Entertainment

A third of all video game developers affected by layoffs last year survey finds-Adam Starkey-Entertainment – Metro

A new survey has summarised the widespread impact of layoffs across the games industry.

Immortals of Aveum’s Ascendant Studios was impacted by layoffs (Picture: EA)

The extent of recent layoffs in the gaming industry has been revealed in a new survey, with a third of developers being impacted last year.

While 2023 was a strong year for quality games, it was also defined by the overwhelming amount of layoffs and studio shutdowns across the industry.

The extent of the impact has been summarised in the annual survey from Game Developers Conference (GDC) organiser Informa, which asked more than 3,000 developers across indie and AAA studios about their experiences over the 12 months between October 2022 and October 2023.

From the responses, 35% of those polled said they had been affected by layoffs – with 7% being personally laid off, 17% seeing their colleagues laid off, and 11% saying other teams and departments within their company had been impacted.

The survey notes that the most affected were Quality Assurance (QA) teams, with 22% of QA developers surveyed having been laid off in the past year. This is in stark contrast to business and financial professionals, with only 2% surveyed being laid off in the same period.

The growing instability has, as you’d expect, led many developers to have a bleak attitude towards the coming year. In the survey, respondents were asked how concerned they were about layoffs over the next 12 months to October 2024, with 56% stating they were at least slightly concerned. 14% were ‘very concerned’, 16% were ‘somewhat concerned’, and 26% were ‘slightly concerned’.

A number of developers also shared their thoughts on the layoffs as part of the State of the Industry survey. ‘Studios grew too quickly during the pandemic and people are spending less money on games during a cost of living crisis,’ one developer notes.

‘The bubble is sadly bursting. I hope it creates new start-ups that revolutionise how we develop games and sets a precedent for larger studios to follow by.’

Elsewhere in the survey, support for unionisation went up from 53% on last year’s edition to 57% this year, while 5% said they were already in a union. In comparison, opposition to unions dropped from 13% to 12% when measured against last year.

A huge number of studios were impacted by layoffs in 2023, including Bethesda, Halo’s 343 Industries, Team 17, Epic Games, Telltale Games, Ascendant Studios, BioWare, Bungie, CD Projekt Red, Media Molecule, and many others.

One of the worst culprits was Swedish holding company Embracer Group, who closed studios like Volition and Free Radical Design, following a series of rapid and badly planned acquisitions.

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A third of all video game developers affected by layoffs last year survey finds-Adam Starkey-Entertainment – Metro

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