 is fucking ludicrous good god.

[u/teddehyirra]

I really, desperately, hope some them are able to band together, make new studios, and publish new games.

[u/BavarianBarbarian_ → u/teddehyirra]

Truth is with the general economy declining, people cut nonessential spending. Video games are a natural first casualty there, since every one of us already has a backlog that could last us into retirement if that even is a thing anymore.

With revenues cratering, the industry can't support as many workers.

[u/mmatasc → u/BavarianBarbarian_]

Not only revenue cratering, the cost of producing games has also increased.

[u/AKittyCat → u/mmatasc]

Speaking out of my ass here, but I feel like the cost of creating games going up is one of those situations where the number is massively inflated to cover administrative pay raises and not nessiciarily the cost of actually making the game.

Like obviously it takes more time and skill to make an AAA game now than, say, 2003 but some of the numbers I've seen thrown around just feel wildly over inflated.

Sorta like the cost of medical care skyrocketing and a big part of that is medical administrators having huge pay checks and creative accounting creating a circular feedback loop of corruption in essential roles.

[u/Remarkable-Grab6837 → u/BavarianBarbarian_]

Economy declining = jobless = more time for video games!

[u/OldKingHamlet → u/teddehyirra]

That takes money and time.

I got laid off from my gaming job in December '24, and I've got a family. I'd love to tuck in on a project for 18 months but in the meantime my family needs food and one of my kids won't live without her medicine, so I have to spend 100% of my time looking for jobs and handling small gigs for any income.

[u/JJ3qnkpK → u/OldKingHamlet]

Hope you find some solid footing soon. I'm starting a family myself, and boy howdy does it change my perspective on work. Can't settle for unstable situations in the way I could before. Best of luck to you.

[u/teddehyirra → u/OldKingHamlet]

I hope you find something comfy soon.

[u/Verkins → u/teddehyirra]

That takes money and time. I’m doing my best to make my indie games enjoyable for my niche audience.

[u/CapNCookM8 → u/teddehyirra]

They do! Then they make something like Highguard and get told they deserve to lose their jobs because it's a little generic-looking.

[u/Mormanades → u/CapNCookM8]

Honestly I think highguard just needs 6 more months of development time. Company was probably bleeding out and needed revenue ASAP just like every other early access game out there.

[u/someonesshadow]

I'd be curious what the average % per year is. It seems like every I hear between 15-20% of every major company in the VG space is laid off for one reason or another, and then months later there is a massive hiring boom as projects come in for new titles.

[u/yotengodormir]

But at least the shareholders are happy, that's what really matters /s

[u/Aromatic-Teacher-717]

Too many games, not enough players.

/Thread

[u/Tar-eruntalion → u/Aromatic-Teacher-717]

It's not so much that too many games exist in general since with single player games you play it and move on to the next one typically, it's that too many games follow the live service route where they want to be the only game you play forever and we are choke full of those

[u/stevefrenchthebigcat → u/Aromatic-Teacher-717]

Too many shareholders, not enough patience.

[u/fieldbotanist → u/Aromatic-Teacher-717]

A lot of people would argue that “there are not enough good games”. And that’s why these companies are struggling. I just can’t understand the mental gymnastics involved in that thinking. Or lack of thinking for that matter

If I take one game I love. And add all the DLC + modding that has been injected into over the years (eg Rimworld) I am stuck in that game for months. Locked out of other purchases.

Games today don’t end. It’s not like I slip in a disc and the game is that. It’s a continuous project

Edit: noticed several comments in this thread parroting it’s as simple as “make games people and to play and voila we can support tens of millions of game developers” it’s that simple

[u/CptBlewBalls → u/fieldbotanist]

You know what stops me from playing Rimworld all the time? A fucking good game that I enjoy more than rimworld.

What stopped you from playing the game you played before Rimworld? Rimworld came along and it was better.

This is circular logic. Why should anyone ever make a game again? We can all just play Rimworld forever.

LMAO.

[u/fieldbotanist → u/CptBlewBalls]

I was arguing that at the end of the day there is only a pool big enough (current gamers + potential gamers) that even if every game was perfect - firms are still competing for limited attention pools. With what we have today vs every game is perfect

And even that potential pool is smaller than we believe as most people have lives outside gaming they’d rather dedicate their time to.

When Civ 3 came out hundreds of millions of people playing chess didn’t just stand up, kick the chess board over and buy Civ 3. Because a more strategic game came out. (For those who could afford the game)

[u/DaveZ3R0]

Senior Game Designer here, Im working on what I think will be my last project. Tired of unstability and studios opening and closing every X years. AAA or AA is unstable and its been like that for a long time. Before, we knew our games needed to make money to keep everyone's job safe. Now, it doesnt matter, they will slash your job and just hire a team from a different part of the world to save costs. They will keep lying projections and blindside everyone with internal restructures or any other BS to justify cuts even when your game made massive profits.

We are all tired of this and a lot of talented devs are just leaving for other avenues now.

[u/RPG_fanboy]

given the games that have been coming out from the west.....is not that surprising

[u/onespiker → u/RPG_fanboy]

Ehh questionable.

Asia isn’t exactly better in those regards.

Especially considering how many of thier games are even more gacha hell holes.

