10 Days Into 2024, There Have Been Announced Layoffs in Over 2,300 Video Games
Regrettably, layoffs in the video game business have increased in frequency during the past few years. The industry as a whole had layoffs almost every week in 2023. At least 6,000 employment had been created by publishers, developers, and other video game-related businesses when everything was said and done. Unfortunately, if the first few weeks of this year are any guide, 2024 looks to be going faster than that.
Although I don’t think anyone was prepared for 2024 to be much worse than it already was, the year has started off with a number of large and minor layoffs, indicating that the corporate bloodletting rituals won’t be stopping anytime soon. Kotaku will thus make an effort to keep tabs on every layoff that occurs in 2024. We hope not to need to update this post too often.
The first round of video game layoffs that we are aware of occurred at VR game company Archiact on January 4, 2024. The business, well-known for its VR version of Doom 3, disclosed on social media that it has let go of an undisclosed number of employees. The studio stated in an official post, “We are working with these individuals to offset this difficult transition as much as possible, including through reverse recruiting.”
Bossa Studios: 19 individuals
Although officially reported and verified on January 5, 2024, this occurred in late 2023. Gameindustry.biz claims that 19 employees were let go from the firm. The majority of the layoffs affected production and QA positions, however there were also some non-UK staff.
1,800 people work at Unity Software.
The first very significant round of layoffs for the year was announced by Reuters on January 8, 2024, when Unity said that it will be laying off about 25% of its workforce as part of an ongoing “reset” at the corporation. By the end of March, the software business will have completed the greatest round of layoffs in its history.
500 users on Twitch
Bloomberg revealed on January 9, 2024, that Twitch planned to fire 500 workers before the end of January. About 35% of its workforce is comprised of this. Hundreds of workers were let off by the video game streaming company owned by Amazon in March and October of last year.
At least 2,319 individuals have been (or will be) laid off as of January 10, 2024.
With $180 billion in revenue in 2021 alone, the video game business is larger and more profitable than the combined industries of music and film. Additionally, because AAA games take longer and cost more to produce, the business is getting riskier and more costly every year, to the point where even one bad game may bankrupt a studio or publisher. Additionally, unions are desperately needed throughout the whole business to help safeguard the millions of workers when things don’t go according to plan.
Until then, as we’ve seen at times, industry consolidation, corporate greed, and incompetent leadership will probably continue to cost thousands of people their jobs.
