GDC's annual State of the Game Industry report has been released in the past 24 hours, and it's not pretty reading. 2023 was a pretty awful year for game developers, with mass industry layoffs and studio closures — from Vanpool, Volition Studios, Brace Yourself Games, Crystal Dynamics, Free Radical, and more — GDC's latest report finds that a staggering one-third of video game developers have been impacted by layoffs in some way (via Push Square).
In fact, it's just over one-third. 35% of developers "aid they’ve been impacted by layoffs—either by having some layoffs take place within their team or company or by being laid off themselves." The biggest number of layoffs come from the ever-vital quality assurance teams — you know, the people who make sure the games we're playing work. GDC found that 22% of QA devs were laid off in 2023. Business and finance, on the other hand, only suffered 2% of layoffs.
Around 7% of the people GDC spoke to were people who were directly laid off themselves, while 17% spoke about colleagues who were laid off. The numbers speak for themselves over on technical artist Farhan Noor's tracker on videogamelayoffs.com (via GamesIdustry.biz).
GDC asked respondents how they feel about the future, and 56% of them expressed concern that the place they work could suffer layoffs in 2024, while a third said they weren't worried at all. Those GDC spoke to blamed many studios for course-correcting following the worst of the global pandemic, conglomeration, and the uncertainty of the economic environment
It really is a sobering read, and many don't think it's going to get much better. We've already reported on a handful of layoffs in 2024. Thunderful has reported that it will be undergoing a restructuring that will affect 20% of the workforce, which likely means some staff will have to go elsewhere. That's just one 2024 story, as well.
Around a third of developers admit to having switched game engines or considered switching game engines — both in response to the Unity runtime fee fiasco and prior to this happening. Half, however, haven't considered switching at all.
84% of developers asked also said they were concerned about Generative AI, and only 12% said they had "no concerns" at all. AI is already becoming a hot-button issue in the industry, and according to GDC, the business, marketing, and programming sectors saw a positive side to AI, while the more creative sections such as narrative, visual arts, and quality were more likely to view it negatively. Square Enix has already begun 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.