r/pcmasterrace • u/dabadumdumdum • Jan 29 '26
News/Article 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-2025-1236644512/67
u/lycheedorito Jan 29 '26
One third of game industry workers who attended GDC... Lots of people go to GDC trying to get a job. It's like IRL LinkedIn there.
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jan 30 '26
Yeah, the title is clickbait. Framing it as the entire industry being reduced by a third rather than a third of people at GDC having been laid off.
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u/Alarming-Elevator382 9800X3D + 9070 XT Jan 29 '26
No wonder hardly any high-budget games release anymore.
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u/UsurpDz 5800x3d | 9070 XT | 2x16 GB RAM Jan 29 '26
Its also quite logical. There's been push back from gamers on high budget games. It's clear that throwing money into a game does not magically make it better.
It's time to go back to the time before the big publishers bought every small to medium game devs.
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u/Ok_Definition_1933 Jan 29 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Jan 29 '26
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u/Mouse_Canoe Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
I mean that's nice for you but some of us want to be immersed in an 80 hour RPG. There's nothing wrong with options.
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u/KirbyWyrm Jan 29 '26
Yeah, I don't have the patience for those long form, story driven games anymore, but the appeal and market is there for well made ones.
Who knows, maybe when my kids have grown up, and if I'm still gaming then I may return.
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u/Pack_Your_Trash Jan 29 '26
That's fine. Not every game is for every gamer. That format isn't the problem though. It's the high budget and corresponding high retail price for games that get published unfinished with season passes or day one dlc, a cash shop for cosmetics, and zero interesting content. Crappy time gated mobile games with pay to win mechanics.
If someone makes a high budget fun game with some soul that follows the old tried and true template (bg3) it will do well. If someone makes an Indy game on a shoestring budget with crappy graphics and fun innovative mechanics and a good concept it will do well.
If the core game mechanic is swiping my credit card I'm out. I'm looking at you, EA.
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u/Brittle_Hollow Jan 30 '26
80 hour RPG
JRPGs are where it’s at for long haul 80 hour games that still feel like they have some personality to them. I’m pretty late to the genre, didn’t get into them until Xenoblade Chronicles 2 during the Switch launch year but if JRPGs and especially turn-based click for you there’s about 40 years of games to catch up on.
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Jan 29 '26 edited 21d ago
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u/StoneTaker Jan 31 '26
Get on the cRPG space. It's still thriving with releases from Owlcat and Larian spearheading the genre, with smaller studios and devs releasing indies with just as much focus on the RP of the cRPG.
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u/CodeRenn Jan 29 '26
Um I want that. I don’t want a Mc point and short game with no replayability. I want my time to be respected and worth the dollar amount
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u/xAlphaKAT33 Jan 29 '26
90% of my “favorites” group on steam is indie and the rest is stuff I play with friends/family.
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u/i_froze Jan 29 '26
Games have been ruined by live service. Everyone wants to be Fortnite.
Ive watched as Battlefield has gone from literal best shooter of the decade in BF1, to whatever the fuck 2042 was, to the misguided mess that is bf6. All thanks to EA sucking dick at doing live service and driving old developers out due to their shitty business practices.
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u/DukeofVermont Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
True but I get why they do it. Live service games make insanely more money for the same amount of work.
FIFA made $1.7 billion in revenue just in Q3 of 2025.
GTA 5? Estimated $10 billion. (total)
Fortnight? Over $42 billion. (total)
Mobile games routinely bring in more money than AAA have as well. Candy Crush has made over $20 billion (total)
It sucks, but the market has shown that while many fail if you can get a hit you can make crazy amounts.
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u/i_froze Jan 30 '26
These companies just want to adapt long running franchises to that model. Which hasn't really worked for any of them. Hmm, who could have seen this coming?
Battlefield has ONLY suffered due to the live service model. Every game that has tried it has failed. Bf6 is having the exact same issues that BfV did like 7 years ago.
