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[Draugoth]

Via Polygon (More at website)​

‘People were just an expense. They don’t necessarily care about the human impact’

Developers at Palia studio Singularity Six were still celebrating a successful early access launch when a surprising announcement was made: The company was laying off around 10% of its workers. Though the game is a cozy life simulator, layoffs were something that was “not so cozy,” as a Singularity Six leader had called parts of game development in a previous meeting, according to two workers.

Singularity Six is just one of the dozens of game companies that laid off workers in 2023, and its workers are among the thousands of people who lost their jobs this year. Only days after ringing in the new year, layoff announcements started rolling in: Wizards of the Coast canceled multiple projects and laid off a dozen people; game engine maker Unity Technologies cut 300 people; Microsoft laid off a staggering 10,000 people, which impacted both Starfield’s Bethesda Game Studios and Halo Infinite’s 343 Industries. The bad news just kept coming as the year progressed, as studios both big and small axed jobs — Digital Extremes, Epic Games, Telltale Games, BioWare, Bungie, CD Projekt Red, Ascendant Studios, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group and Volition, Amazon’s games division, and too many more.

Though there isn’t clear data on how 2023’s disastrous layoffs compare to other years, game developers Polygon spoke to agree: This has been one of the worst years for workers in a long, long time. (Polygon interviewed more than a dozen game developers for this story.) Unofficial trackers suggest more than 7,000 video game workers have been laid off in 2023; for comparison, another community-driven list suggested there were roughly 1,000 in 2022. The nearby tech industry has seen a 716% increase in layoffs announced year over year, too, according to research firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.

“This is not just one individual company,” video game producer Shayna Moon told Polygon. “This is our entire industry. The current situation is not debatable.”

“Paired with tight economic conditions, the impact of layoffs has been amplified by reduced hiring and increased job competition,” said International Game Developers Association executive director Dr. Jakin Vela in an interview with Polygon.

“This has been one of the most volatile periods in the games industry in the last 15 years.” Vela said that the IGDA is “deeply concerned” about the layoffs.

But why have there been so many layoffs this year? Studios have provided similar kinds of statements about laying off workers: We’re very sad to see our employees go, but we’ve had to make hard decisions during this economic downturn. Sometimes an executive will blame it on a lack of sales or player numbers, like a dwindling player base for Destiny 2 or poor sales with Immortals of Aveum, which was out for mere months before Ascendant laid off half of its staff. Epic Games, which cut its workforce by 800 people, pointed to overspending.

“For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” CEO Tim Sweeney said.

Regardless of the details that led to this moment, the current picture is clear: Thousands of people have lost their jobs, plunging a massive group of people into instability and flooding the market with lots of qualified, established game developers looking for work.

 

[ungalo]

Meanwhile, Ubisoft with its 200 millions loss and 20k employees.

 

[Woopah]

Really interesting article, I feel so bad for everyone affected.

 

[WoJ]

So basically the gaming industry is experiencing the same crap most other industries feel during hard economic times (yes I read the article).

 

[Fake]

I was told the future is the way to go.

AI will replace everyone.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It just comes down to how efficient a company wants to run. Some companies are very lean. Some are bloated. Some are profitable. Some lose money. Every person has worked at companies where it seems nobody gets fired. Then there's places where bosses will fire people during probation period (gas fast).

Think of it like you running your own life and house.

You can either be a saver, or a big spender. If you are a big spender, you can either be a rich dude who can cover it, or a guy with tons of credit card debt you'll never pay off and eventually go broke. Or you max it out living pay stub to pay stub hoping you never get fired.

Now if the guy is rich and will never go broke, does he have to keep spending like Mr Bottomless Pockets? Maybe he just wants to live life lean and not waste money on things he doesn't need.

I'm no gazillionaire, but I make decent coin. I'll never go broke. Hell, I own an investment property renting it out for $2500/month. Even if something apocalyptic happened, my parents and fam have more money than I do! They'd bail me out if I asked. My older brother even told me if I ever need money to buy investment properties and run into trouble just call him and he'll wire me money.

So I should be Mr. Banker and everytime I go out to eat it should be steak and lobster? In reality, I'm kind of cheap and only buy nice stuff if i really want it. When I buy groceries and clothes etc.... I look for deals, buy most stuff on sale and dont give a shit if people know I buy some crap at Dollarama. I want my money to grow.

But hey, thats just my lifeestyle. I know some people in a similar age/career and they even tell me they like to spend and if they die broke they dont care because it means they maxed out their fun and money to their last dying breath.

Some people like to spend and save. Companies are no different.

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

AI will replace eveveryone.

