Layoffs in the video game industry have unfortunately become increasingly common in recent years. In 2023 we have seen Almost weekly layoffs across the industry. When the dust settled, around the least 6,000 jobs were created at publishers, developers and other companies related to video games. Unfortunately, it looks like 2024 will move faster if the first few weeks of the year are any indication.
Most people didn’t expect 2024 to be much better, but I’m not sure anyone was prepared for the fact that it might get even worse – and yet this year has started with a series of layoffs, large and small signal that the corporate bloodshed rituals are no longer working. It won’t end anytime soon. So My city will attempt to track any layoffs in 2024 as they occur. Hopefully we don’t need to update this post so much.
Archiact – Unknown
On January 4, 2024, The first round of video game layoffs (that we know of) occurred at VR game developer Archiact. The company, known for its Doom3 VR Port announced on social media that an unspecified number of employees had been laid off.
“We are working with these individuals to balance this difficult transition as much as possible, including through reverse recruiting,” the studio said in its announcement post.
Bossa Studios – 19 people
This technically happened in late 2023, but was reported and confirmed on January 5, 2024. Accordingly Gameindustry.biz, 19 people were excluded from the studio. The redundancies were mainly quality assurance and production staff, as well as some staff outside the UK.
Unity Software – 1,800 people
On January 8, 2024, Reuters reported the first truly massive round of layoffs this year after Unity confirmed it was planning to do so cut nearly 25% of its staff as part of an ongoing “reset.” in the company. This is reportedly the largest round of layoffs in the software company’s history and will be completed by the end of March.
Twitch – 500 people
On January 9, 2024, Bloomberg reported that Twitch was preparing to lay off 500 employees by the end of January. That’s about 35% of the entire staff. The video game streaming website previously owned by Amazon laid off hundreds of employees last year
Playtika – 300-400 people
As reported by CTech on January 11, 2024, mobile game publisher and developer Playtika plans to lay off up to 400 employees, or about 10% of the company’s total workforce. Playtika previously laid off 900 employees in 2022. In 2023, the company agreed to pay up to 900 employees 300 million dollars Acquisition of Innplay Labs, another mobile developer.
Discord – 170 people
The edge reported on January 11, 2024 that popular video game chat software developer Discord planned to lay off around 17% of the company’s entire workforce. The layoffs were announced in a staff meeting and an internal memo was obtained The edge. CEO Jason Citron said in the memo that the company had grown “rapidly” since 2020 and had taken on too many projects.
“Today it is increasingly clear to us that we need to sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to achieve more agility to our organization,” Citron told employees in the memo. “This was essentially the catalyst for the decision to downsize our workforce.”
Lost Boys Interactive – Unknown
On January 12th aftermath reported that an unknown number of employees from Gearbox-owned developer Lost Boys Interactive have been laid off.
“It appears that a significant portion of Lost Boys Interactive was laid off today, including myself,” wrote Jared Pace, a producer at the studio. is Linkedin. Pace reportedly told aftermath that layoffs “affected all disciplines at all levels.”
As of January 11, 2024, at least 2,789 people have been (or will be) laid off this year.
The video game industry is bigger and makes more money than movies and music combined $180 billion in 2021 alone. It is also an industry that is becoming riskier and more expensive every year AAA games take longer And it costs more to produceThis means that even a single flop can drive a studio or publisher into ruin. And the whole industry is there too urgent need for Unions help protect their millions of workers when things don’t go as planned.
Until then, corporate greed, industry consolidation and poor leadership will likely continue to cost thousands of people their jobs, as we saw with Twitch and Unity.
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