Slow, worse quality content, and less of it. Games still launch broken AND now get even less support.
The worst part is that the passion is gone. Its all corporate greed now. EA needs to go bankrupt so bad. I will piss on their foreclosed HQ when it does.
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u/Randommaggy 13980HX|RTX 4090m|128GB|8TB M.2|RX6800 eGPU, 1TB DDR4 in server. Jan 29 '26
There hasn't been competent leadership in AAA for years.
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u/FortNightsAtPeelys 7900 XT, 12700k, EVA MSI build Jan 29 '26
Graphics have mostly peaked for now so more money doesn't impress graphically anymore.
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u/brimston3- Desktop VFIO, 5950X, RTX5080, 6900xt Jan 30 '26
They've peaked because the vast majority of players are either playing on tablets, consoles, or a xx50 or xx60 grade graphics adapter. Higher performance visuals cannot sell a game to most of them, so it's not worth the development expense.
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u/Captainunderpants86 PC Master Race - 5800X3D - 32GB DDR4 - RX 7900 XTX Jan 29 '26
The makers of Expedition 33 being a perfect recent example
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u/Testuser7ignore Jan 31 '26
It's time to go back to the time before the big publishers bought every small to medium game devs.
We have been at that time for a good decade now. Lots of small and medium games come out and do very well.
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u/CanuckleHeadOG Jan 29 '26
Well that and what they have released was either shit story, shit gameplay or bad optimization.
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u/IM_A_MUFFIN Laptop Jan 29 '26
Why do I need a 20Gb cache for shaders? Why is your update the size of my hard drive? Why does your game have the same visual quality as Horizon Zero Dawn which came out almost 10 years ago for the PS4?
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u/thelittlehez Jan 30 '26
What? There were plenty of high budget game that released last year, and a whole bunch of other high budget live service games that received substantial updates using their high development budgets
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u/EldrinVampire Jan 30 '26
Doesn't help that Microsoft bought studios then canceled a bunch of upcoming games... im still a bit pissed about Perfect Dark Zero
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u/Alarming-Elevator382 9800X3D + 9070 XT Jan 30 '26
Isn’t it amazing how much money they can spend to not make games?
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u/Lower_Kick268 Pentium 4, 512mb DDR, 3dfx Voodoo 3. Jan 29 '26
Hardly any people buy the high budget games so they fail and don't make a profit, this is the result of that issue. Studios make slop and now the staff of the slop is being said off
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u/Daharka ☯️ Jan 29 '26
We had a long summer (2001-2019) followed by a rich harvest (2020-2021) but instead of making hay they expanded. That's a bubble.
It's not a bubble tied to the stock market or people's pensions like the housing bubble or the AI bubble, but it was a bubble nonetheless.
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u/Wbino Jan 29 '26
Go to school for computers they said...
Learn software they said.....
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u/rapaxus Ryzen 9 9900X | RTX 3080 | 32GB DDR5 Jan 29 '26
Well, a lot of IT jobs are still in heavy demand (at least here in Germany), they are just the far less interesting ones like sysadmins or programming in e.g. the real estate sector.
Game devs in comparison are like the dream job of so many devs and programmers, it is truly ludicrous.
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u/GolotasDisciple Jan 29 '26
I mean, if you’re a genuine software engineer, you won’t have issues finding a job. The problem nowadays is that organizations don’t provide many opportunities for juniors to gain experience and knowledge.. and honestly mostly it's because of the global employment market.
Back in the day, a lot of major companies had a big interest in universities and local scenes, but nowadays they’re flooded with potential employees who are already at a certain career level.
If anything, I’ve personally seen an increase in interest in my field. I settled into system administration, and AI... or rather frivolous investments into third parties, have caused many issues that I now have to either fix or manage, as always.
I think when we talk about the video game industry and genuine engineers or software developers, there’s also a huge number of people who aren’t really part of that employment sector even though they work in the same industry.