I hope so. Everyone is tired of 6 year dev cycles and exploding budgets and A.I. will solve that. People who are trying to stop A.I. are like the people who were invested in horses trying to stop the automobile. Yes, you WILL have to figure something else out, but you can't stop what's inevitable.

 

[Kilau]

 

[DeepEnigma]

The world economies are creating the crisis. You will be hit next, just like Gawker cunts.

 

[diffusionx]

Low interest rates, too much money floating around, rosy projections about future growth based on a one-off incident that forced people inside for months at a time, and, it needs to be said, DEI mandates, led to a massive ramp-up in hiring from 2020-2022. All that stuff is over. The person they quote is right in that it's not really the fault of the employees but these companies really screwed up. This article sucks and defaults into the usual Polygon rambling about muh crunch, muh unions, muh executive bonuses. I agree the human toll on layoffs is enormous and feel bad for peoplle getting laid off but it is more helpful to tell them the truth so they can make an informed decision on where to go next instead (probably, they should consider another industry) of trying to turn them into left wing activists.

 

[NickFire]

I can’t help but shake my head when certain outlets report on unfortunate job news. Maybe if no one conditioned developers to believe crunch is bad, game testers should be treated like life long employees, there should be HR fires started whenever tasteless jokes are made, and to target phantom audiences, some of these studios may have had a better chance at success.

 

[dead monkey uk]

I was told the future is the way to go.

AI will replace everyone.

Are we sure that some GAF members are not already AI?

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

This is what currency deflation looks like.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Are we sure that some GAF members are not already AI?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The industry lays off 10% of its employees every 4.67 years.

The industry hires an additional 30% every 4.67 years.

Media knows what will get clicks.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Low interest rates, too much money floating around, rosy projections about future growth based on a one-off incident that forced people inside for months at a time, and, it needs to be said, DEI mandates, led to a massive ramp-up in hiring from 2020-2022. All that stuff is over. The person they quote is right in that it's not really the fault of the employees but these companies really screwed up. This article sucks and defaults into the usual Polygon rambling about muh crunch, muh unions, muh executive bonuses. I agree the human toll on layoffs is enormous and feel bad for peoplle getting laid off but it is more helpful to tell them the truth so they can make an informed decision on where to go next instead (probably, they should consider another industry) of trying to turn them into left wing activists.

And if you notice, a lot of people fired the past few years are also WFH-enabled desk jobbers.

Easy to hire. Easy to fire.

So as you said with your factors, it's easy to ramp up hires doing interviews on MS Teams and mailing them a laptop to WFH. If the tech industry was more traditional (desk workers with still work at office protocols, or blue collar workers who worked wearing a mask the entire time) the office/warehouse are full of people, nobody wanted to massively grow the worker pool because covid scares being even more crowded, so you wouldnt get massive increases in people. If anything, these work environments wanted to spread people out (minimum 10 ft apart kind of thing), not sardine more people into more cubicles.

Since tech is a kind of job most people can probably do at home, it was a free for all of hiring when most companies and industries were in hiring freezes, or fired people if it was a travel or front facing kind of business (ie. stores and restaurants who went bankrupt due to shut downs and people eating at home)

If anything, tech workers had it good as the net gain in employees the past 5 years is huge (as Men in Boxes said above).

In market downturns, typically all companies hit the shitter together. But for covid, it actually helped a lot of tech companies with skyrocketing sales and hiring sprees.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

When you see shit like this you know there is plenty of slack to cut.

 

[SmokedMeat]

And if you notice, a lot of people fired the past few years are also WFH-enabled desk jobbers.

Easy to hire. Easy to fire.

I know a lot of people love WFH, but that would make me uncomfortable. If your job can be accomplished entirely offsite, then you can be replaced by someone thousands of miles away.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I know a lot of people love WFH, but that would make me uncomfortable. If your job can be accomplished entirely offsite, then you can be replaced by someone thousands of miles away.

Totally.

A lot of my company's IT staff were outsourced to those Indian-staffed IT/Consulting kinds of companies. Way back, anytime I needed IT help to fix something I'd either get hold of the local guys at our office, or if they couldnt fix it I'd get hold of the IT guys at US head office.

Now, only the really high level structural stuff (implementing new systems and such) are handled internally with help from the company they hire to do massivec ERP system changes. The rest of the IT help and minor shit are all handled by Indian people I can barely understand what they ay on the phone and couldnt even pronounce their first and last names if I tried.

BUT, they do a good job and never had an issue. They are pretty responsive, fix any issues that pop up and give zero attitude. No difference in quality of work fixing stuff than 10 years ago when it was the head office staff doing it.

 

[Fake]

Are we sure that some GAF members are not already AI?

