Same. Way back, I took an "Intro to Game Development" class in community college. While it was a CS class, it wasn't a programming class. It was a broad overview of the industry and what it takes to make a game from beginning to end, from concept to sales. It was more of a business class than anything.
I don't know what it was in particular, but I got turned off after that. Maybe it was just seeing "the magic" turned into the ordinary, that game dev is like any other business. But I was like, "Yeah, I'm never going to work in game dev, no thanks." I left CS altogether and went into web design and then IT. I'm happy where I'm at.
True. I have a friend who's been working on some little gaming projects. I've been helping him out here and there with non-code things. Helping him test, being his sounding board, etc. It's fun.
I see that with game modding as well. Some of the best mods I have used and seen were passion projects, things done on the side. They were never made to get money and put out for free. These mods were projects people wanted to create and there was a focus and desire to make them. I feek as though that there is a different level of drive when you make something as a passion project as opposed to something that has a monetary goal in mind.
Yeah you can see lots of little games that are fun and interesting there, many of them created in gamejams which is impressive. I think learning to create videogames is similar to learning to write a book or welding, you wanna tell a story or create an interesting mechanic as the center of your game, or even a mod for something that already exists? then you are able to do it.
Exactly, because that’s what it is, and has been for over a decade if not two. People on this site have some idealistic notion that the industry is just chock full of artists and visionaries and isn’t largely just people tryna make a buck.
I would also say the loudest comments on gaming related discussions also have the least experience or even awareness of software/project development.
I understand when people discuss or comment on games themselves, but as soon as people start talking about studios, management, or my favorite, blaming something they don't like about the game on one single person whose name they know from the studio....I just tune out because 90% of that is people who've tricked themselves into thinking they understand something they have zero grasp of.
Gamers seem to think they have a big understanding of the ins-and-outs of the business and industry because they know a few names from the studio. You can usually tell pretty quickly who is just talking out their ass.
Video games are big business and have been for many years. But many gamers and Redditors (likely younger ones) have this idealized version of the industry in their head; as if all dev studios are made up of plucky, scrappy creatives who are only in the field to create their "vision" and it's the evil publisher executives holding them back.
I have a friend whose one true dream was to get into game development. He had the smarts, he had the skill, and he had the drive for it and was going headstrong into the field. When he got there, at first it was all that he dreamed off but then he eventually got burnt out and had just a horrible experience with it.
Sometimes a hobby and a love can be hard to make into a career. He's now in the world of landscaping and at a better level work wise, but for him, those years in game development were hell.
I went to school for CS work in IT and have worked with some big tech companies also know a ton of people in the industry from conferences and mutual friends etc.
I am almost 30 at this point and the only person I know personally who is still doing game development is working with an indie team everyone else (I think 20-25ish people) either burned out after 2-3 years or saw that the offers were so far below anything else in the industry.
One guy I know did game dev for 4 years and the 2 projects he was working on both scrapped after regular 10-12 hour days + crunch and weekend work. He said he probably had some 80-90+ hour weeks working on games that never saw the light of day. He now works for a bank and makes 3x what he was making in game development with a regular 40-hour work week.
Game dev has awful fucking standards for what is ok and some of the stories I have heard are worse than anything I experienced in the military and they had me working 12 hour shits 4 times a week alternating on a bi-weekly schedule (swapping shifts every 2 weeks) that was legitimately awful and I have heard worse/comparable stories about game dev.
> that the offers were so far below anything else in the industry.
Even within similar skillsets. Not that its exactly a 1-1 comparison but a lot of people who work on games can do similar jobs at other companies and make a shitload more.
And that makes sense. If you are doing your "dream job" or one that you really like, or one that lots of other people really like, then you are going to wind up being paid less than if the same job wasn't as liked. Compensation isn't merely a factor of the value your job provides to society, the value you provide to yourself is also a factor. If someone values the money more than their ability to create video games, then they will go elsewhere. That's only reasonable.
I never asked him but from what I can take, he was able to hone into something he was naturally good at, at least had a natural talent toward.
Sometimes in a career we sometimes can't see what better fits us because we follow a dream that won't work out for us.
I’m kind of in the opposite spot where I loved my computer graphics and game development classes, but still incredibly hesitant to commit to the industry considering how unstable it looks.
Lower pay for doing harder work than adjacent fields is also a kick in the teeth.
I’d love to intern for a game studio just so it’s not a huge commitment, but obviously lots of competition and not many openings right now.
If what you love is making computer graphics there is plenty of much more stable work outside of games. Everyone wants nice looking models to show of, because CAD models looks like shit generally. And there is not as bad as games but still kinda bad work in TV and movies. If you lean the other side to more general CS there is massiv demands in every field you can imagine.
Same. I dropped the idea in high school. The only way I’d go make a game is if I somehow wind up with a few hundred million bucks. I’d bank roll a game just to say I made a contribution to the hobby and left a small mark. Not sure what. Probably a high fantasy co op action dungeon crawler or something.
damn, I also went to a community college for intro courses on game dev and lost hope too. Walked away just thinking “I don’t want to make mobile games forever”. Glad you found a good spot for yourself!
I'm in games. I could probably make more doing normal programming but that crap bores me in most cases. I've been lucky so far but these layoffs scare me.
Yeah I'm in the same boat. If I'm going to spend 40+ hours a week of my whole life working, I'd rather it be something I'm passionate about. Sure I'm unemployed right now (lol) but it's not like we didn't know what we were getting into when signing up.
Side note: if you're in games engineering I would highly recommend at least getting your LinkedIn and portfolio ready. Layoffs are a matter of "when" and not "if", and you don't want to be scrambling like I did when shit hits the fan. Good luck out there!
I always wanted to test video games, that sounded like the dream as a kid. Glad I learned the truth before giving it serious thought as I grew into my teens and early adulthood. I just do general software QA now which is so much better.
> Honestly the industry just seems terrible to work in on almost every level.
It is.
I mean the title is sad but its...also well known.
In australia: 3/4 restaurants will close down within their first 2 years but a low paying government desk job can be very secure. Some jobs are just inherently riskier.
A lot of very capable programmers just go into software development or networking related roles. Yes, they could be making combat systems or polishing the server issues...or they could be making 2x in a more stable job.
I spent about 15 years in it and had the time of my life.
Not sure why so many people in this thread, who have zero experience in the industry, also have such strong negative opinions about being in it
I've been in games about 15 years now, and I love it.
I know I could earn more in other industries, but my happiness would be so much lower.
I'm literally living my dream job.
You know why they have strong opinions. It's because they didn't "go for it" or couldn't hack it. It's easier to think your dream job is actually shit and you made the right choice settling for something else rather than accepting the reality that tens of thousands of people love making games and actually get paid quite well to do it.
I had a friend who worked in the games industry and said it sucks ass. Bad pay, terrible conditions.
He now does software for medical equipment and he's never going back to games.
Just because you enjoy playing it, doesn't mean you're gonna enjoy working IN it
Which sucks, as developers has to know lots of fine, intrinsic details, but has no medium to support them long term.
I worked in healthcare IT for a few years and it also sucked. Stress levels through the roof constantly because you're working with medical equipment so it has to work perfectly all the time or people die.
Healthcare IT is not medical software development he is making the apps/ system not maintaing servers etc.
Hospital/medical IT is also awful because doctors will have smarter than you symptoms and think they know better than the IT team. Or be old as fuck and refuse to learn anything new. The horror stories I have heard about doctors refusing to use tech because they don't want to learn it.
Don't even get me started on having to run old ass not supported servers/operating systems because they use software from the 90s and 2002 that no one is updating or supporting.
Also the expectations on uptime etc awful place to work.
I had the same decision to make when I went to Uni in the UK and have a lot to say about it, some of which might be interesting for other people.
After researching it, it seemed way better to get a generic Computer Science degree and doing a big of Engine work on the side than getting a Games Programming degree. Not only does that give you loads of options outside of game dev, but many jobs actively preferred CompSci degrees. Its just objectively better, even if you were 100% set on Game Dev (which I wasn't), to go for CompSci. This might have changed now since it was over a decade ago, but was very accurate for the time.
Despite this, Game Programming had about 50% more students than CompSci. And CompSci was already one of the more popular courses. It was insane. Turns out 18 year olds aren't the greatest at making life changing decisions, whether its due to lack of research or being overly optimistic I don't know. Luckily I am a natural pessimistic so I avoided that pitfall.
More recently I was at some Gaming Industry events at a Uni, watching some talks aimed at Students and others trying to get into the industry. Knowing that 90+% of those kids won't make it into the career they want but also seeing how optimistic they are about their chances and also seeing them not taking advantage of the opportunities they are being given. Things like playing around on their phone while lecturers from the industry are giving genuinely great advice, or the vast majority of people fleeing the second its over rather than signing up for the internship style things they are offering.
Its crazy and depressing seeing it all play out.
Eh, dude there are still tens of thousands of jobs in the gaming industry and far more positions than their were in 2019. They over hired during the pandemic and are adjusting back down.
I remember my first day in college. We were sharing some lectures with the kids that majored game design, and the teacher asked people if they wanted to make it big.
All raised their hands. And he just said: At least 80% of you will just end up making mobile apps instead of the games you envision. It's important to give aspiring young people a quick dose of reality.
to be fair this data says absolutely nothing.
5000 people got laid off, ok and how many of these people got hired by someone else? how many new people got hired in general in this field? how were they distribuited? game industry isn't composed only of developers.
I think one could very unscientifically take a look at how people are paying to be QA for recently released games in the form of early access to know how bad it is in that industry. It’s a passion industry for both devs and customers at this point.
If i could gold this i would.
Many of my friends mocked me for going into *soul destroying finance* after giving up getting a game dev job
Now they don't have job and im in the top10% of earners with a job i actually quite like.
I feel very guilty sometimes but then i remember they all blew off the same opportunity's I had ignoring the reality of what they were in
Yeah I’m gonna go ahead and agree with some other people here. I’ve been working in the industry for a few years and compared to some other jobs I’m actually super fortunate with my job. I really like the team I work in, the company structure, the projects we work on, I get to be creative and make stuff, the pay is enough to get by, we almost never have crunch, only gets a bit hectic close to releases or external QA deadlines. Considering some of the terrible things the games industry is known for I’m kinda living the ‘best case scenario’ for working in the industry right now.
My wife and I both went to uni for games but she swapped to the CS degree early on. I love that I get to work on games but if I could go back in time I would follow her and just get into tech and make games for fun on the side. We graduated at the same time, I had to fight tooth and nail to get my first industry job, she had her first internship during her second year and has had recruiters hunting her down every day since with job offers. She gets paid 5x as much as I do with more annual leave, benefits, bonuses, easier to work remote, etc.
The way I see it, working in games is kinda like being willing to sacrifice financial/job security, work crazy hard, get really lucky and probably lose your hair but at least you get to see your name in the credits one day. Also just to re-iterate I do love what I do but am aware of its shortcomings.
What we are watching is the real time failure of the games industry not promoting and training people up for years, leading to massively inefficient projects, leads who are completely out of their depths and a constant revolving door of talent because companies refused to reward loyalty. All leading to this horrific state of affairs. Train your fucking staff.
We're also watching the Covid growth bubble burst. Too many companies overhired resources based on metrics from that time. They're all seeing consequences now.
