Our Industry Is Crumbling

Our industry continues to suffer as shareholders are prioritised over development teams and customers. Even high performing studios like Insomniac Games and Guerilla aren't safe.

Source:

[rrc]

The gaming space is *still* wildly oversaturated. Big studios have demonstrably failed to generate value over and over again, while mid-size studios and small studios are dropping major hits.

[randompseudonym]

So, Jim Ryan decides to piss away 3.5 billion on a single developer - Bungie, and also decides to invest most of the Sony development resources on live service games. After these catastrophic decisions, he gets a golden parachute, and it's the development staff that gets the sack!

[youtubevanced]

It’s not just gaming. I’m in a completely different industry with an employer that dwarfs Sony.
My subsidiary company had their highest profits on record 22-23 year.
Paid us the biggest bonuses as result they have ever given.
Then 2 months later fired 20% of one of the teams, or 200+ people, claiming revenue difficulties.
Corporations have zero incentive to care for employees and legal obligations to care for shareholders value.
That’s the way the world is.

[silenthalo]

Companies chasing that endless growth margin has to be one of the worst things in human history

[notajetplane]

At this rate, almost no one is going to want to work in the games industry anymore. The companies treat them like disposable.

[meteor]

Working for these AAA companies seems like sucha worse gamble to take than being apart of an indie team.

[ericorange]

CEOs and other executives should not be getting bonuses and millions as they throw their employees to the curb.

[kokorochacarero]

We get a news story like this one every couple of months
Devs are rutinely thrown into the meat grinder while executive bonuses keep increasing

[darwoodtechnology]

I can't imagine working in the game industry. As an IT professional, I deal regularly with layoffs and outsourcing but it sounds even 1, 000 times worse in the game industry.

[dragonofdragons]

I won't be surprised that by summer we start to see game studios closing down

[BennyLlama]

CEOs and executives should not get bonuses during a quarter where they did a mass layoff. Any caught doing so should be fined 3x their bonus and that money distributed to the employees they fired.

[TheLordDracula]

The most frustrating thing about all this is that everyone saw it coming yet they still did it and it doesn't fuck those who made that choice but instead the workers.

[MyUsualComment]

"Congratulations on a great year; here's your pink slip."

[ryuno]

When these big companies buy out smaller studios, they only want the IPs those studios have. The workforce is just a burden for them to continue having.

[benfubbs]

The video game collapse of the 80s was driven by increasingly low quality games being mass produced trying to get maximum profits.

Today studios are trying to produce not great games but just the minimum viable product to ship, that is to say they are increasingly trying to make the worst game possible that will still sell.

This is driving apathy towards modern games, leading to reduced sales and pushing us towards another collapse in the video game market.

[philallen]

It's going to be a new golden age of retro gaming, largely because there will be nothing else to play...

[Steezyjo]

If I put on my CEO goggles I can see that every studio under Sony will get hit with layoffs when Marathon eventually flops. Hopefully the young talented devs coming into the industry wisen up and choose a company that respects their devs and not blindly join the husk of their favorite childhood studio.

[raabaddler]

Hey guys why not cut back executive compensation by about 70% instead, you know go after the real dead weight and maintain what makes the profit

[deathminder]

I worked at a major bank. The group I worked in was the number 1 group of 4 total groups located in 3 cities. Two in the US and two abroad. The company decided that our group was being eliminated, we would be moved to other teams in different areas, even though we were the top performing group. The bad part was they decided to make the worst of the 4 groups the primary group. Now I am sure there was a financial decision, but this is one of the big banks that make profits hand over fist. They did not care about customer service or the employees. In the meeting where it was discussed of course there was pushback from the bankers, the response was we should just be happy to have jobs. Needless to say I put in my two weeks after that statement.

[Necropheliac]

This is a chain reaction that started with failure to get PS5s in the hands of people who wanted them, and allowing scalpers to be gatekeepers of retail price.

The situation prevented PS5 from gaining traction and made new game dev an unrealistic business proposition for a lot of studios and publishers, which made buying PS5 an even less appealing proposition for those who still didn’t have one.

Fast forward to today and PS5 has stunted adoption and no killer apps to inspire people to get one.