GDC annual State of the Game Industry the report was released in the last 24 hours and it’s not pretty to read. 2023 has been a pretty terrible year for game developers, with mass industry layoffs and studio closures — from Vanpool, Volition Studios, Brace Yourself Games, Crystal Dynamics, Free Radical and more — the latest GDC report reveals that a staggering one-third of video games on programmers were somehow affected by layoffs (via Push Square).
In fact, it is slightly more than one third. 35% of developers “say they’ve been affected by a layoff—either because layoffs occurred within their team or company or because they were laid off themselves.” The biggest number of layoffs come from the ever-vital QA teams — you know, the people who make sure the games we play work. GDC found that 22% of QA devs were fired in 2023. Business and finance, on the other hand, suffered only 2% layoffs.
About 7% of the people the GDC spoke to were people who had themselves been made redundant, while 17% spoke of colleagues who had been made redundant. The numbers speak for themselves on technical artist Farhan Noor’s tracker videogamelayoffs.com (over it GamesIndustry.biz).
GDC asked respondents how they felt about the future, and 56% expressed concern that the place they work could suffer redundancies in 2024, while a third said they were not concerned at all. Those interviewed by GDC blamed many studies for the exchange rate correction after the worst of the global pandemic, conglomeration and the uncertainty of the economic environment
It’s a sobering read indeed, and many don’t think it’s going to get much better. We’ve already reported on a few layoffs in 2024. Thunderful has reported that it will go through a restructuring that will affect 20% of its workforce, which likely means some staff will have to go elsewhere. It’s also just one story from 2024.
About a third of developers admit to switching game engines or considering switching game engines — both in response to the Unity runtime fee fiasco and before it happened. Half, however, did not consider the change at all.
84% of developers surveyed also said they were concerned about Generative AI, with only 12% saying they had “no concerns at all”. AI is already becoming a pressing issue in the industry, and according to GDC, business, marketing and software sectors have seen the positive side of AI, while more creative parts like narrative, visual arts and quality are more likely to see the negative. Square Enix has already started implementing AI into its games, with PS5 and PS4 shooter Foamstars being the latest high-profile release to feature a small percentage of AI art.