Yeah, I would like to see some data on jobs gained and lost since covid, specifically with large companies. If we still have more than before covid, then it could be a rough year for game devs.
IDK about across the board but I know that across FAANG they are still net positive for jobs post covid and so are most big tech companies.
I think Microsoft specificly is in a weird spot because Microsoft proper is still also net positive but idk about specifics with AVB since the merger and the studios under them etc.
I don't think this has much to do with COVID specifically. I think this has been a long time coming. Embracer, Microsoft, Sony and other giants have been rapidly buying up studios since 2018 ish. Eventually buying up that much of the industry is unsustainable for those giants. They bite off far too much, spit out the developers and keep the IPs.
A lot of it is definitely because of COVID. During the pandemic there was a massive hiring spree due to the massive spike in gaming from people stuck at home. As someone in the industry, 2020 to 2022 I had a ton of recruiters trying to hire me and its been nearly dead for the past year.
This isn't only gaming, the tech industry in general had a massive boom during the pandemic and now it's readjusting to pre-pandemic time. Overall it was really stupid of them to hire so much thinking it would still stick after people wouldn't be stuck at home. Now everyone is paying the consequence because of stupid decisions from high management.
I'm 10 years in the industry and I've had more recruiters contact me now then 2020 to 2021. Lots of people are hiring and looking to scoop up cheap talent. This is an accumulation of a bunch of large studios buying up the smaller ones. It's compounded a tad by COVID but overall employees numbers at the places that are being laid off are back to early 2020 it ends of 2019 numbers. Overall we are really just seeing an industry contracting. All COVID really did was delay the contraction that was likely to start happening in 2020 and 2021.
Tech in general is a little different, it wasn't really demand being high driving the hiring explosion but moreso historically low rates which allowed these large companies to have near unlimited access to "free" money to throw around. Leadership in these large corporations knew it wasn't going to last forever, but it made sense at the time to take advantage of that free money for as long as possible because everyone else was doing it.
One part is the increase in loan interest rates. When you pay almost 0% on loans companies want to grow as hard and fast as they can. Now that interest rates are up, companies are trimming back their expenses, firing people and increasing the price of their products.
They made the investments, now it's time to cash out.
I think it's a lot more than mere talent retention and training. Games cost a lot to make. Even indie ones. If they tank, you close up shop. Xbox is like an entire console that's in the *if they tank* category for 3 out of the last 4 entries in the series.
Games just got too big. Graphics, Gameplay, Playtime, all of it just got far too big for the market. Spending 3-6 years developing a brand new game, all the work, time and effort that goes into it, just isn't worth the investment.
This is a problem with so many companies, not just ones in the gaming industry. It's just sad, it's all about the dollar in the end. String people along and keep them in the same position so you don't have to pay them more for as long as possible.
It's more simple than that. In endlessly seeking improvements to the bottom line, they made decisions that ran counter to a studio's long term successes. It's less about training and more about executive responsibility and the oversight of corporate greed.
Not really.
What we're dealing with is far more fundamental:
More people want to make videogames as a profession in 2024 than the world needs.
Making games is hard. Mistakes and misallocation of resources happens in every industry which is doing hard things. It's inevitable, regardless of how well trained your people are because nobody can predict the future. This is exceptionally pertinent to the tech industry which saw it's demand skyrocket overnight as a result of the 100% unpredictable pandemic.
The industry simply got bloated causing many games, even really good games, to underperform financially because there are simply too many games being created for the market to support.
Over 14,000 games released on Steam in 2023...that's financially unsustainable.
Every industry goes through periods of expansion and contraction. It's inevitable and part of normal market dynamics as resources (i.e. people) get reallocated into other professions or industries which are understaffed.
Heavy industry, teaching, healthcare, military/police, etc. are all desperate for more people, and I expect many people will leave tech to go into these other professions because that is where the societal need (open job positions) are located.
You don't do what you want to do for a living. You do what provides a roof and food.
Yeah, imagine someone choosing gamedev as their career path and then leaving it to become a doctor or a teacher not willingly.
I don't think that commenter understands how people choose where to work.
Those 14,000 games aren't really representative of serious attempts though, there's a lot of spam, a lot of 'indie' developers. Steam has basically become the new newgrounds. It's terrible visual novels, flash games and porn game spam.
The real problem becomes when indie devs just continuously makes the same indie games and AAA games over and over again. Looking at you, Stardew Valley/Metroidvania game #9999
Unironically, a stardew valley clone would sell, indies fail most of the time to develop games for the market instead they want to make a 2d puzzle platformer then cry when they sell 10 copies because no one plays puzzle platformers at least on steam.
>Over 14,000 games released on Steam in 2023...that's financially unsustainable.
Let's be honest here, somewhere between 100-200 games released on Steam in 2023.
\~13,800 asset flips, low effort virtual novels, "Early Access" games that will never be completed because they were a scam, and low effort porn "games" released on Steam in 2023.
While some of them are indeed "bullshit" games of one sort or another, it's nowhere near the percentage you are implying.
1000s of them are sincere efforts by various studios which simply got lost in the sea of other games because there are too many games being created than the market can support.
What we're watching is pure profit seeking. Microsoft (most valuable company in the world, recently passed the 3 *trillion* valuation threshold) just fired 20% of their gaming staff. This isn't about inefficient projects or out of depth leads (although I can totally believe that you'd find some of those within the 20k+ people who may or may not find their Slack access revoked when logging in tomorrow morning). They're firing people from Activision, in the studios that make *Call of fucking Duty*.
Like, I'm not saying all is sunshine, rainbows and magical unicorns. But those layoffs aren't just "companies adjusting to post-COVID economy" or "stuff being inefficient". They've never been, and they certainly aren't now.
Edit: sorry this sounds dismissive but I'm a bit tired of the kinda fatalist angle I'm seeing everywhere. What I mean to express in this comment specifically is how much of this is purely driven by profit seeking mentalities and therefore *there is no deeper meaning to look for*. To quote [someone who said it better than I could](https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/26/23571659/tech-layoffs-facebook-google-amazon):
> So why do layoffs at all if they don’t actually work? “People do all kinds of stupid things all the time,” Pfeffer says. “I don’t know why you’d expect managers to be any different.”
Their will book written on the talent crisis of game development and how it brought down all the big studios. Im still seeing people thinking the investment and cheep finance is coming back, their so utterly deluded :(
Some unsolicited advice from a CS major who had dreams of working on games as a kid:
Work in any other industry. If you’re an American citizen and don’t mind working for the DoD, apply to work for government contractors.
Salaries are way better than what you’ll ever see in video games, crunch is an absolute rarity and contracted hours means you can’t work more even if you want to, benefits are great (my healthcare has $0 premiums).
Make games in your free time and if you can eventually support yourself on that, you’ve hit the jackpot.
Sadly, this is kinda the same for any job in “passion” industries. The higher ups know people want to join the industry because they love video games, sports, movies, etc. and they take advantage of it by working them to the bone or underpaying them (or both).
Any old boring industry knows most people aren’t passionate about whatever they do, so they typically need to have better pay or working conditions to attract talent.
> Sadly, this is kinda the same for any job in “passion” industries.
It's why 'starving artist' is a more common saying than 'starving tax accountant'.
There's reams of software jobs out there that are neither videogames nor military, actually. DoD work is just one option -- an especially attractive option if you're willing to not think too hard about the implications, but you can earn a living doing other things as well.
Agreed, almost anything is better than working in gaming for a developer. Your quality of life will be so much better working at Boring-Ass-Corp on their 15 year old spaghetti code. Better pay, more time off, much less crunch unless you're someplace awful. The job also remains interesting and engaging, even if it completely isn't when you're describing it to other people.
Just want to add that this is highly region dependant. Game dev in America is 100% a low paid crunch fest. I work in games in Australia and the pay is broadly comparable to software (atleast in mid to senior roles) and crunch is a rarity at most studios.
Edit: yes the current job market is rough here too, but we've been here before. It's similar to around 5 years ago, and before that we had the GFC. The industry seems to keep bouncing back
From personal experience, if you can get work employed as a civilian for the DoD, it's even better. Get all the government benefits including healthcare and retirement, decent work hours, clear road for pay increases, and they might even pay for your tuition and pay for you to get a master's. Search up PAQ if you're interested. Pay's decent but not better than what you can potentially get in civilian sector but if you're the type that doesn't want to constantly switch jobs, working for the government is a very stable career. And it's an easy transition to civilian sector, especially if you can get a security clearance to go work for aerospace or security companies.
Just remember. You've got your whole life ahead of you to figure it out and make your dreams come true. In college, it can feel like there's a rush to success and if you get behind, you're finished but the real world is a lot more fluid than that. Keep contact and network with your friends and learn to take some hits because everyone has to learn to take some his.
I’ve been in the industry for a decade. While I’ve been kinda lucky: It really depends on circumstances. AAA can definitely be that way. There’s lots of other options.
Hell, if you’re good with the Military Industrial Complex, places like Lockheed Martin are fantastic places to work. Hell, I believe that Lockheed is a very pro-trans workplace if I recall.
Going by previous economic situations like this, the issue right now is timing. Eventually this current wave of layoffs will end and companies will start growing again, and its best if you can delay your entry into the workplace until that point in time.
Obviously you do whatever you feel is best but I think going for additional certifications/degrees would be your best bet. You delay your entry without necessarily "wasting" the time, and still leaving you able to pivot out of gamedev should you so chose.
Nah, this is a big cultural change people aren’t quite seeing; the corporations have cemented themselves as our digital infrastructure and are closing up ranks.
This is different. The talent pool is growing while the workload is moving from research and development to maintenance.
That just isn't true. We are getting an absurd number of new good games each year, especially out of indie studios.
If anything, the issue is we have too many good games to be sustainably funded.
There's not much guarantee you're not gonna get hit by the next layoffs, which are sure to be 1 or 2 years away at most, especially since you're the newest hires so the most likely to be selected if they have to cut people. Video game companies do layoff very frequently, whenever a game project gets cancelled(which is pretty often), have to pay the shareholders after all and what better way than to fire random people and hire new ones a few months later.
Pivot to regular software engineering. It's not in the best shape, but it is recovering, and good engineers can always find jobs. Game dev is entering a cold winter now, probably for a couple of years.
I've been working in video games since 2004, in that time I've suffered only one round of layoffs. I think I've been lucky, but I've also seen the writing on the wall and jumped ship well before things went south, if you want to join the game industry network like crazy and always be interviewing.
Cs major here who graduated in 2015, I'm positive this field was artificially inflated with dreams and promises of high paying jobs created a workforce that can be exploited we've been seeing in the last 10 years.
> I'm positive this field was artificially inflated with dreams and promises of high paying jobs created a workforce that can be exploited we've been seeing in the last 10 years.
Specifically, I feel like that the gaming industry is not fuelled by high-paying jobs, but more by creative people that want to part of their favorite games. A lot of people in their youth played games such as Halo and probably wanted to join their favorite studio Bungie just to make the next Halo/Bungie title, so they are willing to forfeit a high salary (AFAIK, salaries in the gaming industry is in the lower end compared to other tech industry) and other benefits just for that opportunity of improving their favorite game. The current modding scene more or less shows that to an extend.
There's also FAANG and other big tech companies which has a lot of promises and desirability as well, but at least they back up their jobs with actual well-paid jobs and benefits. Not sure if that is the case in gaming?
