2023 has not been kind to game developers.

[Silent_Buddha]

Keep in mind this is estimates and not all developers/publishers that are laying off people are announcing how many are being laid off.

2025 - Game Industry Layoffs - Obsidian Publish

2025 - Game Industry Layoffs - Powered by Obsidian Publish.

www.videogamelayoffs.com

An estimated 6500 people have been laid off so far this year.

This also doesn't include potential divestitures or development house closures. For example, while Digital Extremes let go ~30 people, it also ended support for Wayfinder and its developer and is in the process of transferring all ownership of that property back to its developer. Basically, DE is now exiting the publishing business and focusing solely on internal projects.

This is mostly just layoffs by developers/publishers in order to try to get costs under control and/or stay in business.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

An estimated 6500 people have been laid off so far this year.

Interesting to see they did not include the 20 temporary contractors at Naughty Dog, whose contacts were not renewed, which is the defining quality of a temporary gig here in Europe.

 

[Feral]

Then we have the likes of Konami ruining their IPs without any destitute of reason.

Basically, their MGS collection is just like a bog standard port, but people into emulators already upscaled the games much more professionally.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I took a look at the Epic's announcement on their 800 number includes 250 employees from BandCamp (a music company acquired in 2022) and SuperAwesome (a marketing company acquired in 2020), neither of which had anything to do with game development. So some non-game devs numbers are getting mixed in here.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I took a look at the Epic's announcement on their 800 number includes 250 employees from BandCamp (a music company acquired in 2022) and SuperAwesome (a marketing company acquired in 2020), neither of which had anything to do with game development. So some non-game devs numbers are getting mixed in here.

Yeah, I just take the number on that page as a general ballpark. There's also other not development related layoffs like the 400 at Twitch. However, there's also a lot of question marks for studios who haven't announced how many they've laid off.

Divestitures are also not included as their future impact is unknown. Will the divested studio be able to survive without the financial support of the publisher? At least they'll have a chance versus the owning publisher just closing down their studio.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Another large number of layoffs from a publisher.

505 Games' parent company lays off 30% of its workforce, says gamers really only want sequels so that's what it's going to make

Digital Bros joins the chorus of game companies putting people out of work in the name of "operational efficiency."

www.pcgamer.com

30% of its workforce, likely spread among the development studios that it owns.

"The videogame market has evolved since the pandemic to be more selective in terms of new games, with consumers increasingly reverting to well established intellectual properties and playing these same games for longer periods," the company said. "Digital Bros strategy has had to adapt to this new and evolving competitive scenario and will focus its efforts moving forward on the release of sequels and new versions of previously successful and established games, with a limited number of new larger budgets productions.

Basically, consumers are unlikely to want to take a chance on a new IP and would rather buy something form an IP they are familiar with. Thus they were losing too much money on new IP and will now focus more on making sequels to existing IP.

It kind of makes me wonder if the subscription gaming model will end up being the only model that allows for significant investment into new IP outside of indie games. Going forward with the increased cost of games and game development that might be the only way that high budget new IP can be justified.

Regards,
SB

 

[hughJ]

It's the same trend we've seen with the film industry. Big budget stuff has become incredibly formulaic and franchise-driven over the last few decades. While cable and streaming have become the haven for good content, I think it remains to be seen just how sustainable the services actually are. Right now they're all propped up by large corporations jockeying with each other to capture a speculative future marketplace. Is Game Pass actually making enough money that it's not at risk of just getting axed the next time MS changes CEOs? Without Game Pass would Sony still have any business incentive to have a service like that? The only safe bets here are that the handful of huge franchises will likely continue to capture the mainstream, and that tiny indie studios will be the ones making new games. edit: And Nintendo will be Nintendo.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It's the same trend we've seen with the film industry. Big budget stuff has become incredibly formulaic and franchise-driven over the last few decades.

It's really unfortunate, but given the massive costs for AA and AAA game development, you can understand the reluctance of publishers to take a massive risk with a new IP. Most of the really interesting creative stuff is happening in the indie space.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I was going to point out this trend is an evolution of how devs have added content to increase 'value' over the years, but I see the original source states player behaviour has changed since COVID.

"The videogame market has evolved since the pandemic to be more selective in terms of new games, with consumers increasingly reverting to well established intellectual properties and playing these same games for longer periods," the company said.

That's too short a timeline to decide gamers have given up on pretty much everything but sequels. There haven't even been that many sequels since 2020, with the majority of sequels being franchises established over decades.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

That's too short a timeline to decide gamers have given up on pretty much everything but sequels. There haven't even been that many sequels since 2020, with the majority of sequels being franchises established over decades.

Agreed. And it doesn't seem to factor in the quality of the titles. I.e, looking at what 505 have published this year, we have:

Crime Boss: Rockay City - 52 Metacritic.
Ghostrunner 2 - 80 Metacritic.
Miasma Chronicles - 69 Metacritic.
Stray Blade - 60 Metacritic.

I'm not convinced Ghostrunner 2 sold only because it was a sequel.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

What I'm hoping to see out of Game Pass MS 1st party annually is 4 AAA releases (the expected sequels) and 3 AA interesting indie-ish things like Grounded, Pentiment, and Hi Fi Rush. The 40ish dev teams should be capable of that, I think.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So, after an indie developer shut down recently shortly after the release of their game, I was curious to see how things are for 2023.