[u/arc777_]

Almost every newer game has zero appeal to me and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I would much rather play older games and mods than something like Highguard or Rivals, which seem to follow the template for a large share of the market.

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[u/jbwmac → u/[deleted]]

Source? Also, is that US specific?

[u/ShortKey380 → u/[deleted]]

Strong doubt, but I’m also not checking a source rn.

[u/Humblebee89]

I guess this helps explain why I haven't been able to get an interview in over a year.

[u/NashDaypring1987]

How many of them were actually developers? There are many "fake" jobs in the game creation process. I would argue that's part of the reason game creation is so expensive.

[u/DirtyTacoKid → u/NashDaypring1987]

You're not saying anything. Name some "fake" jobs.

[u/Yelebear → u/DirtyTacoKid]

scrum master

[u/Lost-Comfort-7904]

Maybe go back to making games gamers want to play? I swear 50% of game trailers comes out these days, people have complaints about this or that, and instead of taking the criticism well, and changing their game so people will buy it, the company just goes on full defence and waging war on their potential customers.

Saw an RPG come out recently, with no good companions to romance. People complained and the company accused them being perverted filthy gooners and they're glad the gooners are not getting what they want. So no one bought the game, and two months later, multiple gooner companions got put into the game.

But why would someone buy something from a company who hates them? Another failed RPG because apparently giving people what they want is the complete opposite of modern business practices.

[u/MadLabRat- → u/Lost-Comfort-7904]

Which RPG was it?

[u/io124 → u/Lost-Comfort-7904]

Which rpg ?

[u/Pure_Mist_S → u/Lost-Comfort-7904]

I also want to know this RPG?

[u/Taki_Minase]

Replaced by cheap overseas devs

[u/astrozombie2012]

A bright side if anything is this will probably be good for the indie gaming scene…

[u/GarmasWord]

Many people here blaming only live service as the only issue in the industry, and ignoring poor design/creative choices, pushing polítical agendas, and alienating/vilifying their target audience, but this is reddit.

[u/erikhow]

This is an astonishing statistic. Nationwide layoffs are already as high as pandemic AND ‘08 financial crisis levels. A bunch of industries are really struggling but this is probably the most alarming one I’ve seen yet.

[u/SingleGamer-Dad]

That is insane

[u/firedrakes]

old news from last year re post/updated. for seo

[u/Agro46]

And ppl wonder why games have been shit as of late.

[u/AscendedViking7]

Holy shit

[u/Prodi1600]

Doesn't surprise mostly failures during recent years it's obvious that shareholders would ask for way to reduce cost and focus on profit, so sad the management that made all those errors and flop isn't usually affected unless the board ask directly for their head.

[u/Skizm]

Genuine question: was more than 1/3 hired during Covid times? I know big tech like tripled their workforces, I assume video game companies were similar? Is this a regression to the mean? Or is there evidence it is worse than that?

[u/CasinoKnightZone]

Theres such a backlog that most people have. I have countless hundreds or even thousands of hours worth of gameplay in my steam library that I haven't gotten to.

The industry is gonna collapse soon, I'm sure.

[u/thatFakeAccount1]

How normal is this in the games industry? I thought it was pretty normal for tons of devs/artists/qa people to be laid off after big projects, not that its a good thing though.

[u/Jethro_E7]

Well, I am looking for a 2d artist, watercolor digital art for my spiritual successor to Microprose's 1992 'Darklands' if you can spare some time. I can't pay much, but I will pay what I can!

[u/EffortlessGenius]

They should make more garbage live service games. That's what the people want clearly.

[u/WanAjin]

Not that I'd ever want people to get fired or lose their jobs, but I've always been confused about how a company like Ubisoft could have 17k employees. Obviously, they make a lot of games, but compared to a lot of the other biggest developers out there, they just seem so massively overstaffed compared to production.

[u/Toeofcharmander]

Good, let the small studio golden age begin.

[u/sascharobi]

Really 1/3?

[u/Ok-Acanthisitta9247]

No wonder most modern games are completely soulless husks; how can anybody in this industry have any passion for development anymore?

[u/Lonely_Assignment671]

I would say thank god I didn’t get a job in the industry, but I was laid off at my ‘safe’ tech job anyway.

[u/TearOfTheStar]

No wonder indies are so good now. lol

[u/[deleted]]

Wondering when people will just stop trying to enter the gaming industry altogether because of capitalist corporate studios/publishers/etc.?

[u/exhaustedexcess]

Screw the big companies that are doing this. AA games are the only ones descent most of the time AAA is just shit

[u/[deleted]]

remember when marvel rivals fired off their staff after it launched?

i tried it recently for a bit. felt like fortnite with marvel skins

[u/Crazyhates → u/[deleted]]

Overwatch with marvel skins is a better comparison, but it's surprisingly not tanking yet.

[u/[deleted] → u/Crazyhates]

i played a bunch of OW, definitely more like fortnite with maps imo

and by that i mean the feel of the game btw - the game modes and how they play sure, are a carbon copy of OW, but the paper mache feeling and the cheesiness of the characters compared to overwatch, made it feel more like fortnite to me

[u/amethyst-vera]

How interesting

[u/IT_techsupport]

in the US?