Reflecting Upon 2024’s Unrelenting Layoffs

Part I: Why Would I Ever Want to Make Video Games?

As of the time I’m writing this, it is estimated that around 13,492 people have lost their jobs in the gaming industry this year. That is not okay.

There are probably so many talented and imaginative people who look at these layoffs and think to themselves: “Why would I ever want to make video games?”

The most frustrating part of it all is job performance doesn’t even seem to matter. Even if you release a good or great video game- you still might lose your job! The one that hit me the most on a personal level was Ouka Studios, behind Visions of Mana. I like to support JRPGs, especially series that don’t sell too well like Mana. I bought it day one. Not even a full day after the game came out, Ouka Studios was shut down.

When you do stuff like that, it sends mixed signals to me as a customer. I love video games. I want to see them flourish. I will buy your games at full price if the reviews seem to indicate it will be good. I’m giving you my money so you can continue to pay your developers to continue make good games. So when you shut down the studio not even 24 hours after they shipa good game, it makes me feel like it doesn’t matter if I financially support you.

Tango Gameworks released arguably the best Xbox first-party game in the last five years with Hi-Fi Rush, and of course Microsoft shut them down. And yes, I know Krafton purchased and revived Tango, but its been reported that a little less than half the original staff returned. So they just completely messed up a proven studio.

And I’m not looking at this situation from a naive point-of-view. I know there are shareholders and bigwig executives who go to these publishers and say “Hey, we need to cut spending this quarter” or “We expect to see this amount by the end of the fiscal year”. Video games are a business, I get it.

But at this point we need to have a look in the mirror. If you’re laying off people who make good products, what are you doing?

The most ironic part is those same executives who are in charge of the money often prove they have no idea what they’re doing most of the time. When the pandemic happened almost five years ago now, the gaming industry saw a boom unlike any other. It was pretty obvious why, right? People were stuck inside and had to find indoor hobbies to entertain them. Video game software and hardware sales skyrocketed. But clearly it wasn’t going to stay that way forever. But the people behind big decisions like hiring decided to hire far too many people during this boom. Thus, the layoffs we see now.

These same executives seem to have no idea who their audience is.

Part II: Sometimes it’s Okay to Listen to the Internet

When the Saints Row reboot was announced in 2021, the entire internet came together and said: “Please don’t do this. This doesn’t look like Saint’s Row. It doesn’t look good. We won’t buy it.”

And guess what?

They did it anyway, it reviewed poorly, and the studio behind it (Volition) was shut down. Wow, what a surprise! If only thousands of people warned you!

When Rocksteady showed off their Suicide Squad game, the internet mobs screamed “This isn’t what we want from Rocksteady!” The game got delayed for almost an entire year, but even that didn’t save it. When it finally released, surprise- it wasn’t that good. It sold a lot of copies, but that’s because this game has been on sale almost all year. I remember seeing it on sale about a month after release. Reportedly, Warner Brothers took a $200 million loss.

You know where this is going…

Rocksteady had some layoffs a couple months ago.

I could go on and on. Concord received nothing but hatred from gamers online since the moment it was revealed. Lackluster character design, Marvel-esque writing, and the overwhelming feeling that it was 5-6 years too late. All of these factors contributed to the Concord hatred. The game was a colossal waste of between $300-$400 million dollars. The natural ending to this story is Firewalk being shut down a few weeks ago.

We even saw it in the cinema industry this year. The prospect of a Joker 2 was interesting, but who on Earth asked for it to be a musical? And then, Warner Brothers didn’t do any test screenings. The movie is estimated to have lost another $200 million dollars for WB.

Why? Why are such large amounts of capital allowed to be thrown away with no caution? And in case I need to spell it out again- it’s not the game developers making these choices. It’s the executives. But guess who loses their jobs? The game developers!

But hey, surely those big executives making these decisions face some punishment too. Right?

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella received a massive 63% pay raise earlier this year after laying off over 2,000 people.

Despite releasing GTA 6 next year which will print Take-Two billions of dollars for the next decade, they still found a way to layoff hundreds of people in the past year and give CEO/chairman Strauss Zelnick a massive pay raise and $25 million bonus.

Remember back in 2021 when Bobby Kotick received a bonus of hundreds of millions of dollars despite layoffs at Activision Blizzard?

Friendly reminder that the most legendary person in this industry, Shigeru Miyamoto, makes roughly $2 million a year.

Part III: Recalibration

There seems to be this idea that AAA game publishers have that every game needs to have a budget of over $100 million, every game needs photorealistic graphics, every game needs to last the player at least 30-40 hours.

None of that is true. Look at the cultural dominance Fortnite has had over the past seven years. Look at the massive success of the Nintendo Switch and its software sales. Most people don’t care if their games look like a cartoon. Most people don’t care if their games run at 30 FPS. Most people don’t care if your game takes 20 hours or less to beat.

Most people just want to have fun. If they budgeted appropriately, maybe these companies wouldn’t get so mad that their single-player games don’t make as much money as GTA online. Maybe Square Enix shouldn’t be complaining that the second part of a remake trilogy of a single 1997 game didn’t sell well. Whose bright idea was that?

I just want a total recalibration of AAA game development. Let’s see an era of $50 million dollar budgets. Let’s normalize 2-3 year development cycles again like in the sixth and seventh generation. The original Uncharted trilogy released in the span of four years! Let’s have a nice balance of sequels and new IP. Maybe don’t carelessly toss away hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of peoples jobs.

I know that no matter what, corporations often have to make cutthroat decisions. There’s going to be firings. There’s going to be massive losses. There’s going to be layoffs. But I just wish in Western culture, we saw people as people and not as disposable cogs in a machine.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve played a lot of amazing games over the past few years. And it’s important to remember that these games are made by people (until AI takes over in the next few years).

And out of those people, 13,500 have lost their jobs this year.