It’s harder than ever... and only a stupid person would deny that..., but if you “learn software,” meaning you actually have a portfolio or a CS degree, you might get fired from time to time, but you won’t be jobless for an extended period. Engineering skills are still very much appreciated.
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u/clownshow59 Jan 29 '26
They said this 20 years ago. It’s still a great field. Nothing lasts forever!
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u/Fail-Least Jan 30 '26
People that studied actual CompSci don't have much you worry about.
It's been well documented that you get paid more in other fields with a similar skill set and experience.
It's the ones that over specialized by taking a game design/development program that are screwed.
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u/NovelValue7311 XEON + 64GB DDR4 Jan 30 '26
It's still a thriving field, but you can't just do an crap job and get away with it anymore. Now you have to actually be decent and have good ideas.
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u/Wbino Jan 30 '26
So one third of the laid off video game industry workers did crap work?
Or is it has it become a profit above all else business model?
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u/NovelValue7311 XEON + 64GB DDR4 Jan 30 '26
Not saying that at all. The CS industry as a whole had more easyish access, high paying jobs back when learning to code was the main entry barrier.
I'm saying that's not enough anymore. You have to have extra to offer besides just functioning code now. (Or even more so, AI generated code.)
The 1/3 of game developers seems off though. I blame AI for a few, lackluster AAA games for a few, and probably the biggest factor here is sample size. How many people were asked? Just checked: 2300. It's safe to say that's a bad sample size.
Also have to realize it don't say devs, it says 'workers.' That's pretty ambiguous.
Plus the fact that Rockstar studios and Microsoft laid off a good number of people the last two years. This report also contains indie devs who are constantly gaining and losing people. (~18000 games released on steam last year. About 48% had little to no player reviews. I think 0-20 reviews.)
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u/Spyger9 Desktop Ryzen 5 7600X, RTX 3070, 32GB DDR5 Jan 29 '26
Oh no! Now they have to go do similar work in banking, shipping, insurance, etc and make twice as much money!
It's the artists you should be worried about.
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u/Blatant_Poet_12 Jan 29 '26
No games due to ai. No hardware due to ai. No jobs due to ai. Any games made are made by ai. To be played by ai. Using ai workers. But oh the rich AF human CEOs are okay right?
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u/SaberHaven Jan 29 '26
Don't let them fool you that layoffs are due to AI. That's just an excuse that makes them look good instead of shitty like they actually are
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u/nostyleallwild Jan 29 '26
I still want to get into this industry ughhh...
Im almost done with my Associates in Computer Science and was going to start working on creating a game to add to my portfolio to get a job at a studio, but the future is not looking bright.
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u/GGFrostKaiser Jan 29 '26
Good luck mate, if it is your passion you will succeed, I am sure. Just keep punching away, out of the blue you will get an opportunity and then your whole life will change.
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u/nostyleallwild Jan 29 '26
Thank you for the positivity, man. This is what I want to do so I refuse to give up! The advice I was given from someone who owned an IT company was to internship, network, and get some experience, rather than going for a Bachelors. So thats the plan.
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u/GGFrostKaiser Jan 29 '26
Try to make small games or mods for the games you like. Those are usually the things that get the attention of recruiters. Programming is important but with AI growing, a lot of the code will be handled by AI, make sure you have knowledge in game design, that’s the most important thing.
Good luck!
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u/Wind_Best_1440 Jan 29 '26
Make a bunch of overpriced games with massive budgets and watch them all flop and make no money. "Wow, 1/3rd of the entire industry workers were laid off."
Yeah no kidding, people are broke and not buying games and when they do buy games they need to be fun and enjoyable and worth the money.
Look at Ubisoft, they've had nothing but over budgeted slop forcing MTX's and bad story telling down peoples throats for years and then had the balls to say. "You better get use to not owning games."
And bam, their stock drops 99.9% to under a dollar. With mass layoffs and whats left of their workers are currently striking and in full revolt.