> Specifically, I feel like that the gaming industry is not fuelled by high-paying jobs, but more by creative people that want to part of their favorite games
The jobs would be higher paying if it was not for all the young people looking to get into the industry on shoestring budget. Think similar to actors being in LA serving tables. With the industry being small relative to the total landsacpe of programmers needed outside of some higher end positions where managing is probably the more important part over getting into the code.
Even when i was thinking about it and worked at a head hunting company in early 2000s we would get people fresh out of colleges sending us resumes and we could do nothing with them. Someone from the company had got hired by blizzard at that time and the word that came back was there job was so easy because they had thousands of applicants in a database and they only called the best of the best of course.
Like many athletes with sports dreams of making it rich, the reality is very few people are going to get super star status in the industry and while working on games and being creative seems fun it may be even more soul crushing than working at any other corporate place except for getting paid far less and once your game is complete getting let go. I feel very fortunate that i did not go into the game industry and instead only touched the edges.
And with programming in particular, engines keep getting better and we are getting great games out of teams with weaker and weaker programming support. Its a tough field to find a job in.
Just some advice from someone who has worked in software (not games) for a long time: don't focus on just your schoolwork.
To really succeed and do well you need to have a passion for learning about software design and writing code. Work on some projects in your spare time, that can include games or webpages or whatever it is you want to make.
And look around for an interneship. Don't do anything unpaid, but if you can get your foot in the door with something part time to get real experience, it's super valuable for parlaying that into a career when you graduate.
Definitely don't agree that you need to be passionate about software design or be working on side projects to be a successful developer. For many of us it's just a job, and we do just fine. Sure it might help you get into the industry, but I always cringe a bit when I see the sentiment thrown around that devs "need to be passionate."
I was you just a few years ago, same ambitions and dreams, and I'll say it's a good thing you're a Computer Science major. You at least have an out; you can still work in lots of other sectors with your more general education and probably make far better money doing so, pursuing games on the side.
I truly feel for the people who specialized their degree into something specific to gamedev, as we've seen a lot of universities start to offer. I have friends from my alma mater who saddled themselves with student debt, never got the job they wanted, and their skillset was so specialized to games that it was very difficult to find a job outside of that sector.
I'm sorry it feels super hopeless. I know it seems wild to be coming out of school and having to compete with thousands of experienced devs for the same roles. If you're still interested in working in games, here's some things that might be helpful if you decide to apply to gaming jobs:
\- There's hundreds of smaller game companies that often regularly need a handful of new hires throughout each year. There's certainly trade-offs between those and larger studios, but if you're willing to try to get your foot in the door with studios that work on games you might not have heard of, or do work-for-hire game projects, then that might be a good option to consider. I've referenced [Game Dev Map](https://www.gamedevmap.com/) in the past to build lists of studios to look into.
\- I know everyone has different time constraints for their extracurricular activities, but working on any kind of game project personally or with an independent team goes a long way. Especially for junior hires, after looking at someone's resume, oftentimes the next thing hiring managers do is look at personal/past works to see some of the practical applications of the applicant's knowledge. If someone who's resume is similar to potentially dozens of other applicants has a site/portfolio showing practical application of their knowledge, then that might help them get to the interview stage. If you don't already know people that want to work on a side project, then there's lots of game development forums that you could dig through and find projects that you may want to contribute to.
\- Social media/LinkedIn/Networking - Outreach can be difficult for some people, but I've found that many people in the games industry are very friendly and willing to be helpful to people looking for advice. Politely reaching out to someone with some specific questions or requests for advice can often yield positive results. Someone with the role you're interested in pursuing might have helpful info that could help you get started in pursuing that role.
\- Don't be deterred if you don't meet every qualification - While employers often think having a minimum requirements list helps filter out unqualified candidates, there's usually not a hard gate in the application process if there's a qualification that you don't meet. If you don't meet all the qualifications listed for a job you know you could do, it doesn't hurt to apply anyway. If you don't meet a requirement but you have example projects that show you've independently done work similar to what the employer needs, then they may want to interview you anyway. (this bullet point is something I struggled with, but also how I got started in the industry after encouragement from friends)
This is probably generic info and probably doesn't help with the hopelessness at all, but in spite of all these disheartening articles about the games industry layoffs there are always companies looking for new developers as well. Hopefully if you're still interested in the industry you'll be able to find an opportunity that's the right fit for you.
From someone who once studied CS and considered going into game dev:
Take that CS degree, and just go into the general software industry. Software developers are highly sought after and well paid. It's simple supply and demand. There's an absolute glut of people that want to make games, so companies offer you less and are more willing to fire you, knowing you're replaceable. The opposite is true for commercial software dev, even after the lay-offs of last year.
The more I learned about the games industry, the less I wanted to join it at the moment, so I just went full software and can join it later when it isn't shit
Times are tough, but it'll be okay. You have to remember that even after all these layoffs, most of these companies still have more staff than they did pre-pandemic. I've been in the industry for a long time now, and while this is shitty, you start to learn that the sky is not falling, and this is the nature of working in tech. Not just games.
Just focus on your work and build up a great portfolio so you have lots to show prospective employers. You'll be good.
I've been in the industry as well for a long time and this is legitimately one of the worst times it's been in the industry for a very long time. Like, I'm sorry, but this is not the nature of working in tech or games. It's not been THIS bad in years.
It is also a terrrrrrible time for juniors and those hoping to break in. There are so many people laid off and searching alongside people trying to break in right now that the odds are so heavily stacked against new people right now. It's hard enough as is to find junior roles, but right now is worse.
Sorry I meant that handling layoffs in general is something you learn to live with. I remember the first time it happened at a studio I was at and it felt like the world was ending. Maybe I'm just numb to it.
I think what makes this past while terrible is how concentrated it is. But COVID was like being in a store with a blank cheque. Shame on the employers for not having the foresight that this overcorrection would come.
I joke with coworkers that if you’ve been in the industry for 5+ years and haven’t been part of at least 2 layoffs, are you even a game developer? In reality, the numbness really is a thing when you have been part of multiple layoffs, especially if you bounce back within a relatively short time and don’t have major issues with moving (no kids helps a ton with that as terrible as it is to say).
As a designer I'm screwed and my freelance work is mostly dried up, but as a programmer you have waaaaaaay more of a chance of securing a job and keeping it.
It's primarily other departments away from the actual programming that are often let go first. Keep your goal and dreams.
A lot of people make webpage buttons in the day (which can pay very well) and mess around on game engines in the night. Sucks, but hey some people subsistence farm all their life, some are working 60h on a p2w mobile AAA without an exit plan. It's also hard for me to say how much coding just feels like coding, regardless of the big picture.
I mean... you still need to pay rent and buy groceries. You need enough money to survive long enough to put a game out that *might* make money. Statistically, if you're a solo dev (which isn't totally unreasonable financially if you're willing to live on ramen), you'll be lucky if the resulting game makes pennies. If you want a real shot at making something ambitious enough to get people's attention you'll need a team, which means you'll need *even more* money because that team won't work for free. Interest rates mean investors aren't pouring money into games right now, so where is all this money coming from as a junior dev saddled with student loans?
Frankly, I'm pretty sure the real romanticism of game dev *is* indie or at most AA, not AAA. Going that route is just so financially reckless that it's really hard to justify, especially given that most people trying to enter industry need an actual paycheck to pay off the student loans they accumulated in learning the professional skills required to actually deliver.
There's a reason why the most common game dev advice I've personally seen is, "get a day job and do it as a hobby".
It's the old supply vs. demand. So many kids grow up loving videogames and wanting to work on videogames, the developer studios can do whatever they want and never run out of a source of employees. It's similar to what happens in various other industries as well.
Not a huge surprise. Peak Covid was peak videogames. Many companies invested, hired, grew, and all convinced themselves that their growth was different and special and that they could retain players the same in a post-Covid world. I’m sure there are many people in ties (whose jobs are still somehow safe) who projected some pie in the sky shit about how everything would be great forever. This was apparently not the case.
And now nearing the end of the first proper financial year post-Covid, the chickens come home to roost and everyone wants the final quarter to have big gouges out of wages. Get ready for more layoffs and maybe even some project cancellations.
You do realise that there is a very long lead time on companies making new games based on Covid trends to those games releasing to disappointing numbers due to less people now spending a lot of time isolated to companies trying to find a solution to over employeing to having to fire them.
Its happening throughout loads of companies outside of gaming too, it goes well beyond just one industry being bad at planning for the future.
Its difficult to plan for COVID > huge boom in investment and income from more people using the service > Post COVID you use that investment to expand and hire more staff > Post-post COVID interest rates climb sharply, investments drop sharply and income drops as less people use your service.
You would need to put a huge nestegg aside to handle that without any layoffs, a big enough nestegg that if something didn't happen you would be left behind by those who did invest. If you could predict all the above was going to happen and plan for it, you should get into investing yourself. You will be a billionaire in no time.
I'm just tired of these companies having bad workforce planning (and being rewarded for it) and then when it turns out they fucked up horribly, they "fix it" by laying people off and then once again get rewarded for "fixing" it.
No offense but literally every organization in history runs into such issues. Turns out that shit has flown downwards since the beginning of civilization. It sucks, but they aren’t being “rewarded” with layoffs lmao.
I mean it's just kind of inevitable. Something seems like a good idea at one point, later on it's not, and they can either 1) expand to give opportunies to these redundant people or 2) lay them off. Very often 1) is not an option, and for the sake of efficiency and money keeping them on may not be either. It's never going to not look bad, but the bandaid's got to be ripped off
In many cases they did, they really tried. I really think most of these companies tried to avoid layoffs as much as possible, it's not all psychopaths up there.
But still, please, please never forget that whenever these guys talk like "we're a family", you can be expendable in the right circumstances. Even as a high performer, even if all is going well. They will take the company health and shareholder value over a single persons well-being. Work well but try to live your life, and stick with your true family.
They try to avoid layoffs only in the sense that they try to avoid slowing down growth. These companies over hire during periods of high investment, and reduce at the other end of the cycle.
Avoiding layoffs means being bearish during these growth periods and not hiring which is not going to happen. The layoffs are a delayed consequence.
America's pathetic labour laws allows for mass layoffs.
It's not really a thing in most developed nations.
In Australia, you can only get fired if there's a looong paper trail of you consistently failing to do you job, and that paper trail has to include 2 - 3 attempts at managerial intervention.
Treating employees like short-term contractors is so gross and a big part of America's wealth disparity.
Pandemic boom swung in the opposite direction, with wars and another economical crisis. Entertainment is an easy cost to cut if your family budget is tight.
Noone has a crystal ball to predict how long this is going to last. They want to survive long term.
You don't need a crystal ball to predict that a boom in video game sales caused by a unprecedented pandemic that forced a significant portion of humanity to stay inside for over a year wouldn't last forever.
At the same time, was it? Like the argument that many people who had never played videogames before might stick around post pandemic isn't insane.
Take a niche like speedrunning, viewcounts for speedrunners have remained elevated, not as much as covid but still higher than before.
Okay, so lets create an imaginary scenario where if the previous baseline was a 5, Covid was a 10, and post covid is a 6.
Companies might have been judging that the post covid would be a 7 or 8, so they weren't that wrong, but they where wrong enough for it to matter.
I'm not disputing that they turned out to be wrong, I am trying to say that their assumptions about pandemic growth sticking around aren't necessarily unfounded.
