What's Going on With the Gaming Industry and Its Shrinking Jobs
Written by BusyGamerBelle
Published on March 2nd, 2024
If you’ve been paying attention to the last year, many people have been losing their jobs across the gaming industry. With so many layoffs, it’s been hard to imagine how the gaming industry will survive in the next few years, including the influx of people each year interested in becoming gainfully employed in AAA and indie studios. The truth is, getting a job in the gaming industry will come down to a lot of experience and hard work, and please believe me when I say this: a lot of luck.
By the end of 2023, companies laid off about 262,000 tech workers according to Statista. Microsoft cut about 1,900 people from Xbox and Activision, and according to NPR, from January 2023 through November 2023, companies laid off 6,500 video game employees globally. We’re in 2024, and these layoffs are continuing at a rapid pace.
There are stories of consolidation, then being fired, moving people outside of their home state to a hub and laying them off, and people searching for positions for years. What gives? Considering how big the gaming industry is, there shouldn’t be so many layoffs, but it’s still happening. Depending on who you speak to or what you read, you’ll come across a few answers, including skyrocketing budgets.
These large cuts across gaming are part of a larger problem with the tech industry. During the height of the pandemic, the market was employee-led. Now that the pandemic is no longer an issue business-wise (because of capitalism), companies are not only making people return to the office to justify building costs but also pushing people to resign after working from home for years. There is even the belief that the return to office mandate is due to poor management. It’s sad to say, but the job market is no longer employee-led; we're back to business.
All of this matters because most of these companies will be on the West Coast, which is an extremely costly place to live on low salaries in an industry where crunch time is normal. More companies run to remote work rather than simply mandate required locations. There should also be protections in place for employees who move and are then laid off, as well as those who were laid off because of oversight from a company that hired more staff than it could feasibly handle.
You may be wondering how any of this is happening. Well, capitalism, but more specifically, gaming companies are not fairing well despite the gaming industry doing well overall. Larger companies and mega conglomerates such as Disney just recently invested $1.5 billion in acquiring an equity stake in Epic Games. Now, it shouldn’t have to be said, but a large company having anything to do with another isn’t a good thing. Many companies acquire others or develop a joint partnership with another and then fire people. Gaming is good for a company like Disney, but don’t take this as a win for gaming overall. The financial returns are dwindling.
So what does this mean for the industry and you? Well, a bubble is going to burst. It’s headed that way, and in the next few years, we may see just how bad it can get. For developers, it’s going to be just as hard to create games when there are no funds to adequately pay people. And for gamers, we might miss out on quality games if they no longer fit with the profit bigger companies want (e.g., removal of created content for Max and ahem... Disney). Only time will tell.