An Estimated 9,000 Employees in the Video Game Industry Have Been Laid Off in 2023 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 January 2024 / 3,329 Views
An estimated 9,000 employees have been laid off in the video game industry in 2023, according to a website keeping track of layoffs called Video Game Layoffs.
Unity has had the most layoffs in 2023 with 1,165, followed by ByteDance at 1,000, and Embracer Group at 954. Epic Games has laid off 830 employees and Amazon Games has laid off 715.
Of the big three console makers, some studios at PlayStation and Xbox have been hit with layoffs, however, Nintendo hasn't laid anyone off.
PlayStation studios hit with layoffs includes Bungie, Media Molecule, PlayStation VASG, PlayStation San Diego, and PixelOpus. At Xbox the studios that have been hit with layoffs includes Bethesda Games, The Coalition, and 343 Studios. Activision Blizzard before it was acquired by Microsoft also dealt with some layoffs.
While Embracer is the studio with the third most layoffs this year, they have been front and center has they have been laying off employees and closing studios for the past six months. This includes TimeSplitters developer Free Radical Design, which was shut down on Monday.
Thanks, VideoGamesChronicles.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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That is really sad and if anyone defend mergers because there is no talent available on the market he deserves all the mockery.
A great example of extreme oversimplification and a statement that's only designed to look like it holds some truths.
That number is layoffs in a nutshell, it is not even contrasted with the hiring dynamism of every locality hit with those layoffs.
A better indication of resource availability is the length of an open position available in studios looking to hire and depending on the position those are calculated in months and some in years. Now if you are looking to create a new studio as a replacement to acquiring one of any ambition let's say 500 workers you're looking at years without even taking into consideration team building and time for the team to find what they do best.
So you think that among 9000 devs there isn't enough to open a new team of 100?
9000 is worldwide, not local like creating a new studio would require resources availability to be.
Those layoffs did not happen at any single point in time, they were spread out throughout the year, how many of those are still looking for a job is not touched on in the report.
Also, what you suggest is supposing that layoffs did cover all resources position required to build a new studio, which is unlikely. We know layoffs that occurred at MS targeted disproportionately Marketing-related jobs, which is ill-suited to fulfill a new studio requirement.
Also to what acquisition would you compare creating a new studio of 100 workers too? Seems to me acquiring studios of 100 or fewer has hardly ever been controversial anyway so seems it isn't a good example for your first arguments as it is not something that would generate opponents and proponents, to begin with. Like if you argue that people should not defend mergers like those Sony made with Haven Studio or Firewalk, well then that's weird. But obviously, your argument was more akin to people should not defend mergers on the scale on which they are controversial like those made by MS with Bethesda and ABK, and on that front, your suggested new studio of 100 would miss every conceivable goal laid out on the acquisition of that scale.
I'm not saying 100 people studios being bought creates controversy. I'm talking about every time we say that we would prefer new studios opening instead of consolidation the excuse of "there is no available talent on the market" is used. Odd enough some of those same companies buying studios were laying off employees and in some cases quite massively.
The scale of mergers being much bigger sure makes thing more aggravating and piss off more people. But still my position on VGC have been of prefering new studios being open and current studios getting more teams or bigger teams instead of mergers that don't really bring anything.
Sony is doing something close to that (and my idea of creating studios in countries that have low representation) with their Hero Project in India, China, Brazil, etc.
And I'm saying the example focusing on the supposed ease of creating a studio of ~100 workers is ill-suited when the actual "there is no available talent on the market" has been used in acquisition targeting 1000's (12000 + in ABK case).
I'm also saying the report of 9000 or so layoffs does not present us with any indication of actual resource availability industry-wide and even less so in any one location. It is not even contrasted with any view on how many new positions were attributed in the same timeframe.
Reading a little on the Sony hero project, this is a project with long-term goals, this does nothing to satisfy any short-term goal which would have to be and have been fulfilled with other acquisitions.
If you want an actual portrayal of resource availability you have to look at jobs open positions. Take Playgrounds games for instance: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/playground-games-jobs-worldwide?f_C=941518&trk=top-card_top-card-primary-button-top-card-primary-cta&position=1&pageNum=0
64 open positions with most that have been so for months (Linked State 4 months but I know some have been open for much longer so I suspect Playgrounds updated them all 4 months ago). If resources were available to make it easy to create a new studio then it should be even easier to fulfill open positions and it is not.
In the early 2000's everybody wanted to make an MMO, because World of Warcraft. Almost all failed and many people lost their jobs.
In the early 2020's everybody wanted to make GAAS games, because fortnite. Almost all fail and many people lose their jobs.
History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Why are we seeing so many layoffs? -_-