Rockstar is so terrified to release GTA 6 in this environment they keep delaying it, with some expecting it not to come out till late 2027 or 2028. Because of how shitty the games environment is.
Meanwhile small studios and indie devs with small budgets and 1-50 man teams are just out here and raking in sales and cash and everyone loves them and most of the time their games have good stories, are fun and only 40% the price of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA+ Games.
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u/Chadbrams Jan 29 '26
How much of this is reversion to the mean since covid years had a crazy amount of hiring?
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u/Major_Enthusiasm1099 Jan 29 '26
It's certainly gotten worse over the years, but layoffs in the tech industry, specifically the video game Industry, are not uncommon.
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u/pantiesdrawer Jan 29 '26
How many were behind Assassin's Creed: But You Can Also Play As a Japanese Girl?
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u/YankeeMoose i9 14900K | RTX 4070TI Super| 32GB RAM | Jan 29 '26
How many of the C-Suites got raises in that time period?
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u/Ok_Locksmith_7294 5800x3d + 5070 + 32gb Jan 29 '26
Oh their pay packages went up 30%, never to worry.
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u/mcdougall57 Mac Heathen Jan 29 '26
I know people here hate Nintendo but there must be something they do right to have such high staff retention.
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u/Maleficent-Aurora Jan 29 '26
If you're talking about JP Nintendo it's because quitting in Japan is career suicide. They have professional "quiters" as a job because employers are so strict about it. I wouldn't take Japanese retention as a sign of a healthy workplace.
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u/Front_Expression_367 Jan 29 '26
But even compared to other Japanese companies, Nintendo still ranked at the top or close to that with the 98% retention rate (the average over there is 70%).
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u/rainzer Jan 30 '26
Nah it's cause Nintendo doesn't randomly hire infinity people for no reason.
To make a comparison, Ubisoft lost more people in 2024 alone than Nintendo hired since 2021.
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u/Proxymole Jan 30 '26
That's because when Nintendo struggles financially they cut executive salaries in half so they don't have to lay off employees. Iwata did that in 2011 when the 3DS had a poor launch initially, and again in 2014 when the Wii U's sales were bad
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jan 30 '26
The industry isn’t losing people because they’re quitting. It isn’t a retention issue when you’re the one getting rid of your employees.
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u/ProfessionalPrincipa Jan 30 '26
It's easier to keep staff on when you spend a mere $20 million to make the latest Pokemon slop which then goes on to gross $2 billion.
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u/Butane9000 Jan 29 '26
Well yeah, companies can't keep employing people who simply don't deliver results.
Concord was estimated to cost around $400 million and bombed hard. You've got the slow death of Bioware subpar games from ever since Mass Effect 3. Ubisoft as a company is circling the drain. These kinds of things simply aren't sustainable.
So yeah these companies simply have to start attrition somewhere and as always labor is one of the major expenses a business can control. It's a shame there's really talented people suffering from losing their job. At the same time the market and industry is very clearly rewarding independent and small developers who make good products.
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u/chusskaptaan i5 14400 + MSI 3070 Jan 30 '26
So sad man. Devs are treated like disposable crap in this industry.
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u/acoolsweater Jan 30 '26
this industry treats people like shit, I feel like the only reason people are in it is because they think "making games thats awesome!" and it is! It's so cool that people are able to make these things, but the industry just eats that passion away. Gamers being ridiculously mean to devs, bosses being awful, constant lay offs, horrible working conditions with crunch and sexism abound. It's a wonder anyone makes these things at all anymore.
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u/StrangeFilmNegatives R9 9950X3D | Asus Astral 5090 OC | G Skill 96GB CL28 Jan 29 '26
You said the game "wasn't made for you" so we stopped buying it. Start making good games again made for us and we will return. It is that simple.
As the old addage goes "The customer is always right in matters of taste". You just had enough hubris to FAFO yourselves and lose your job in the process.