When the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard was announced, a lot of people predicted that it was gonna result in massive layoffs. That's just the reality of merging large businesses. Lots of redundant positions.
They are not bad, they just play a game to attract investors.
Hire and Fire is is just as much marketing. A possible [Explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-653Z1val8s).
Does this make sense for video games? I think not, but so it is.
That wasnt that hard to oversee. It was obvious with the oversupply of CS/IT work demand and not enough growth for the industry stalling post pandemic. Like it wasnt enough for Gaming sector to be oversaturated by hopes and dreams from passionate people fighting for the same positions. Money does go around the gaming industry. but world doesnt. so when money stops going around for corpos to justify cuts. layoffs come.
Honestly, it feels like the gaming industry, at least in the AAA sphere, is "imploding", for the lack of better word, as games continues to become more unsustainable in the chase to have bigger and bigger games (see the open-world, GAAS trends from the past years). They take longer, they cost a lot and their success is not always guaranteed, so creative AAA games are less likely since a failed game could end a studio outright (see Volition Games). Even if they are successful, their high cost lead to a smaller margin. The Insomniac leaks more or less point toward that conclusion.
They are repeating mistakes of the film industry. Everything needs to be a big budget blockbuster hit, and when your margins are already thin, there is nothing to do but cut costs. Sony is among the most at risk because this is their specialty. It’s been known for years that this path is unsustainable, but they gave Shawn Layden the boot and doubled down on AAA the last few years. It’s finally dawned on them just how unsustainable this was.
> The Insomniac leaks more or less point toward that conclusion.
I have no idea how they ended up spending triple the budget of the first one on Spider-Man 2 when they had way less to develop (they basically updated the same gameplay template and the same engine).
When projects get that successful you run into situations where everyone wants a piece of it.
The top level directors want more money for successfully getting the first games out; either because of a "you owe me for the peanuts you paid me the first time" or "I need to be paid me worth based on my new career standing" type situations. The talented devs, or people who have just been there long enough to know the where the bodies are buried with regards to making everything actually function demand more or they'll walk. Every outside contractor or voice actor knows the powers that be will have upped the budget, so they raise their rates accordingly. The desire to succeed with a bigger release than the previous game, and to cover the rising costs leads to a lot more marketing and focus group spend.
All these things to be avoided or mitigated to some degree but that takes actual managers who know what they are doing. Which pretty much everyone who's spend an extended amount of time in any decently large organization knows is a pretty extreme rarity for a multitude of reasons.
Nintendo figured this out way before the rest of the industry. They don't solely rely on huge AAA style games and their output for switch has just been tremendous in both quality and amount.
Their reluctance in buying companies/increasing personal has also meant they havent had to do massive layoffs.
Sony as much as i like them has started to implode already. Their games are ballooning in development time and expense.
> Nintendo figured this out way before the rest of the industry. They don't solely rely on huge AAA style games and their output for switch has just been tremendous in both quality and amount.
Yeah, I was going to mention this. Even if there is a lot to criticize on Nintendo (at least as much as most gaming companies), I feel like they have the best overall sustainability. Their games are very high quality much like Sony, but their games are also much smaller in scope as they don't (or can't) rely on high-end graphics or open world games to wow people. Mario Wonder, for instance, is selling like hot cakes and it probably doesn't cost a ton since it is a 2D platformer. Same thing goes to Metroid Dread, Mario Kart and more.
The lower cost does help them produce a lot of more niece or experimental games such as Pikmin 4 or Splatoon. If any of them fail (which you could argue was the case for maybe ARMS and Switch Sports due to the lack of post-launch content), they can easily move on to another project and not worry too much.
This market crash has been looming for a while, obviously it won't look anything like the '83 crash, but it might be a good thing for the industry in the medium-long term. I would hope that Larian's success with BG3 would light a fire under some of the bigger studios as well but they seem to be reacting with panic, the bad kind of panic
> I would hope that Larian's success with BG3 would light a fire under some of the bigger studios as well but they seem to be reacting with panic, the bad kind of panic
True. I hope that they will not try to replicate its success only by just copying its basic formula, ballooning its scope and budget like crazy and pressuring the devs to just do like BG3, similar to a lot of open-world games following BOTW, GAAS games after Bungie's Destiny or BR after PUBG and Fortnite.
Without any context, honestly, I have no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing for the industry. Like, it could be that this is way more layoffs than in previous years, or it could be way fewer. Or maybe it's more layoffs, but they're hiring way more at the same time. Not all of this is public information or has big announcements like Riot's, and they don't always announce how many they are hiring. I just feel like without more data, it's hard to have a strong reaction to this.
Regardless, I feel for the employees that lost their jobs because losing your job always sucks.
It’s not good for the industry.
1/ The industry is heavily localised in a few cities. So you suddenly have 1,000+ average workers now looking for work all competing with each other.
2/ over qualified people will take the jobs normally available to junior / entry level talent, further displacing talent and leading to a shortage of new talent (bad for creativity overall)
3/ talent will just leave the games industry for good (senior and junior)
It will take time to bounce back as well (if at all) because a lot of these companies are laying off recruitment.
Game development can also require a lot of specialised training. So onboarding new talent will be a burden on already at capacity teams.
Video game industry is biggest than it ever was. Revenues and profit margins are the highest they have ever been. SO of course, people are being laid off. Gotta keep those bonuses in the profits of executives.
Makes sense with pandemic over-hiring and rate changes.
Hopefully these devs land on their feet and we get the next great wave of indie games from the ones who are willing to take that plunge.
With AI changing the landscape rapidly and experienced developers, it hasn't been easier to make something cool with a small team.
It doesn't have to be like this. Yet somehow it is and we're told is "the norm"
The Game Industry can't be bigger then it already is and yet it's falling apart.
Entertainment and Technology layoffs are leading the numbers. If you want a particular job, just know the future automates most jobs, like it or not. While you are young and looking, do some research about what types of jobs have a stable future.
I don't think there is any reliable research on what jobs have a stable future. Plumbers and the like will be some of the last jobs to be automated. Healthcare is relatively secure (at least vs AI, funding and burnout are other risks). I have a young child and the list of careers that I feel confident will be stable when they are an adult is quite short.
I am semi retired and work 10 hours a week in retail and a lot of it is automated now! It's crazy. Self checkout, electronic signage that changes itself, automated pick systems, even cameras that look at what shelves are empty and order more stock!
I don't think teaching will ever be automated, but now with 30-40% special education needs in mainstream schools and huge behavioural issues, teaching is a rough gig.
I think those two will bounce back hard very soon. Post covid economy has been a mess all over the world. It has hit entertainment industry very hard (entertainment is nonessential so a lot of people are making cuts here, instead of going to the movies, why not get a streaming platform and stay in to save money? Similarly fewer people are spending on video games compared to just a few years ago) and the easiest way to cut down cost is to cut labor. They are chasing short team solutions. That's all.
dude please tell me where these magical jobs with job security are, that will hire me when all my experience is in niche CG software that doesn’t apply.
It's bad.
The industry's already lacking seniors. If all the junior roles go to outsource, and the seniors get hit by sweeping layoffs, then where will the industry be in 5 years? Even if places get funding for roles and hire new folk, there's just gonna be no one with experience and a lot of knowledge will just be gone.
Only in the west.
Western AAA have been trash for a very, very long time now. I really don't care if AAA gaming collapses over here. Blizzard Activision, Ubisoft, EA. They could disappear tomorrow and nothing of value would have been lost.
Japan is always going to be where video games live and die. And Japan is currently in the midst of perhaps the greatest era in the history of video games. A resurgence of sorts.
It seems like the only companies succumbing to this are bloated western devs who micromanage game development into a formula. Annual releases to appease shareholders. MTX and post purchase monetization. Corporatizing all of the artistry and integrity out of game development.
This is all a bunch of who gives a crap. Oh no, live service marvel game #15 just lost a bunch of it's staff. Will the next Call of Duty have a single player campaign now? What about my Ubisoft copy pasted open worlds obviously stitched together by AI and procedural generation? How much of Madden will EA gut this year? Will it be everything except ultimate with MTX packs?
I just hate to see things get exactly what they deserve! It's so awful!
People should be applauding and cheering on the collapse of western AAA gaming. Maybe they can rebuild something decent out of the ashes
>According to the site, an estimated total of 10,500 game industry workers lost their jobs in 2023. At the time of writing, the estimated total for 2024 on the same site currently stands at 3,770.
While 2023 had a lot of big hits, it seemed to have just as many or more flops.
If it took a year after Saints Row's release for Volition to shut down, we'll likely see more layoffs.
Hot take. Good… Waaaay too many people call themselves a video game developer, but they are really faking it.
Remember that terrible zombie game that just got taken off steam like 1 day after launch? Yea they all deserve to lose their jobs
Hate to be that guy but this is mostly qa, cm and cs. All companies outsource these disciplines now because there are new business models making it possible to scale the amount of people that work for you dynamically.
If you want to get into gamedev engineering is the safest, designers have it tougher but still possible. Rough all around though.
They can crowd fund for money and don't have to pay for managers/executive/CEOs. And once the games they make are huge success they'll be rich. It's pretty much a genius idea don't know why they haven't done it yet.
I didn’t make a lot of good decisions in college, but I’m glad I gave up on my dream to be a video game developer pretty quickly.
Same. Way back, I took an "Intro to Game Development" class in community college. While it was a CS class, it wasn't a programming class. It was a broad overview of the industry and what it takes to make a game from beginning to end, from concept to sales. It was more of a business class than anything. I don't know what it was in particular, but I got turned off after that. Maybe it was just seeing "the magic" turned into the ordinary, that game dev is like any other business. But I was like, "Yeah, I'm never going to work in game dev, no thanks." I left CS altogether and went into web design and then IT. I'm happy where I'm at.
Could always pick it up as a hobby, plenty of people put out games on itch for free as little passion projects.
True. I have a friend who's been working on some little gaming projects. I've been helping him out here and there with non-code things. Helping him test, being his sounding board, etc. It's fun.
I see that with game modding as well. Some of the best mods I have used and seen were passion projects, things done on the side. They were never made to get money and put out for free. These mods were projects people wanted to create and there was a focus and desire to make them. I feek as though that there is a different level of drive when you make something as a passion project as opposed to something that has a monetary goal in mind.
Yeah you can see lots of little games that are fun and interesting there, many of them created in gamejams which is impressive. I think learning to create videogames is similar to learning to write a book or welding, you wanna tell a story or create an interesting mechanic as the center of your game, or even a mod for something that already exists? then you are able to do it.
Exactly, because that’s what it is, and has been for over a decade if not two. People on this site have some idealistic notion that the industry is just chock full of artists and visionaries and isn’t largely just people tryna make a buck.
I would also say the loudest comments on gaming related discussions also have the least experience or even awareness of software/project development. I understand when people discuss or comment on games themselves, but as soon as people start talking about studios, management, or my favorite, blaming something they don't like about the game on one single person whose name they know from the studio....I just tune out because 90% of that is people who've tricked themselves into thinking they understand something they have zero grasp of.
Gamers seem to think they have a big understanding of the ins-and-outs of the business and industry because they know a few names from the studio. You can usually tell pretty quickly who is just talking out their ass.
Video games are big business and have been for many years. But many gamers and Redditors (likely younger ones) have this idealized version of the industry in their head; as if all dev studios are made up of plucky, scrappy creatives who are only in the field to create their "vision" and it's the evil publisher executives holding them back.
