Summary
- A GDC survey has revealed that one in ten game developers were laid off last year, with 42 percent of respondents negatively affected by layoffs in some capacity.
- "Restructuring" was the primary excuse used by most companies, while 19 percent of respondents weren't even given a reason for being laid off.
- Developers themselves believe a mixture of over-expansion during Covid, poor leadership, corporate greed, and trend chasing is why we've seen so many layoffs.
Layoffs have become a distressingly frequent occurrence in the games ind🔯ustry over the past couple of years, with a publisher or studio being hit almost every week. Around 11,000 people were laid off in 2023, and even more in 2024, which saw a whopping estimated total of around 14,600 people losing their jobs. We're already underway in 2025 too, with Suicide Squad developer Rocksteady reportedꦺly hi𝔍t with layoffs earlier this month.
We saw multiple studios closed, whether it was those like Firewalk Studios that crashed and burned after♛ chasing the live-service gravy train, or the likes of Tango Gameworks, which released a critically successful and beloved game, only to be closed by Microsoft shortly after. It took another publisher in Krafton to 1❀68澳洲幸运5开奖网:scoop up th🤪e talent and save the entire studio.
GDC Survey Reveals One In Ten Game Developers Were Laid Off Last Year
It was a rough year for those looking for a career in games development, and it didn'🌄t matter whether a game was successful or a commercial failure. It was e💖asy to become numb to them and lose sight of just how bad it was, but a new survey from 💧the Games Developer Conference has laid it out in black and white to truly get the figures across.
In a survey that included over 3,000 developers from across the globe, it was revealed that 11 percent of respondents had lost their jobs over the course of the last 12 months, which is just over one in every ten developers. On top of that, a whopping 41 percent of respondents claimed to have been negatively impacted by layoffs, whether it wasꦅ a studio closure, or other team and colleagues being laid off instead.
When asked exactly why they believe so many layoffs are happening, a few terms kept popping up.🤪 One of the biggest reasons that companies gave employees for layoffs was "restructuring", which is essentially corporate talk 🐟for sacking a bunch of people so a company can make more money. Astonishingly, 19 percent of people weren't given a reason why at all.
Developers themಌselves believe that gross over-expansion during the Covid era is still playing a large part in layoffs these days, though the terms "greed" and "overhiring" were also used very regularly. A lౠot of developers also believe that rising development costs, declining playerbases, mismanagement, and constantly looking for the "next big hit" also played a large part. A pretty accurate summary of the industry right now if you ask me.
A $100 Price Tag Would Work For GTA 6 And Absolu෴tely Nothing Else
If games cost a hundred dollars, a whol𝓀e lot of people won't play games.