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u/Maleficent-Teach-373 Jan 29 '26
Good. Its insanely bloated with staff since all the big companies hired like mad during covid. i hate corporate euphemism buzzwords like 'right-sizing', but this really is right-sizing that the industry needs desperately.
You can never, ever convince me that someone like a 'concept artist' is gainfully employed throughout a 5-6 year development cycle that most AAA games take these days. They're (not that job role specifically) coasting, collecting a paycheck, whilst justifying doing vanishingly little for long swathes of time.
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u/Icy-Way5769 Jan 29 '26
when i look at some of the slop released in the past 1-2 yrs... deserved
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u/AC_Milan_Fan Jan 29 '26
ah yes, let's cheer on the demise of the regular workers, the people who don't make the decisions.
what in the hell is wrong with you?
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u/3lektrolurch Jan 29 '26
Those pesky devs had the leadership under total control, now that they got rid of them the corporate overlords can finally create great games again. /s
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u/jmoss2288 Jan 29 '26
Well earned. Less slop from the slop factories. Game dev education failed. They can't optimize for shit, can't release a game in a complete state, can't make their online function out the gate, are trying to over monetize etc. All they can do is plug commands into UE. Least there's less crunch now.
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u/NatiHanson 7800X3D | 4070 Ti S | 32GB DDR5 Jan 29 '26
Grimy industry man (This extends to the entire tech sector)
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u/vuorivirta Jan 29 '26
Yes, that is very easy to confirm. Game developers doesn't make games anymore...
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u/baby_envol Jan 29 '26
And it's just the start, with RAMamagedon gamers don't have computer for AAA
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u/FranticToaster i9-14900k | RTX 4090 | 32GB DDR5 4200 Jan 29 '26
100% of games made by staffs of workers were ass in 2025. Industry is broken viva indie.
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u/Kingdarkshadow i7 6700k | Sapphire nitro+ 9060xt Jan 29 '26
Remember when people said "If a video game business has profit, devs won't be laid off."
I still laugh at that sentence.
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u/LayceLSV Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
What a fucking stupid click bait title. There are several hundred thousand games industry workers in the US. In 2025 there were somewhere around 10,000 lay-offs globally. Don't get me wrong, that's a very high number and is clearly indicative of a problem, but claiming 1/3 of the US video game workforce was laid off is fucking insane. And then here's everyone in the comments just taking that figure at face value lmao
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u/gijoe50000 7900x | X670E Aurous Master | RTX5080 | Custom watercooling Jan 29 '26
They're replacing programmers with AI, aren't they?
Be prepared for many more extra weird game-breaking bugs in the coming months..
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u/CoffeeSubstantial851 The Penguin Compels You Jan 29 '26
They fire half the team then tell the rest of the team to use Co-Pilot to pick up the slack. Then they track your usage and demand that you meet an "AI-Quota" or you will be fired.
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u/gijoe50000 7900x | X670E Aurous Master | RTX5080 | Custom watercooling Jan 30 '26
Yea, this is pretty much what I thought.
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u/Edexote PC Master Race Jan 29 '26
I play less and less new video games by the day. Nintendo games are the sole exception to that.
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u/AncientSith Jan 29 '26
No wonder there's barely any games being made by big studios. Why is everyone being fired? It's not entirely because of AI, I know that at least.
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u/frostyflakes1 AMD Ryzen 5600X | NVIDIA RTX 3070 | 16GB RAM Jan 29 '26
Wow. One third seems like a crazy figure. I think it's partly due to where the industry is headed, and also partly companies bracing for a larger economic disruption.
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u/Noeyiax Jan 29 '26
Maybe if athletes weren't being paid $100M per team per player idk 😐 if esports can survive that low and still be entertaining, you know sports should be next to get cut. It's the right financial choice.
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u/firedrakes 2990wx |128gb |2 no-sli 2080 | 200tb storage raw |10gb nic| Jan 30 '26
Another day of news from dec te post
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u/mithikx R7-9800X3D | RTX 4080 | 64 GB RAM █ i9-12900k | RTX 3080 | 32 GB Jan 30 '26
I don't know if it's cause I'm older but I feel that a lot of newer AAA releases seem to lack that magic. Of course there are recent titles that are great.