Video game company layoffs are creating an industry crisis

Video game companies have laid off thousands of workers this year

www.polygon.com

The writing or at least the research is a little sloppy (for example, they include the 10k layoffs that MS did, of which the vast majority weren't involved in the games industry). Still a relatively decent article that touches a bit on how bad 2023 has been relative to previous years (no numbers, though as those are hard to come by) as well as their impact on those laid off.

Don't agree with everything there, but there are some good points that they bring up. Like, 2023 might be the start of corrections for the hiring spree that happened after covid as developers and publishers were high on how much revenue they brought in while people were prevented from working.

I am curious if 2024 will be even worse as more projects that started during or shortly after the pandemic lockdown ended are released and don't sell as well as they projected due to misreading consumer interest in gaming due to pandemic spending. Alternatively, perhaps most studios bit the bullet and made those corrections this year and 2024 will be a more "normal" year WRT the amount of layoffs in the industry.

Regards,
SB

 

[Johnny Awesome]

How many people were hired? That's the other side of the equation.

 

[see colon]

U.S. video gaming employment 2023 | Statista

As well as being one of the leading gaming market in terms of revenue in 2020, the United States is also considered by many as the birthplace of gaming as we know it today.

www.statista.com

This is only for the US, but industry employment was at an all time high at the start of the year, assuming the projected number is correct.

I will say, I think this year had a bunch of high profile video game releases. Maybe more than the average year. If I was guessing it's a result of Covid delays pushing things back to this year. With all of those projects finishing up, it's not a surprise that studios would be downsizing to match the workload. It still sucks for those involved, though.

 

[wco81]

Great year for Sweeney.

If the Google case he just won last week is upheld in judgement, he says he will make billions more from Google Play.

Or maybe Sweeney no longer codes, just counts his money?

 

[Davros]

But has it been a good year for the industry as a whole ?
found this :
In 2023, the Video Games market is projected to reach a revenue of US$249.60bn.
It is expected to grow at an annual rate of 9.32% between 2023 and 2028, resulting in a projected market volume of US$389.70bn by 2028.
REVENUE GROWTH BY MARKET (2023) 11.8%

 

[see colon]

Great year for Sweeney.

If the Google case he just won last week is upheld in judgement, he says he will make billions more from Google Play.

Or maybe Sweeney no longer codes, just counts his money?

Sweeney's an odd duck for sure, and I don't always agree with what he does, but when you find out he's been buying up forest in his home state to prevent it from being destroyed, or that Epic is bought a dead mall for their new HQ instead of developing new land, you can get an idea about how principled he is. Back in the day, I felt he always lived in Carmack's shadow. Early Unreal had such a unique look to it, and I loved that Epic simultaneously pushed graphical boundaries, but also included a software renderer in UT2004. I'm glad he's rich now, he deserves it. I just hope he uses it for good.

 

[Scott_Arm]

What Hacked Files Tell Us About The Studio Behind Spider-Man 2

Internal documents show how a big PlayStation studio plans its future

kotaku.com

Seems like budget and personnel cuts are coming to Sony studios. Gives some insight into Naughty Dog if studios are being asked to reduce their budgets and potentially headcount. Regardless of whether the online game would have been good or profitable, they probably had no opportunity to expand to support it. So it came down to a choice of making the single player games or the multiplayer game, not both.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

What Hacked Files Tell Us About The Studio Behind Spider-Man 2

Internal documents show how a big PlayStation studio plans its future

kotaku.com

Seems like budget and personnel cuts are coming to Sony studios. Gives some insight into Naughty Dog if studios are being asked to reduce their budgets and potentially headcount. Regardless of whether the online game would have been good or profitable, they probably had no opportunity to expand to support it. So it came down to a choice of making the single player games or the multiplayer game, not both.

Ooof, ~300 million USD to develop SM2 and as of Nov 12 it still hasn't broken even. It'll likely still sell enough during its lifetime to make a profit, but it may end up not being as profitable as SM1 due to that high development cost.

Another slide puts the problem more starkly: “...is 3x the investment in [Spider-Man 2] evident to anyone who plays the game?”

Always something to keep in mind during development. Another way to put it, if you are going to triple the development budget of a sequel, is the end result going to be worth that investment?

Also, looks like Sony are requiring lower (upper boundaries reduced) headcounts at their studios. So, Insomniac as of the time of that internal document needed to lay off 15 people to get to that max allowable headcount number.

And then a newer document mentions the need to "remove 50-70 people strategically" likely to get budgets down to where Sony would find them acceptable. This may imply that Sony also are starting to impose budgetary limits on their studios that are lower than they were previously.

Likely also explains some lay offs at other internal studios if Sony are now lowering the number of employees each studio is allowed to keep on full time as well as imposing lower budget limits.

Basically a practical response to massively ballooning development budgets but sales not increasing at the same rate leading to lower profits on those newer projects even if their revenue is higher. IE - made up example of say 100 million USD higher revenue but 100 million USD less profit due to 200 million USD higher budget versus previous title.

Regards,
SB

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Yeah. It's rough. I thought $200 million for AAA was already ridiculous. Now we're at $300+ million.