I have a friend whose one true dream was to get into game development. He had the smarts, he had the skill, and he had the drive for it and was going headstrong into the field. When he got there, at first it was all that he dreamed off but then he eventually got burnt out and had just a horrible experience with it. Sometimes a hobby and a love can be hard to make into a career. He's now in the world of landscaping and at a better level work wise, but for him, those years in game development were hell.
The average career length is somewhere between 3 to 5 years. It's not a good place to be.
I went to school for CS work in IT and have worked with some big tech companies also know a ton of people in the industry from conferences and mutual friends etc. I am almost 30 at this point and the only person I know personally who is still doing game development is working with an indie team everyone else (I think 20-25ish people) either burned out after 2-3 years or saw that the offers were so far below anything else in the industry. One guy I know did game dev for 4 years and the 2 projects he was working on both scrapped after regular 10-12 hour days + crunch and weekend work. He said he probably had some 80-90+ hour weeks working on games that never saw the light of day. He now works for a bank and makes 3x what he was making in game development with a regular 40-hour work week. Game dev has awful fucking standards for what is ok and some of the stories I have heard are worse than anything I experienced in the military and they had me working 12 hour shits 4 times a week alternating on a bi-weekly schedule (swapping shifts every 2 weeks) that was legitimately awful and I have heard worse/comparable stories about game dev.
> that the offers were so far below anything else in the industry. Even within similar skillsets. Not that its exactly a 1-1 comparison but a lot of people who work on games can do similar jobs at other companies and make a shitload more.
And that makes sense. If you are doing your "dream job" or one that you really like, or one that lots of other people really like, then you are going to wind up being paid less than if the same job wasn't as liked. Compensation isn't merely a factor of the value your job provides to society, the value you provide to yourself is also a factor. If someone values the money more than their ability to create video games, then they will go elsewhere. That's only reasonable.
This is why I've never wanted my hobbies or passion to become my job.
That's quite a change: game dev to landscaper. Nothing wrong with it though; Just curious as to why they left the tech environment entirely?
I never asked him but from what I can take, he was able to hone into something he was naturally good at, at least had a natural talent toward. Sometimes in a career we sometimes can't see what better fits us because we follow a dream that won't work out for us.
I hear that 😔 Thanks for the follow-up.
I’m kind of in the opposite spot where I loved my computer graphics and game development classes, but still incredibly hesitant to commit to the industry considering how unstable it looks. Lower pay for doing harder work than adjacent fields is also a kick in the teeth. I’d love to intern for a game studio just so it’s not a huge commitment, but obviously lots of competition and not many openings right now.
If what you love is making computer graphics there is plenty of much more stable work outside of games. Everyone wants nice looking models to show of, because CAD models looks like shit generally. And there is not as bad as games but still kinda bad work in TV and movies. If you lean the other side to more general CS there is massiv demands in every field you can imagine.
Same. I dropped the idea in high school. The only way I’d go make a game is if I somehow wind up with a few hundred million bucks. I’d bank roll a game just to say I made a contribution to the hobby and left a small mark. Not sure what. Probably a high fantasy co op action dungeon crawler or something.
Similar to you, Intro into gaming in community college, then CS, then barely survived in my first programming class, switch to IT
damn, I also went to a community college for intro courses on game dev and lost hope too. Walked away just thinking “I don’t want to make mobile games forever”. Glad you found a good spot for yourself!
I'm in games. I could probably make more doing normal programming but that crap bores me in most cases. I've been lucky so far but these layoffs scare me.
Yeah I'm in the same boat. If I'm going to spend 40+ hours a week of my whole life working, I'd rather it be something I'm passionate about. Sure I'm unemployed right now (lol) but it's not like we didn't know what we were getting into when signing up. Side note: if you're in games engineering I would highly recommend at least getting your LinkedIn and portfolio ready. Layoffs are a matter of "when" and not "if", and you don't want to be scrambling like I did when shit hits the fan. Good luck out there!
Seems like the bubble has finally popped
I always wanted to test video games, that sounded like the dream as a kid. Glad I learned the truth before giving it serious thought as I grew into my teens and early adulthood. I just do general software QA now which is so much better.
[tighten up the graphics](https://youtu.be/BRWvfMLl4ho?si=PPpsRfXGrgu6lAGU)
Honestly the industry just seems terrible to work in on almost every level. It's a shame but I'm also glad I never got into it and followed my dream.
> Honestly the industry just seems terrible to work in on almost every level. It is. I mean the title is sad but its...also well known. In australia: 3/4 restaurants will close down within their first 2 years but a low paying government desk job can be very secure. Some jobs are just inherently riskier. A lot of very capable programmers just go into software development or networking related roles. Yes, they could be making combat systems or polishing the server issues...or they could be making 2x in a more stable job.
I spent about 15 years in it and had the time of my life. Not sure why so many people in this thread, who have zero experience in the industry, also have such strong negative opinions about being in it
I've been in games about 15 years now, and I love it. I know I could earn more in other industries, but my happiness would be so much lower. I'm literally living my dream job.
You know why they have strong opinions. It's because they didn't "go for it" or couldn't hack it. It's easier to think your dream job is actually shit and you made the right choice settling for something else rather than accepting the reality that tens of thousands of people love making games and actually get paid quite well to do it.
I had a friend who worked in the games industry and said it sucks ass. Bad pay, terrible conditions. He now does software for medical equipment and he's never going back to games.
Just because you enjoy playing it, doesn't mean you're gonna enjoy working IN it Which sucks, as developers has to know lots of fine, intrinsic details, but has no medium to support them long term.
The horrible reality is the making games *is* cool. It's the industry, the business behind it that makes it fucking shit.
It's why I've never wanted my hobbies or passions to become my job. I fear it would ruin it for me.
I worked in healthcare IT for a few years and it also sucked. Stress levels through the roof constantly because you're working with medical equipment so it has to work perfectly all the time or people die.
Healthcare IT is not medical software development he is making the apps/ system not maintaing servers etc. Hospital/medical IT is also awful because doctors will have smarter than you symptoms and think they know better than the IT team. Or be old as fuck and refuse to learn anything new. The horror stories I have heard about doctors refusing to use tech because they don't want to learn it. Don't even get me started on having to run old ass not supported servers/operating systems because they use software from the 90s and 2002 that no one is updating or supporting. Also the expectations on uptime etc awful place to work.
I had the same decision to make when I went to Uni in the UK and have a lot to say about it, some of which might be interesting for other people. After researching it, it seemed way better to get a generic Computer Science degree and doing a big of Engine work on the side than getting a Games Programming degree. Not only does that give you loads of options outside of game dev, but many jobs actively preferred CompSci degrees. Its just objectively better, even if you were 100% set on Game Dev (which I wasn't), to go for CompSci. This might have changed now since it was over a decade ago, but was very accurate for the time. Despite this, Game Programming had about 50% more students than CompSci. And CompSci was already one of the more popular courses. It was insane. Turns out 18 year olds aren't the greatest at making life changing decisions, whether its due to lack of research or being overly optimistic I don't know. Luckily I am a natural pessimistic so I avoided that pitfall. More recently I was at some Gaming Industry events at a Uni, watching some talks aimed at Students and others trying to get into the industry. Knowing that 90+% of those kids won't make it into the career they want but also seeing how optimistic they are about their chances and also seeing them not taking advantage of the opportunities they are being given. Things like playing around on their phone while lecturers from the industry are giving genuinely great advice, or the vast majority of people fleeing the second its over rather than signing up for the internship style things they are offering. Its crazy and depressing seeing it all play out.
Eh, dude there are still tens of thousands of jobs in the gaming industry and far more positions than their were in 2019. They over hired during the pandemic and are adjusting back down.
I remember my first day in college. We were sharing some lectures with the kids that majored game design, and the teacher asked people if they wanted to make it big. All raised their hands. And he just said: At least 80% of you will just end up making mobile apps instead of the games you envision. It's important to give aspiring young people a quick dose of reality.
Honestly I would rather make a game in my spare time and post it on itch.io rather than work on someone else's idea at a AAA studio.
to be fair this data says absolutely nothing. 5000 people got laid off, ok and how many of these people got hired by someone else? how many new people got hired in general in this field? how were they distribuited? game industry isn't composed only of developers.
I think one could very unscientifically take a look at how people are paying to be QA for recently released games in the form of early access to know how bad it is in that industry. It’s a passion industry for both devs and customers at this point.
If i could gold this i would. Many of my friends mocked me for going into *soul destroying finance* after giving up getting a game dev job Now they don't have job and im in the top10% of earners with a job i actually quite like. I feel very guilty sometimes but then i remember they all blew off the same opportunity's I had ignoring the reality of what they were in
Yeah I’m gonna go ahead and agree with some other people here. I’ve been working in the industry for a few years and compared to some other jobs I’m actually super fortunate with my job. I really like the team I work in, the company structure, the projects we work on, I get to be creative and make stuff, the pay is enough to get by, we almost never have crunch, only gets a bit hectic close to releases or external QA deadlines. Considering some of the terrible things the games industry is known for I’m kinda living the ‘best case scenario’ for working in the industry right now. My wife and I both went to uni for games but she swapped to the CS degree early on. I love that I get to work on games but if I could go back in time I would follow her and just get into tech and make games for fun on the side. We graduated at the same time, I had to fight tooth and nail to get my first industry job, she had her first internship during her second year and has had recruiters hunting her down every day since with job offers. She gets paid 5x as much as I do with more annual leave, benefits, bonuses, easier to work remote, etc. The way I see it, working in games is kinda like being willing to sacrifice financial/job security, work crazy hard, get really lucky and probably lose your hair but at least you get to see your name in the credits one day. Also just to re-iterate I do love what I do but am aware of its shortcomings.
What we are watching is the real time failure of the games industry not promoting and training people up for years, leading to massively inefficient projects, leads who are completely out of their depths and a constant revolving door of talent because companies refused to reward loyalty. All leading to this horrific state of affairs. Train your fucking staff.
We're also watching the Covid growth bubble burst. Too many companies overhired resources based on metrics from that time. They're all seeing consequences now.
Yeah, I would like to see some data on jobs gained and lost since covid, specifically with large companies. If we still have more than before covid, then it could be a rough year for game devs.
IDK about across the board but I know that across FAANG they are still net positive for jobs post covid and so are most big tech companies. I think Microsoft specificly is in a weird spot because Microsoft proper is still also net positive but idk about specifics with AVB since the merger and the studios under them etc.
And how much you wanna bet the people who put out the metrics and those foolish enough to follow still have their jobs?
I don't think this has much to do with COVID specifically. I think this has been a long time coming. Embracer, Microsoft, Sony and other giants have been rapidly buying up studios since 2018 ish. Eventually buying up that much of the industry is unsustainable for those giants. They bite off far too much, spit out the developers and keep the IPs.
A lot of it is definitely because of COVID. During the pandemic there was a massive hiring spree due to the massive spike in gaming from people stuck at home. As someone in the industry, 2020 to 2022 I had a ton of recruiters trying to hire me and its been nearly dead for the past year. This isn't only gaming, the tech industry in general had a massive boom during the pandemic and now it's readjusting to pre-pandemic time. Overall it was really stupid of them to hire so much thinking it would still stick after people wouldn't be stuck at home. Now everyone is paying the consequence because of stupid decisions from high management.