 

[Killjoy-NL]

It's almost as if the overall world-economy is in shambles due to geopolitical issues.

 

[diffusionx]

I know a lot of people love WFH, but that would make me uncomfortable. If your job can be accomplished entirely offsite, then you can be replaced by someone thousands of miles away.

I don't think this is a major factor here. These companies are shedding staff in a normal economy they never would have hired. Whether it is WFH or on site it does not really matter. While it's not the work revolution that people were saying it was in 2020-2021, WFH is here to stay and every company basically is hiring at least some people for WFH.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

It's almost as if the overall world-economy is in shambles due to geopolitical issues.

That and the fact that the eurodollar system is broken, has been since 08 and is fracturing more. The brics bloc is trying to build their own system using gold and their native currencies, but they don't have the liquidity required for global trade on a large scale.

What we saw begin with the Ukraine war is accelerating with the Israel war.

The price of oil is going up and yet the price of gasoline is going down. Very bad sign. We are in for a rough, rough landing.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It's almost as if the overall world-economy is in shambles due to geopolitical issues.

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/17/consumer-spending-americans-2023-inflation-economy

At least in the US consumer spending is ridiculously strong, wages have risen slightly faster than inflation, and we are effectively at full employment. This is not what an “economy in shambles” looks like.

I don’t think these layoffs have anything to do with economic hardship.

 

[Ainem Enamas]

This hurts gaming so.

 

[HL3.exe]

This industry keeps being a exploitative trainwreck.

 

[Disco Dave]

At least in the US consumer spending is ridiculously strong, wages have risen slightly faster than inflation, and we are effectively at full employment. This is not what an “economy in shambles” looks like.

 

[StueyDuck]

It sucks but its not just and industry crisis, it's a world wide crisis. Economies in dumps, countries at war causing serious trade issues and leaders who don't know their dicks from their arses who are making the decisions.

All business sectors are struggling and mass layoffs are happening across the board, especially after the covid expansion which didn't help matters.

But hey at least the shareholders get to say they earned a bit more this month

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

I know a lot of people love WFH, but that would make me uncomfortable. If your job can be accomplished entirely offsite, then you can be replaced by someone thousands of miles away.

If you are strictly a coder, then I can understand that argument.

But to me, that's part of the problem with basing your position strictly in coding, rather than being someone who comes up with the technical vision in the first place, keeps up with research and latest trends, leads the discussion of what is possible and where to go next, etc. I can't imagine being purely a code guy today rather than a full package who is regularly relied on by leadership to set the goals and possibilities in the first place.

I'm 100% remote (not gaming, but tech sector), but since I do all of the above, the idea of a cheap replacement from India is a non starter; I wouldn't waste time considering it even for the teams and positions under me that I manage. Even just relying more on AI tools to code quickly would be a better use of money.

 

[Elysium44]

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/17/consumer-spending-americans-2023-inflation-economy

At least in the US consumer spending is ridiculously strong, wages have risen slightly faster than inflation, and we are effectively at full employment. This is not what an “economy in shambles” looks like.

I don’t think these layoffs have anything to do with economic hardship.

Exactly, there is always some sort of 'crisis' somewhere in the world, always has been, always will be. The sky is not falling. Things were a lot worse in the past, many times.

 

[gaming_again]

It's almost as if the overall world-economy is in shambles due to geopolitical issues.

Its just going back to normal. The 15-year long free money experiment is over.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Sounds like many companies are bloated with staff that aren't critical and need to reign things in. Also AI.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Its just going back to normal. The 15-year long free money experiment is over.

Pretty much.

Amazingly, during that stretch of time of ultra low interest rates, prices barely went up in general. The theory is low rates = more buying power = prices go up.

I didnt see it, except in real estate prices. IMO, with all these rock bottom prices, people should had either funneling all that money to pricey homes, or saving shitloads of money if their costs of home was reasonable.

My first mortgage over 20 years ago was around 6%. Then it dropped, spiked during the 2006 oil craze, but then after the 2008 global crash it was rock bottom until 2022. It was crazy. At one time my variable mortgage was about 1.20% after being under 2% for probably 5 years. Now it's back to 6%.

But what happened with people and companies is they went ape shit overloading themselves on low rates. The second rates spike it's a shit storm.

One of the companies I made money on times is Algonquin Energy. The past year or two the stock and financials crashed into the pits. They amped up buying other utility companies at low rates before 2022, but when their loan rates rocketed up after covid and every government throwing money around like it grows on trees, suddenly the steady eddie company lost money and they cut their dividend in one year. A utility company stock dropped over 50% in one year. LOL

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Its just going back to normal. The 15-year long free money experiment is over.

Not in Europe, it's a giant shithole and only going to get worse.

