I spoke to over 40 game developers whose companies had been impacted by layoffs in the last year. They shared with me the explanations companies gave them for what was causing the sudden loss of their livelihood, but they also told me why those explanations didn’t always seem to match reality.
Oh boo hoo, our crappy live-service battle pass ripoff game #7 wasn’t as successful as Fortnite. Now the investors want $6 Billion dollars back so guess it’s time to kill all the interns and use the life insurance money to pay dividends.
It’s a MASSIVE oversaturation of everything in the gaming industry. Plenty of people play games, but there are far too much product for the consumer to buy. Or, there’s far too little of good products that generate any sort of money to the development teams. 99% of all game projects either die on the vine or don’t make any money at launch.
The same logic goes for music, art, Hollywood, writing, books, pretty much any sort of creative role.
If you’re still getting an education, don’t go into the gaming industry. Don’t be a musician. Don’t be an artist. Don’t be a writer. Don’t be a Twitch streamer or YouTuber.
If you do it as a hobby, and it happens to work out, so be it. Or, if you’re just doing it because you enjoy it in your spare time, that’s fine, too. But, if it’s your goal as the primary means to make money, don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work out. You can’t reliably work in oversaturated industries.
If you’re trying to be a programmer and don’t find a job in the gaming industry, go find some other development job that is in a more mundane industry. There’s plenty of companies that better respect their employees than the fucking gaming industry.
Far too many game studios came to view themselves as either a money printer or a political advocacy group first, and a game publisher only as a distant second, as a means to that end. Predictably, people have been losing interest in AAA gaming. Turns out that, whatever you want to say about the content of a game, creating a GOOD game that people genuinely enjoy playing is indeed an art, and a game planed and directed by a marketing research department has all the artistic appeal of a commercial.
The gaming industry is dying is an ice-cold take at this point, but I really don’t see how it’s sustainable in its current form with the way things are going right now. Sure, the analysts are saying things will course correct, but how is that supposed to happen if nothing in the industry changes? Games are just going to get more expensive to make and it feels like the cost-cutting is only going to get worse as more companies invest in AI tech.
Oh no. There is a legion of lazy indie “developers” who see AI as a cheap and easy way to avoid the difficult creative aspect of pushing out whatever half-baked idea floats between their ears. Good indie games created by talented developers let go from AAA studios will certainly exist, but it’s going to be even harder to find them under the massive crush of shovelware than it already is.
Nah, shovelware doesn’t survive very long. We learned this through the “indiepocalypse”, where the number of games that could sustainably release and keep companies afloat eventually leveled out.
In my experience, Steam’s recommendation engine has gotten way better over the years, and there’s a good chance you can find something you were looking for just by filtering by the tags that interest you. I was looking for another co-op roguelike after Streets of Rogue, and those tags were enough to point me to Vagante, which I ended up liking even better.
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Oh boo hoo, our crappy live-service battle pass ripoff game #7 wasn’t as successful as Fortnite. Now the investors want $6 Billion dollars back so guess it’s time to kill all the interns and use the life insurance money to pay dividends.
When suits enshit on the product
It’s a MASSIVE oversaturation of everything in the gaming industry. Plenty of people play games, but there are far too much product for the consumer to buy. Or, there’s far too little of good products that generate any sort of money to the development teams. 99% of all game projects either die on the vine or don’t make any money at launch.
The same logic goes for music, art, Hollywood, writing, books, pretty much any sort of creative role.
If you’re still getting an education, don’t go into the gaming industry. Don’t be a musician. Don’t be an artist. Don’t be a writer. Don’t be a Twitch streamer or YouTuber.
If you do it as a hobby, and it happens to work out, so be it. Or, if you’re just doing it because you enjoy it in your spare time, that’s fine, too. But, if it’s your goal as the primary means to make money, don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work out. You can’t reliably work in oversaturated industries.
If you’re trying to be a programmer and don’t find a job in the gaming industry, go find some other development job that is in a more mundane industry. There’s plenty of companies that better respect their employees than the fucking gaming industry.
I’ve talked nine people out of the games industry.
When I have friends telling me they’re glad they went to the movie VFX industry from games that says something.
Far too many game studios came to view themselves as either a money printer or a political advocacy group first, and a game publisher only as a distant second, as a means to that end. Predictably, people have been losing interest in AAA gaming. Turns out that, whatever you want to say about the content of a game, creating a GOOD game that people genuinely enjoy playing is indeed an art, and a game planed and directed by a marketing research department has all the artistic appeal of a commercial.
The gaming industry is dying is an ice-cold take at this point, but I really don’t see how it’s sustainable in its current form with the way things are going right now. Sure, the analysts are saying things will course correct, but how is that supposed to happen if nothing in the industry changes? Games are just going to get more expensive to make and it feels like the cost-cutting is only going to get worse as more companies invest in AI tech.
They all think they can use generative machine learning to move forward… It will be an ugly few years
Not for the indie space.
Oh no. There is a legion of lazy indie “developers” who see AI as a cheap and easy way to avoid the difficult creative aspect of pushing out whatever half-baked idea floats between their ears. Good indie games created by talented developers let go from AAA studios will certainly exist, but it’s going to be even harder to find them under the massive crush of shovelware than it already is.
Nah, shovelware doesn’t survive very long. We learned this through the “indiepocalypse”, where the number of games that could sustainably release and keep companies afloat eventually leveled out.
Idk, but I still have trouble finding interesting indie titles on my own because of just how many absolutely terrible titles are out there.
In my experience, Steam’s recommendation engine has gotten way better over the years, and there’s a good chance you can find something you were looking for just by filtering by the tags that interest you. I was looking for another co-op roguelike after Streets of Rogue, and those tags were enough to point me to Vagante, which I ended up liking even better.
I’ve never had any luck with algorithmic recommendations actually helping me find anything I’m interested in. I guess it depends on the person.