Over the past year or so, we’ve seen numerous headlines about layoffs within the video-game industry. Some of the biggest names in gaming—including Electronic Arts, Epic, Bungie, and Amazon Games—have significantly reduced their respective headcounts. Are these layoffs frightening tech professionals who build video games for a living?
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) has issued the latest edition of the annual State of the Game Industry report (sign-up required), which queried more than 3,000 game developers about everything from their choice of game engine to their company’s return-to-work policies. According to the data, a significant percentage of developers have been impacted in some way by layoffs, and many are concerned about their company cutting back teams over the next year.
Some 54 percent of developers reported zero layoffs at their respective companies; but 17 percent reported seeing colleagues laid off, 11 percent said there were cutbacks within other teams or departments inside their company, and seven percent saw their own roles eliminated:
Given the rate of layoffs, it’s understandable that 56 percent of respondents were concerned to some degree about cutbacks at some point in the next 12 months. However, more than a third (35 percent) said that layoffs didn’t concern them at all:
“Studios grew too quickly during the pandemic and people are spending less money on games during a cost-of-living crisis,” one anonymous developer told the report’s writers. “The bubble is sadly bursting. I hope it creates new start-ups that revolutionize how we develop games and sets a precedent for larger studios to follow by.”
Another expressed fears over the impact of layoffs on their overall career trajectory: “I am extremely concerned about the rise of layoffs in the game industry because it makes it harder to find work as someone new to this industry. There are still many senior and lead animator positions open, however, if the studio isn’t hiring juniors or mid-level animators, how will they have any experience to become the same level as a senior?”
While some layoffs are unavoidable, keeping your skills up-to-date (and learning cutting-edge skills) can help you survive team cutbacks. The following technical skills have popped up frequently in job postings related to video games:
- Game development (of course)
- C++
- Level design
- Epic Unreal Engine
- Adobe Photoshop
- Maya
- Art Direction
- Microsoft C#
- Zbrush
- 3D Modeling/Design
- Prototyping
- Python
- Animation
- Software Engineering
- Gaming Industry Knowledge
- QA
- Unity
Once you’ve mastered a selection of these skills (particularly Unity and Unreal), building your own games and making solid connections in the industry can help you land a job.