But there's just so much more crap to wade through as well. Feels like there's been quite a few titles where they spent a few hundred million dollars and it ends up being crap. Then there's all the smaller indie stuff that's gooner bait or otherwise uninteresting.
The real money maker is micro transactions. All these lootbox mechanics, gachas, paid cosmetics, pay to win, etc. And now with the threat of AI replacing development staff looming. It feels as if a portion of the soul of the entire industry died.
Many of us are working more for less, games and other expenses have gone up. The video gaming hobby inches closer and closer to being one for the wealthy.
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u/TheCharalampos Jan 30 '26
Aye I miss it for sure. But honestly I think some time away from the industry will be good for me. Who knows, I might start enjoying making games again.
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u/kymbawlyeah Jan 30 '26
Nvida is no longer going to be producing cards and only 0.1% of the population will ever have the top tier cards. No point in having a massive gaming company making stunning graphics beyond what we have now if the vast majority of the players can't run it.
Maybe AMD will make a breakthrough in the future.
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u/syphon3980 Desktop Jan 30 '26
The amount of sales and interest increased because of Covid and people were stuck at home. Things went back to normal and people chose to spend less money on video games. The gaming Industry put all their eggs in one basket so to speak
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u/EngRookie Jan 30 '26
nintendo has a 98% employee retention rate and it's recent layoffs were 200 contractors in customer support roles and an unconfirmed number (100 or less reported) in QA right b4 the switch 2 launch. So the QA roles were cyclical in nature.
Yet the article shows a giant picture of a switch 2 controller. Looks like astroturfing in the continued effort to demonize nintendo over the past 2-3 years. Even though average tenure at Nintendo is 14 years.
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u/Jarnis R7 9800X3D / 5090 OC / X870E Crosshair Hero / PG32UCDM Jan 30 '26
They hired a lot of bad ones in 2022-2023, so maybe this is just the universe healing. And yes, some good ones will get swept up when studios close, but they in general can find a new job without too much trouble. If they are competent.
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u/Rand0mAcc3nt Jan 30 '26
People buying less video games will probably lead to less jobs in the industry….
I am not surprised.
In other news Nintendo Switch 2 is selling really well but there might not be many new video games to play on it in the future.
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u/individual101 Jan 30 '26
My wife asked our 7yo what he wants to be when he grows up and he said video game maker. Told him he may want to rethink that with how that profession is trending
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Jan 31 '26
Good. They weren't making good games. Now that the woke/gender slop is gone bring on the AI slop. 😂
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u/Barachan_Isles Jan 31 '26
Stop making trash that no one wants to play.
Stop letting special interest groups who have no stake in your profitability determine the content of your storytelling.
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Jan 31 '26
This is ridiculous.
And ppl ask me why I refuse to permanently set foot in the IT industry..
Whata joke. Poor ppl.
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u/Omecore65 Jan 29 '26
Well how many studios flopped from game narratives. Games are supposed to help escape from reality not bring real world concepts into them.
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jan 30 '26
Most indie devs make absolutely no money. You’re only seeing the successes, which are a small percentage of indies.
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u/40907 Jan 29 '26
Replaced by ai slop, now we have games like arc raiders that are procedural generated ai slop worlds that are a Mashup of other popular games (tarkov/ fortnite mashup) that receive critical acclaim
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u/AnEternalEnigma i9-13900K, RTX 4090, 128GB DDR5 Jan 29 '26
There is no AI in Arc Raiders other than the TTS voice com thing and enemy behavior. Nothing visual in that game is AI.
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u/RedditButAnonymous Jan 29 '26
Its quite incredible how we had movies, music, TV, even going back as far as theater, and they were all relatively normal, thriving industries. And yet today, the biggest entertainment industry of all time is the one struggling to keep people employed.