And if the M.E. will escalate, it'll have a negative effect on the entire West.

But I'm not getting into politics any further, so I'll leave it at that.

My point was that all these layoffs don't come out of the blue and aren't exclusive to gaming.

 

[Lucie Goosey]

A lot of poor choices being made.

This is what an industry that's been captured by a shareholder driven model looks like.

Want things to change?

Start company's and businesses with friends and people who are passion driven and inspire each other.

Never have shareholders, and never allow your company to be sold off to or owned by some other company.

Will it be harder in the short time?

Perhaps.

But in the long term it'll fare much better.

Lots of amazing indie games out there being released that didn't require publishers, executives, board members, HR, CEO's, accounting, managers, etc.

That's the real bloat of this industry.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Imagine working 55-60 hours a week then getting laid off at some point….said every manufacturing employee in the world. Cry me a fucking river. This literally happens in every industry across the globe during tough financial times. I hate to be that guy, but these garbage media outlets make it sound like it really only happens to people in the entertainment industry, specifically video games.

 

[Bradamante3D]

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/17/consumer-spending-americans-2023-inflation-economy

At least in the US consumer spending is ridiculously strong, wages have risen slightly faster than inflation, and we are effectively at full employment. This is not what an “economy in shambles” looks like.

I don’t think these layoffs have anything to do with economic hardship.

The lay-offs we are seeing currently are just in line with lay-offs in the wider tech industry. During Covid the entertainment industry was booming, as far as home activities were concerned (see: Lego). Companies blindly over-hired, and what we are seeing now is the correction.

 

[AJUMP23]

Where are they going to go?

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

It's starting to feel like a lot of these companies, and some of the industry in general were a facade of lies, like a house built on sand. Now reality is setting in for the fantasy land of hopes and dreams.

 

[Krathoon]

The video games industry is like one of the most unstable damn industries.

It is this dream job, but it is rickety as hell.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Game companies being mismanaged? Who knew?

 

[Tams]

Perhaps it's just too many game developers in an oversaturated market?

Perhaps, just maybe, the 'learn to code, bro' advice was only temporarily good.

All I can say is anecdotal, but there are far more games that I'd like to play released each year than I can afford to play, both in time and money.

 

[Wildebeest]

Are polygon supposed to be some sort of industry know it alls? It's called a business cycle. The markets expect companies to lay off at parts of a cycle and hire at others, and if they don't investors think the company is run by dipshits and withdraw their money.

 

[MikeM]

One industry i’ll be absolutely hammering home to my kids to stay out of career-wise: gaming.

 

[simpatico]

Learn to weld. Shocker that a fake job market dried up.

 

[Denton]

Perhaps its just too many game developers in an oversaturated market?

Yes.

What's funny though, even when those developers whose game does not sell leave the game industry and go work on something else, they are likely to be immediately replaced by new people growing up and wanting to make their own game...

In the end, you get 14K games every year on steam, of which 95% is left unplayed.

Is that bad though? Not really. It just is. Music industry is similarly oversaturated, most musicians never "make it".

 

[Trogdor1123]

Learn to weld. Shocker that a fake job market dried up.

Everyone should be learning trades, even if just for personal fulfillment. These are skills that will save you time and money

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Gaming is an industry anyone can get into. All you need is a PC to make games and upload it to Steam or smartphone e-stores. it can be the shittiest 99 cent game, but considering how many no-name indie games are made blanketing the industry no wonder so many lose their jobs or have bad sales. Name one industry that has so many big and small companies flooding the market with full and budget priced products, free to try products etc...

The pie is only so big. And that means sales are spliced into a million wedges even if the industry s growing and you got some behemoth IPs. It means the smaller game makers get left out unless they got a big hit shadow drops like Apex or it catches on as a quirky hit like Vampire survivors. I'm going to assume trying to get a game released on consoles has more hoops as they are closed eco-systems and have royalty fees or whatever. But you still see guys making solitaire for $2.99 and stuff like that. So it cant be that hard.

Covid made industry expectations worse because it seemed every tech company hired more people as revenue shot up as people were at home gaming, watching movies or renovating their house (for those of you who didn't follow it, read up on prices and supply of wood and building supplies during 2020 and 2021). It's like tech companies thought the increased demand from stay-at-home and WFH people barricaded at home would be permanent sales boosts.

Since then, everything has normalized and all those high flyers crashed down to pre-covid levels or even worse.

 

[ProtoByte]

The video games industry is like one of the most unstable damn industries.

It is this dream job, but it is rickety as hell.

As far as the entertainment industry goes, job security in gaming is mostly decent if you at a big studio.

 

[rofif]

No enough layoffs at polygon it seems