Over 26% of Game Developers in Europe Were Laid Off in the Past Year - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 21 October 2025 / 3,973 Views
The video game industry has been hit hard with layoffs over the last few years and a new study has shown over 26 percent of developers in Europe have been laid off in 2024 and 2025, and 10.4 percent of them are still searching for new jobs.
This is according to the Big Games Industry Employment Survey, conducted by online career platform InGame Job and recruitment expert Values Value, and posted by GamesIndustry.
Video game designers, artists, and QA specialists have been hit the hardest with layoffs. Those in creative professions feel the least secure, while those in analytics, HR/recruitment, and top management reported the "highest sense of job security."
13 percent of game developers have also left the industry in 2025 alone. Those working in marketing had the highest exit rate across all roles and 39 percent of those at a junior level left between 2024 and 2025.
"Job searches are taking longer, and in some roles – such as programming – we’re seeing a trend of people accepting less favorable conditions when changing jobs, like lower salaries or downgraded positions," said Values Value founder and InGame Job co-founder Tanja Loktionova.
"Salary has become the number one factor when choosing a new employer, replacing what used to be top motivators like exciting projects, growth opportunities, or a great team."
87 percent of respondents stated the salary is the most important factor, followed by 59 percent for work format (remote/hybrid/office) and work-life balance.
"Salaries for programmers — especially Unity developers — have dropped by almost half, mainly because there are barely any open positions," added Loktionova. "There have been a lot of layoffs and very few new opportunities."
There continues to be a gender pay gap with women on average making less money.
"Interestingly, our data also shows that women tend to ask for less: their expected salaries are, on average, lower than those stated by male respondents in similar roles," said Loktionova. "It’s a complex issue that reflects not only structural inequality, but also differences in self-perception and negotiation confidence."
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 follow the author on Bluesky.
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Ah yes, nice and healthy industry. Meanwhile, over in record revenue MS and Sony side of things, it's good to know they are investing in.... something.
Kinda crazy to see while the video game industry is at it's most successful too.. Movie adaptation are blooming, 2 recent consoles over 100 million with one over 150 millions, PC gaming as popular as ever... Like it could NOT be like this.
Well, most years in gaming history didn't have a SMB, or an OoT, or a GTA3, or a BOTW...
One of the biggest hitters this year has been Battlefield 6... Which is a regression over Battlefield 5 in terms of technology. (Dropping support for Ray Tracing) and was a return to what was "safe" with Battlefield 3/4.
Risk taking didn't pay for EA, so innovation took a step back.
And the rest of the industry is taking note.
This reminds me of what I said in another thread some days ago; Scarlet and Violet are easily two of the worst Pokémon games ever made, and somehow became the best selling games in the franchise, so if Legends Z-A underperforms, all Gamefreak will learn from that is to never try anything new ever again.
Instead of just thinking hey, maybe we should try something else.
Legends Z-A is something else, it's just an ugly looking low budget something else.
No, I mean, when a game doesn't sell as well these days, instead of just trying something innovative again until they get it right, they instantly revert to copy-and-paste mode.
1 every 4 people in just a year? That is insane!
Yikes
Quote: Video game designers, artists, and QA specialists have been hit the hardest with layoffs. Those in creative professions feel the least secure, while those in analytics, HR/recruitment, and top management reported the "highest sense of job security."
That is a crazy quote. So the people actually making the games are the least secure, while the support/management staff of the companies are the most secure.
Video game companies have just reached next level greed. Top companies are raking in the money, yet they are firing off the people who make the games. Maybe some of it is also smaller companies that can't compete with the AAA games are getting crowded out and so have to cut their staff?
I dunno. This job crunch doesn't make sense to me when game companies are raising prices so much AND selling tons of games. Maybe it has to do with IP brands being so successful and entrenched these days that companies figure they can both cut costs and still sell well in order to just benefit their investor class and execs and no one else.
Timely example: with PokeZ-A having just come out on apparently a bare bones budget of $13 million with very obviously extremely little effort put into the bland boring game (the environment models literally are at the level of detail from 25 years ago, and that's just one of many zero-effort things in the game), and it'll still probably bring in over a billion dollars in revenue because of the brand strength. They could have hired a bunch of talented devs and artists and designers to make a good pokemon game with double the budget, instead they put in far less effort and love than ever before and released a slop game that makes the other Switch Poke games look great in comparison, that'll still rake in many millions of sales while gamers get pure slop for one of the most cherished successful franchises in game history and game makers don't get jobs, but execs (and investors) reap financial benefits for little to no effort.
I'm just getting into game dev this Fall (solo indie dev) and man, I would never want to actually work a job for a company in this industry. I wonder if we'll increasingly see small indie game studios pop up from professionals leaving the corporate industry as they simply can't find jobs and have to go out on their own.
I'm going to guess that those that reported the highest sense of job security think their jobs are going to exist as long as the company exists, no matter what. You can downsize development personnel, but the expectation might be that some jobs will exists even through tougher times. Besides, there's probably more developers, so layoffs are more likely to hit them too, so they feel less secure.
I know this seems counterintuitive, but it might actually make sense. Sadly this is only speculation, because I don't really have much insight into the actual working conditions at all.
It's time for game devs to stop accepting getting punched on the face by every side of the industry, unionize, folks!
That is wild. I mean the industry is very project based and projects come and go and have differing resource needs, but still.
