this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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One-Third of U.S. Video Game Industry Workers Were Laid Off Over the Last Two Years, GDC Study Reveals (variety.com)
submitted 1 day ago by simple@piefed.social to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] Jeffool@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Investment money is not as plentiful as it was several years ago. I've heard it in several interviews with developers or devs themselves. (Game Maker's Notebook, Mike and Rami are Still Here, and a few devs on YouTube come to mind.)

[–] greybeard@feddit.online 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It also doesn't take hundreds of people to make a good game anymore, just a dozen or so good employees (sometimes less). Big studios struggle with justifying their existence with graphics and scope creep. Then, more often then not, management shoves it full of microtransactions or refocuses the game to hit whatever's hot this second. Which often leads to a polished turd of a game.

When you look at the big hits over the last 10 yeas, less than half of them came from big publishers and big studios. With less every year. It's just not a model that works anymore.

[–] Jeffool@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I completely agree that huge teams aren't needed. That said I think at least some of that is exactly because smaller studios full of expert talent were getting funded for several years, because those big studios weren't making the games developers wanted to make. And those devs understood that "fun" wasn't the same as "top of the line presentation".

ARC Raiders' Embark Studios has a lot of people from DICE. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Sandfall Interactive has a lot of people from Ubisoft. Even Dispatch's Ad Hoc is a lot of Telltale people (at least some of them by way of Ubisoft.) They knew a lot about their process, but their big companies weren't making the games they were interested in. So they got funding elsewhere (and famously Ad Hpc's funding dried up mid-development.)

I'm curious about Wikipedia's sourcing here. Granted there's the Balatros and Stardew Valleys of the world, and Helldivers did well. But do smaller games really make up half? Year after year the big ones are usually COD, two big sports game, a Nintendo game, another big fps, a big action game, and a few others.

Again I agree with you when it comes to good games. But man, those big ones are huge sellers. I just wish we had clear insight into sales. But that's been a thing for a long time now.