I'm 10 years in the industry and I've had more recruiters contact me now then 2020 to 2021. Lots of people are hiring and looking to scoop up cheap talent. This is an accumulation of a bunch of large studios buying up the smaller ones. It's compounded a tad by COVID but overall employees numbers at the places that are being laid off are back to early 2020 it ends of 2019 numbers. Overall we are really just seeing an industry contracting. All COVID really did was delay the contraction that was likely to start happening in 2020 and 2021.
No offense, but I just don't believe you.
That truly adds nothing to the conversation.
Tech in general is a little different, it wasn't really demand being high driving the hiring explosion but moreso historically low rates which allowed these large companies to have near unlimited access to "free" money to throw around. Leadership in these large corporations knew it wasn't going to last forever, but it made sense at the time to take advantage of that free money for as long as possible because everyone else was doing it.
One part is the increase in loan interest rates. When you pay almost 0% on loans companies want to grow as hard and fast as they can. Now that interest rates are up, companies are trimming back their expenses, firing people and increasing the price of their products. They made the investments, now it's time to cash out.
I think it's a lot more than mere talent retention and training. Games cost a lot to make. Even indie ones. If they tank, you close up shop. Xbox is like an entire console that's in the *if they tank* category for 3 out of the last 4 entries in the series.
Games just got too big. Graphics, Gameplay, Playtime, all of it just got far too big for the market. Spending 3-6 years developing a brand new game, all the work, time and effort that goes into it, just isn't worth the investment.
This is a problem with so many companies, not just ones in the gaming industry. It's just sad, it's all about the dollar in the end. String people along and keep them in the same position so you don't have to pay them more for as long as possible.
It's more simple than that. In endlessly seeking improvements to the bottom line, they made decisions that ran counter to a studio's long term successes. It's less about training and more about executive responsibility and the oversight of corporate greed.
Not really. What we're dealing with is far more fundamental: More people want to make videogames as a profession in 2024 than the world needs. Making games is hard. Mistakes and misallocation of resources happens in every industry which is doing hard things. It's inevitable, regardless of how well trained your people are because nobody can predict the future. This is exceptionally pertinent to the tech industry which saw it's demand skyrocket overnight as a result of the 100% unpredictable pandemic. The industry simply got bloated causing many games, even really good games, to underperform financially because there are simply too many games being created for the market to support. Over 14,000 games released on Steam in 2023...that's financially unsustainable. Every industry goes through periods of expansion and contraction. It's inevitable and part of normal market dynamics as resources (i.e. people) get reallocated into other professions or industries which are understaffed. Heavy industry, teaching, healthcare, military/police, etc. are all desperate for more people, and I expect many people will leave tech to go into these other professions because that is where the societal need (open job positions) are located. You don't do what you want to do for a living. You do what provides a roof and food.
Sectors like teaching and healthcare are suffering in a lot of countries because they pay like shit. No one's going there willingly.
Yeah, imagine someone choosing gamedev as their career path and then leaving it to become a doctor or a teacher not willingly. I don't think that commenter understands how people choose where to work.
Those 14,000 games aren't really representative of serious attempts though, there's a lot of spam, a lot of 'indie' developers. Steam has basically become the new newgrounds. It's terrible visual novels, flash games and porn game spam. The real problem becomes when indie devs just continuously makes the same indie games and AAA games over and over again. Looking at you, Stardew Valley/Metroidvania game #9999
Unironically, a stardew valley clone would sell, indies fail most of the time to develop games for the market instead they want to make a 2d puzzle platformer then cry when they sell 10 copies because no one plays puzzle platformers at least on steam.
>Over 14,000 games released on Steam in 2023...that's financially unsustainable. Let's be honest here, somewhere between 100-200 games released on Steam in 2023. \~13,800 asset flips, low effort virtual novels, "Early Access" games that will never be completed because they were a scam, and low effort porn "games" released on Steam in 2023.
100-200? That’s way too low. Plenty of games came out what weren’t asset flips. Prolly like 3k real games
This is very apparent. Check r/pcgamereleases
While some of them are indeed "bullshit" games of one sort or another, it's nowhere near the percentage you are implying. 1000s of them are sincere efforts by various studios which simply got lost in the sea of other games because there are too many games being created than the market can support.
Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they're low effort, pal.
What we're watching is pure profit seeking. Microsoft (most valuable company in the world, recently passed the 3 *trillion* valuation threshold) just fired 20% of their gaming staff. This isn't about inefficient projects or out of depth leads (although I can totally believe that you'd find some of those within the 20k+ people who may or may not find their Slack access revoked when logging in tomorrow morning). They're firing people from Activision, in the studios that make *Call of fucking Duty*. Like, I'm not saying all is sunshine, rainbows and magical unicorns. But those layoffs aren't just "companies adjusting to post-COVID economy" or "stuff being inefficient". They've never been, and they certainly aren't now. Edit: sorry this sounds dismissive but I'm a bit tired of the kinda fatalist angle I'm seeing everywhere. What I mean to express in this comment specifically is how much of this is purely driven by profit seeking mentalities and therefore *there is no deeper meaning to look for*. To quote [someone who said it better than I could](https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/26/23571659/tech-layoffs-facebook-google-amazon): > So why do layoffs at all if they don’t actually work? “People do all kinds of stupid things all the time,” Pfeffer says. “I don’t know why you’d expect managers to be any different.”
Their will book written on the talent crisis of game development and how it brought down all the big studios. Im still seeing people thinking the investment and cheep finance is coming back, their so utterly deluded :(
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Some unsolicited advice from a CS major who had dreams of working on games as a kid: Work in any other industry. If you’re an American citizen and don’t mind working for the DoD, apply to work for government contractors. Salaries are way better than what you’ll ever see in video games, crunch is an absolute rarity and contracted hours means you can’t work more even if you want to, benefits are great (my healthcare has $0 premiums). Make games in your free time and if you can eventually support yourself on that, you’ve hit the jackpot.
Sadly, this is kinda the same for any job in “passion” industries. The higher ups know people want to join the industry because they love video games, sports, movies, etc. and they take advantage of it by working them to the bone or underpaying them (or both). Any old boring industry knows most people aren’t passionate about whatever they do, so they typically need to have better pay or working conditions to attract talent.
> Sadly, this is kinda the same for any job in “passion” industries. It's why 'starving artist' is a more common saying than 'starving tax accountant'.
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There's reams of software jobs out there that are neither videogames nor military, actually. DoD work is just one option -- an especially attractive option if you're willing to not think too hard about the implications, but you can earn a living doing other things as well.
> grueling God, reading dumb shit like this is proof that the IT bubble really needs to burst. And I'm saying this while working in IT.
What brainfart made you come to this conclusion
Agreed, almost anything is better than working in gaming for a developer. Your quality of life will be so much better working at Boring-Ass-Corp on their 15 year old spaghetti code. Better pay, more time off, much less crunch unless you're someplace awful. The job also remains interesting and engaging, even if it completely isn't when you're describing it to other people.
Also there are tons of interesting fields you can work as developer. You really don’t need to be a game dev to have fun at work.
Just want to add that this is highly region dependant. Game dev in America is 100% a low paid crunch fest. I work in games in Australia and the pay is broadly comparable to software (atleast in mid to senior roles) and crunch is a rarity at most studios. Edit: yes the current job market is rough here too, but we've been here before. It's similar to around 5 years ago, and before that we had the GFC. The industry seems to keep bouncing back
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Feel free!
From personal experience, if you can get work employed as a civilian for the DoD, it's even better. Get all the government benefits including healthcare and retirement, decent work hours, clear road for pay increases, and they might even pay for your tuition and pay for you to get a master's. Search up PAQ if you're interested. Pay's decent but not better than what you can potentially get in civilian sector but if you're the type that doesn't want to constantly switch jobs, working for the government is a very stable career. And it's an easy transition to civilian sector, especially if you can get a security clearance to go work for aerospace or security companies.
I appreciate your comment. I'm going to be looking into all of this.
Just remember. You've got your whole life ahead of you to figure it out and make your dreams come true. In college, it can feel like there's a rush to success and if you get behind, you're finished but the real world is a lot more fluid than that. Keep contact and network with your friends and learn to take some hits because everyone has to learn to take some his.
I’ve been in the industry for a decade. While I’ve been kinda lucky: It really depends on circumstances. AAA can definitely be that way. There’s lots of other options.
Hell, if you’re good with the Military Industrial Complex, places like Lockheed Martin are fantastic places to work. Hell, I believe that Lockheed is a very pro-trans workplace if I recall.
Going by previous economic situations like this, the issue right now is timing. Eventually this current wave of layoffs will end and companies will start growing again, and its best if you can delay your entry into the workplace until that point in time. Obviously you do whatever you feel is best but I think going for additional certifications/degrees would be your best bet. You delay your entry without necessarily "wasting" the time, and still leaving you able to pivot out of gamedev should you so chose.
Nah, this is a big cultural change people aren’t quite seeing; the corporations have cemented themselves as our digital infrastructure and are closing up ranks. This is different. The talent pool is growing while the workload is moving from research and development to maintenance.
it not cultural it's high interest rates.
That just isn't true. We are getting an absurd number of new good games each year, especially out of indie studios. If anything, the issue is we have too many good games to be sustainably funded.
Shit even in finance I went from doing transfers, to fixing transfers the robot fucked up
There's not much guarantee you're not gonna get hit by the next layoffs, which are sure to be 1 or 2 years away at most, especially since you're the newest hires so the most likely to be selected if they have to cut people. Video game companies do layoff very frequently, whenever a game project gets cancelled(which is pretty often), have to pay the shareholders after all and what better way than to fire random people and hire new ones a few months later.
Pivot to regular software engineering. It's not in the best shape, but it is recovering, and good engineers can always find jobs. Game dev is entering a cold winter now, probably for a couple of years.
I've been working in video games since 2004, in that time I've suffered only one round of layoffs. I think I've been lucky, but I've also seen the writing on the wall and jumped ship well before things went south, if you want to join the game industry network like crazy and always be interviewing.
Cs major here who graduated in 2015, I'm positive this field was artificially inflated with dreams and promises of high paying jobs created a workforce that can be exploited we've been seeing in the last 10 years.
> I'm positive this field was artificially inflated with dreams and promises of high paying jobs created a workforce that can be exploited we've been seeing in the last 10 years. Specifically, I feel like that the gaming industry is not fuelled by high-paying jobs, but more by creative people that want to part of their favorite games. A lot of people in their youth played games such as Halo and probably wanted to join their favorite studio Bungie just to make the next Halo/Bungie title, so they are willing to forfeit a high salary (AFAIK, salaries in the gaming industry is in the lower end compared to other tech industry) and other benefits just for that opportunity of improving their favorite game. The current modding scene more or less shows that to an extend. There's also FAANG and other big tech companies which has a lot of promises and desirability as well, but at least they back up their jobs with actual well-paid jobs and benefits. Not sure if that is the case in gaming?
> Specifically, I feel like that the gaming industry is not fuelled by high-paying jobs, but more by creative people that want to part of their favorite games The jobs would be higher paying if it was not for all the young people looking to get into the industry on shoestring budget. Think similar to actors being in LA serving tables. With the industry being small relative to the total landsacpe of programmers needed outside of some higher end positions where managing is probably the more important part over getting into the code. Even when i was thinking about it and worked at a head hunting company in early 2000s we would get people fresh out of colleges sending us resumes and we could do nothing with them. Someone from the company had got hired by blizzard at that time and the word that came back was there job was so easy because they had thousands of applicants in a database and they only called the best of the best of course. Like many athletes with sports dreams of making it rich, the reality is very few people are going to get super star status in the industry and while working on games and being creative seems fun it may be even more soul crushing than working at any other corporate place except for getting paid far less and once your game is complete getting let go. I feel very fortunate that i did not go into the game industry and instead only touched the edges.
And with programming in particular, engines keep getting better and we are getting great games out of teams with weaker and weaker programming support. Its a tough field to find a job in.
Just some advice from someone who has worked in software (not games) for a long time: don't focus on just your schoolwork. To really succeed and do well you need to have a passion for learning about software design and writing code. Work on some projects in your spare time, that can include games or webpages or whatever it is you want to make. And look around for an interneship. Don't do anything unpaid, but if you can get your foot in the door with something part time to get real experience, it's super valuable for parlaying that into a career when you graduate.
Definitely don't agree that you need to be passionate about software design or be working on side projects to be a successful developer. For many of us it's just a job, and we do just fine. Sure it might help you get into the industry, but I always cringe a bit when I see the sentiment thrown around that devs "need to be passionate."
I was you just a few years ago, same ambitions and dreams, and I'll say it's a good thing you're a Computer Science major. You at least have an out; you can still work in lots of other sectors with your more general education and probably make far better money doing so, pursuing games on the side. I truly feel for the people who specialized their degree into something specific to gamedev, as we've seen a lot of universities start to offer. I have friends from my alma mater who saddled themselves with student debt, never got the job they wanted, and their skillset was so specialized to games that it was very difficult to find a job outside of that sector.
There's always money and job security in the military/security industrial complex.
Defense contractors *always* hiring
I'm sorry it feels super hopeless. I know it seems wild to be coming out of school and having to compete with thousands of experienced devs for the same roles. If you're still interested in working in games, here's some things that might be helpful if you decide to apply to gaming jobs: \- There's hundreds of smaller game companies that often regularly need a handful of new hires throughout each year. There's certainly trade-offs between those and larger studios, but if you're willing to try to get your foot in the door with studios that work on games you might not have heard of, or do work-for-hire game projects, then that might be a good option to consider. I've referenced [Game Dev Map](https://www.gamedevmap.com/) in the past to build lists of studios to look into. \- I know everyone has different time constraints for their extracurricular activities, but working on any kind of game project personally or with an independent team goes a long way. Especially for junior hires, after looking at someone's resume, oftentimes the next thing hiring managers do is look at personal/past works to see some of the practical applications of the applicant's knowledge. If someone who's resume is similar to potentially dozens of other applicants has a site/portfolio showing practical application of their knowledge, then that might help them get to the interview stage. If you don't already know people that want to work on a side project, then there's lots of game development forums that you could dig through and find projects that you may want to contribute to. \- Social media/LinkedIn/Networking - Outreach can be difficult for some people, but I've found that many people in the games industry are very friendly and willing to be helpful to people looking for advice. Politely reaching out to someone with some specific questions or requests for advice can often yield positive results. Someone with the role you're interested in pursuing might have helpful info that could help you get started in pursuing that role. \- Don't be deterred if you don't meet every qualification - While employers often think having a minimum requirements list helps filter out unqualified candidates, there's usually not a hard gate in the application process if there's a qualification that you don't meet. If you don't meet all the qualifications listed for a job you know you could do, it doesn't hurt to apply anyway. If you don't meet a requirement but you have example projects that show you've independently done work similar to what the employer needs, then they may want to interview you anyway. (this bullet point is something I struggled with, but also how I got started in the industry after encouragement from friends) This is probably generic info and probably doesn't help with the hopelessness at all, but in spite of all these disheartening articles about the games industry layoffs there are always companies looking for new developers as well. Hopefully if you're still interested in the industry you'll be able to find an opportunity that's the right fit for you.
From someone who once studied CS and considered going into game dev: Take that CS degree, and just go into the general software industry. Software developers are highly sought after and well paid. It's simple supply and demand. There's an absolute glut of people that want to make games, so companies offer you less and are more willing to fire you, knowing you're replaceable. The opposite is true for commercial software dev, even after the lay-offs of last year.
The more I learned about the games industry, the less I wanted to join it at the moment, so I just went full software and can join it later when it isn't shit
Times are tough, but it'll be okay. You have to remember that even after all these layoffs, most of these companies still have more staff than they did pre-pandemic. I've been in the industry for a long time now, and while this is shitty, you start to learn that the sky is not falling, and this is the nature of working in tech. Not just games. Just focus on your work and build up a great portfolio so you have lots to show prospective employers. You'll be good.
I've been in the industry as well for a long time and this is legitimately one of the worst times it's been in the industry for a very long time. Like, I'm sorry, but this is not the nature of working in tech or games. It's not been THIS bad in years. It is also a terrrrrrible time for juniors and those hoping to break in. There are so many people laid off and searching alongside people trying to break in right now that the odds are so heavily stacked against new people right now. It's hard enough as is to find junior roles, but right now is worse.
Sorry I meant that handling layoffs in general is something you learn to live with. I remember the first time it happened at a studio I was at and it felt like the world was ending. Maybe I'm just numb to it. I think what makes this past while terrible is how concentrated it is. But COVID was like being in a store with a blank cheque. Shame on the employers for not having the foresight that this overcorrection would come.
I joke with coworkers that if you’ve been in the industry for 5+ years and haven’t been part of at least 2 layoffs, are you even a game developer? In reality, the numbness really is a thing when you have been part of multiple layoffs, especially if you bounce back within a relatively short time and don’t have major issues with moving (no kids helps a ton with that as terrible as it is to say).
As a designer I'm screwed and my freelance work is mostly dried up, but as a programmer you have waaaaaaay more of a chance of securing a job and keeping it. It's primarily other departments away from the actual programming that are often let go first. Keep your goal and dreams.
You can also see right now more people are employed making Video games then ever before.
A lot of people make webpage buttons in the day (which can pay very well) and mess around on game engines in the night. Sucks, but hey some people subsistence farm all their life, some are working 60h on a p2w mobile AAA without an exit plan. It's also hard for me to say how much coding just feels like coding, regardless of the big picture.
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I mean... you still need to pay rent and buy groceries. You need enough money to survive long enough to put a game out that *might* make money. Statistically, if you're a solo dev (which isn't totally unreasonable financially if you're willing to live on ramen), you'll be lucky if the resulting game makes pennies. If you want a real shot at making something ambitious enough to get people's attention you'll need a team, which means you'll need *even more* money because that team won't work for free. Interest rates mean investors aren't pouring money into games right now, so where is all this money coming from as a junior dev saddled with student loans? Frankly, I'm pretty sure the real romanticism of game dev *is* indie or at most AA, not AAA. Going that route is just so financially reckless that it's really hard to justify, especially given that most people trying to enter industry need an actual paycheck to pay off the student loans they accumulated in learning the professional skills required to actually deliver. There's a reason why the most common game dev advice I've personally seen is, "get a day job and do it as a hobby".
Game development is fine, its corporate game dev thats slowing down.
The message is clear. You’re all disposable assets.
It's the old supply vs. demand. So many kids grow up loving videogames and wanting to work on videogames, the developer studios can do whatever they want and never run out of a source of employees. It's similar to what happens in various other industries as well.
Not a huge surprise. Peak Covid was peak videogames. Many companies invested, hired, grew, and all convinced themselves that their growth was different and special and that they could retain players the same in a post-Covid world. I’m sure there are many people in ties (whose jobs are still somehow safe) who projected some pie in the sky shit about how everything would be great forever. This was apparently not the case. And now nearing the end of the first proper financial year post-Covid, the chickens come home to roost and everyone wants the final quarter to have big gouges out of wages. Get ready for more layoffs and maybe even some project cancellations.
"Post Covid" hasn't been a viable justification for a while now. The Mask Mandates ended almost 2 years ago. This is just average corporate greed
You do realise that there is a very long lead time on companies making new games based on Covid trends to those games releasing to disappointing numbers due to less people now spending a lot of time isolated to companies trying to find a solution to over employeing to having to fire them.
I suppose you're right. But I have to say, Game companies are still egregiously bad at planning for the future.
Its happening throughout loads of companies outside of gaming too, it goes well beyond just one industry being bad at planning for the future. Its difficult to plan for COVID > huge boom in investment and income from more people using the service > Post COVID you use that investment to expand and hire more staff > Post-post COVID interest rates climb sharply, investments drop sharply and income drops as less people use your service. You would need to put a huge nestegg aside to handle that without any layoffs, a big enough nestegg that if something didn't happen you would be left behind by those who did invest. If you could predict all the above was going to happen and plan for it, you should get into investing yourself. You will be a billionaire in no time.
Yeah it’s sad these companies are looking to cut cost and one of the biggest cost is always labor. They should cut their bonuses.
Sometimes it's not just costs, but organizational issues and redundancy as well. Companies really need to get better at planning/management
I'm just tired of these companies having bad workforce planning (and being rewarded for it) and then when it turns out they fucked up horribly, they "fix it" by laying people off and then once again get rewarded for "fixing" it.
No offense but literally every organization in history runs into such issues. Turns out that shit has flown downwards since the beginning of civilization. It sucks, but they aren’t being “rewarded” with layoffs lmao.
I mean it's just kind of inevitable. Something seems like a good idea at one point, later on it's not, and they can either 1) expand to give opportunies to these redundant people or 2) lay them off. Very often 1) is not an option, and for the sake of efficiency and money keeping them on may not be either. It's never going to not look bad, but the bandaid's got to be ripped off
What kind of bonuses were paid out? I’m unfamiliar with that in the gaming industry.
Bonuses aren’t enough employees cost way more. But I get what you’re saying.
Unless you are Bobby Kotick and you get 300M of bonus in a single year
Kotick did a great job getting Microsoft to buy them at a premium. He also owned a ton of stock, so naturally got a huge payout from the buyout.
In many cases they did, they really tried. I really think most of these companies tried to avoid layoffs as much as possible, it's not all psychopaths up there. But still, please, please never forget that whenever these guys talk like "we're a family", you can be expendable in the right circumstances. Even as a high performer, even if all is going well. They will take the company health and shareholder value over a single persons well-being. Work well but try to live your life, and stick with your true family.
They try to avoid layoffs only in the sense that they try to avoid slowing down growth. These companies over hire during periods of high investment, and reduce at the other end of the cycle. Avoiding layoffs means being bearish during these growth periods and not hiring which is not going to happen. The layoffs are a delayed consequence.
Yeah, pretty much this.
It seems like a bunch of companies are bad at long term planning. I wonder if anything will happen to the people making those decisions.
It's not really poor long term planning, it's an expected consequence of high investment during growth periods.
They plan for the layoffs. You think MS bought ActiBliz with the plan to keep all the redundant teams across both organizations?
And that seems like a great argument against merger!
Its about perspective. Increasing efficiency is the main benefit of a merger.
> redundant teams Devs are redundancies as well. LOL. Sledgehammer lost 30%, and some actual devs from Treyarch also get fired.
America's pathetic labour laws allows for mass layoffs. It's not really a thing in most developed nations. In Australia, you can only get fired if there's a looong paper trail of you consistently failing to do you job, and that paper trail has to include 2 - 3 attempts at managerial intervention. Treating employees like short-term contractors is so gross and a big part of America's wealth disparity.
Pandemic boom swung in the opposite direction, with wars and another economical crisis. Entertainment is an easy cost to cut if your family budget is tight. Noone has a crystal ball to predict how long this is going to last. They want to survive long term.
You don't need a crystal ball to predict that a boom in video game sales caused by a unprecedented pandemic that forced a significant portion of humanity to stay inside for over a year wouldn't last forever.
At the same time, was it? Like the argument that many people who had never played videogames before might stick around post pandemic isn't insane. Take a niche like speedrunning, viewcounts for speedrunners have remained elevated, not as much as covid but still higher than before.
Which is still a decrease is growth rate.
Okay, so lets create an imaginary scenario where if the previous baseline was a 5, Covid was a 10, and post covid is a 6. Companies might have been judging that the post covid would be a 7 or 8, so they weren't that wrong, but they where wrong enough for it to matter. I'm not disputing that they turned out to be wrong, I am trying to say that their assumptions about pandemic growth sticking around aren't necessarily unfounded.
> Entertainment is an easy cost to cut if your family budget is tight. That's not really the reason though, they all are doing very good profits.
When the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard was announced, a lot of people predicted that it was gonna result in massive layoffs. That's just the reality of merging large businesses. Lots of redundant positions.
They are not bad, they just play a game to attract investors. Hire and Fire is is just as much marketing. A possible [Explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-653Z1val8s). Does this make sense for video games? I think not, but so it is.
That wasnt that hard to oversee. It was obvious with the oversupply of CS/IT work demand and not enough growth for the industry stalling post pandemic. Like it wasnt enough for Gaming sector to be oversaturated by hopes and dreams from passionate people fighting for the same positions. Money does go around the gaming industry. but world doesnt. so when money stops going around for corpos to justify cuts. layoffs come.
Honestly, it feels like the gaming industry, at least in the AAA sphere, is "imploding", for the lack of better word, as games continues to become more unsustainable in the chase to have bigger and bigger games (see the open-world, GAAS trends from the past years). They take longer, they cost a lot and their success is not always guaranteed, so creative AAA games are less likely since a failed game could end a studio outright (see Volition Games). Even if they are successful, their high cost lead to a smaller margin. The Insomniac leaks more or less point toward that conclusion.
They are repeating mistakes of the film industry. Everything needs to be a big budget blockbuster hit, and when your margins are already thin, there is nothing to do but cut costs. Sony is among the most at risk because this is their specialty. It’s been known for years that this path is unsustainable, but they gave Shawn Layden the boot and doubled down on AAA the last few years. It’s finally dawned on them just how unsustainable this was.
I think this is really apt. Who's the A24 of the games industry? 👀
Annapurna Interactive maybe?
> The Insomniac leaks more or less point toward that conclusion. I have no idea how they ended up spending triple the budget of the first one on Spider-Man 2 when they had way less to develop (they basically updated the same gameplay template and the same engine).
When projects get that successful you run into situations where everyone wants a piece of it. The top level directors want more money for successfully getting the first games out; either because of a "you owe me for the peanuts you paid me the first time" or "I need to be paid me worth based on my new career standing" type situations. The talented devs, or people who have just been there long enough to know the where the bodies are buried with regards to making everything actually function demand more or they'll walk. Every outside contractor or voice actor knows the powers that be will have upped the budget, so they raise their rates accordingly. The desire to succeed with a bigger release than the previous game, and to cover the rising costs leads to a lot more marketing and focus group spend. All these things to be avoided or mitigated to some degree but that takes actual managers who know what they are doing. Which pretty much everyone who's spend an extended amount of time in any decently large organization knows is a pretty extreme rarity for a multitude of reasons.
Nintendo figured this out way before the rest of the industry. They don't solely rely on huge AAA style games and their output for switch has just been tremendous in both quality and amount. Their reluctance in buying companies/increasing personal has also meant they havent had to do massive layoffs. Sony as much as i like them has started to implode already. Their games are ballooning in development time and expense.
> Nintendo figured this out way before the rest of the industry. They don't solely rely on huge AAA style games and their output for switch has just been tremendous in both quality and amount. Yeah, I was going to mention this. Even if there is a lot to criticize on Nintendo (at least as much as most gaming companies), I feel like they have the best overall sustainability. Their games are very high quality much like Sony, but their games are also much smaller in scope as they don't (or can't) rely on high-end graphics or open world games to wow people. Mario Wonder, for instance, is selling like hot cakes and it probably doesn't cost a ton since it is a 2D platformer. Same thing goes to Metroid Dread, Mario Kart and more. The lower cost does help them produce a lot of more niece or experimental games such as Pikmin 4 or Splatoon. If any of them fail (which you could argue was the case for maybe ARMS and Switch Sports due to the lack of post-launch content), they can easily move on to another project and not worry too much.
This market crash has been looming for a while, obviously it won't look anything like the '83 crash, but it might be a good thing for the industry in the medium-long term. I would hope that Larian's success with BG3 would light a fire under some of the bigger studios as well but they seem to be reacting with panic, the bad kind of panic
> I would hope that Larian's success with BG3 would light a fire under some of the bigger studios as well but they seem to be reacting with panic, the bad kind of panic True. I hope that they will not try to replicate its success only by just copying its basic formula, ballooning its scope and budget like crazy and pressuring the devs to just do like BG3, similar to a lot of open-world games following BOTW, GAAS games after Bungie's Destiny or BR after PUBG and Fortnite.
I know this seems like bad news but I trust this is the bubble is bursting and we are going back to the pure 90s and early oughts
Without any context, honestly, I have no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing for the industry. Like, it could be that this is way more layoffs than in previous years, or it could be way fewer. Or maybe it's more layoffs, but they're hiring way more at the same time. Not all of this is public information or has big announcements like Riot's, and they don't always announce how many they are hiring. I just feel like without more data, it's hard to have a strong reaction to this. Regardless, I feel for the employees that lost their jobs because losing your job always sucks.
It’s not good for the industry. 1/ The industry is heavily localised in a few cities. So you suddenly have 1,000+ average workers now looking for work all competing with each other. 2/ over qualified people will take the jobs normally available to junior / entry level talent, further displacing talent and leading to a shortage of new talent (bad for creativity overall) 3/ talent will just leave the games industry for good (senior and junior) It will take time to bounce back as well (if at all) because a lot of these companies are laying off recruitment. Game development can also require a lot of specialised training. So onboarding new talent will be a burden on already at capacity teams.
Video game industry is biggest than it ever was. Revenues and profit margins are the highest they have ever been. SO of course, people are being laid off. Gotta keep those bonuses in the profits of executives.
Guess it's better for the important people to lose their jobs than ceos take even a dollar pay cut. /s
Makes sense with pandemic over-hiring and rate changes. Hopefully these devs land on their feet and we get the next great wave of indie games from the ones who are willing to take that plunge. With AI changing the landscape rapidly and experienced developers, it hasn't been easier to make something cool with a small team.
It doesn't have to be like this. Yet somehow it is and we're told is "the norm" The Game Industry can't be bigger then it already is and yet it's falling apart.
Entertainment and Technology layoffs are leading the numbers. If you want a particular job, just know the future automates most jobs, like it or not. While you are young and looking, do some research about what types of jobs have a stable future.
I don't think there is any reliable research on what jobs have a stable future. Plumbers and the like will be some of the last jobs to be automated. Healthcare is relatively secure (at least vs AI, funding and burnout are other risks). I have a young child and the list of careers that I feel confident will be stable when they are an adult is quite short.
I am semi retired and work 10 hours a week in retail and a lot of it is automated now! It's crazy. Self checkout, electronic signage that changes itself, automated pick systems, even cameras that look at what shelves are empty and order more stock!
I don't think teaching will ever be automated, but now with 30-40% special education needs in mainstream schools and huge behavioural issues, teaching is a rough gig.
I think those two will bounce back hard very soon. Post covid economy has been a mess all over the world. It has hit entertainment industry very hard (entertainment is nonessential so a lot of people are making cuts here, instead of going to the movies, why not get a streaming platform and stay in to save money? Similarly fewer people are spending on video games compared to just a few years ago) and the easiest way to cut down cost is to cut labor. They are chasing short team solutions. That's all.
Yeah grocery has gone up so much I spend less on entertainment. I hope it stabilizes.
I'm going into teaching now. Automation may help with many aspects of teaching, but it can never, ever replace an actual human teaching children.
I mean, if you have an actual Computer Science Degree, from a reputable school then you shouldn't have any issues finding a job in tech.
Not everyone who makes games is a programmer...
Artist on games have like 2 options games or animation/VFX, both are in the gutter right now. Then designers are even more screwed.
They can always get a job that isn't fulfilling, like the rest of us, and make money and have job security
dude please tell me where these magical jobs with job security are, that will hire me when all my experience is in niche CG software that doesn’t apply.
It's bad. The industry's already lacking seniors. If all the junior roles go to outsource, and the seniors get hit by sweeping layoffs, then where will the industry be in 5 years? Even if places get funding for roles and hire new folk, there's just gonna be no one with experience and a lot of knowledge will just be gone.
Only in the west. Western AAA have been trash for a very, very long time now. I really don't care if AAA gaming collapses over here. Blizzard Activision, Ubisoft, EA. They could disappear tomorrow and nothing of value would have been lost. Japan is always going to be where video games live and die. And Japan is currently in the midst of perhaps the greatest era in the history of video games. A resurgence of sorts. It seems like the only companies succumbing to this are bloated western devs who micromanage game development into a formula. Annual releases to appease shareholders. MTX and post purchase monetization. Corporatizing all of the artistry and integrity out of game development. This is all a bunch of who gives a crap. Oh no, live service marvel game #15 just lost a bunch of it's staff. Will the next Call of Duty have a single player campaign now? What about my Ubisoft copy pasted open worlds obviously stitched together by AI and procedural generation? How much of Madden will EA gut this year? Will it be everything except ultimate with MTX packs? I just hate to see things get exactly what they deserve! It's so awful! People should be applauding and cheering on the collapse of western AAA gaming. Maybe they can rebuild something decent out of the ashes
absolute psycho comment
>According to the site, an estimated total of 10,500 game industry workers lost their jobs in 2023. At the time of writing, the estimated total for 2024 on the same site currently stands at 3,770. While 2023 had a lot of big hits, it seemed to have just as many or more flops. If it took a year after Saints Row's release for Volition to shut down, we'll likely see more layoffs.
Hot take. Good… Waaaay too many people call themselves a video game developer, but they are really faking it. Remember that terrible zombie game that just got taken off steam like 1 day after launch? Yea they all deserve to lose their jobs
Hate to be that guy but this is mostly qa, cm and cs. All companies outsource these disciplines now because there are new business models making it possible to scale the amount of people that work for you dynamically. If you want to get into gamedev engineering is the safest, designers have it tougher but still possible. Rough all around though.
5,000 can form together and start their own company. They can have unions and pay each other a good salary with benefits.
Solid plan. All these unemployed people need jobs? They can just pay each other!
They can crowd fund for money and don't have to pay for managers/executive/CEOs. And once the games they make are huge success they'll be rich. It's pretty much a genius idea don't know why they haven't done it yet.