Even After a Boom Year, It’s Hard to Hold Onto a Job in Gaming
The industry is as volatile as ever.
Hi everyone, it’s Jason Schreier. Earlier this year, Google announced that it was ending internal software development for its Stadia video game platform, shutting down offices in Los Angeles and Montreal. A few weeks later, game studio V1 Interactive closed. Two weeks after that, the publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. eliminated dozens of employees.
All together, the video game industry has shed hundreds of jobs since the beginning of the year. At first glance, it may seem like economic consequences of recalibrating after a deadly pandemic. But the video game industry is richer than it’s ever been, estimated to have brought in a whopping $180 billion in revenue last year, according to IDC data, far surpassing the global film business.
In fact, in games, instability is the norm. The industry is constantly beset by studio closures and mass layoffs. A 2017 survey by the International Game Developers Association found that game workers had an average of 2.2 employers in the previous five years.
Over the years, well-regarded companies like Telltale Games (maker of The Walking Dead), Carbine Studios (WildStar) and Capcom Vancouver (Dead Rising) have abruptly closed.
Sometimes, as with Telltale, there was no warning or severance, leaving some employees stranded and broke. Derek Wilks, an artist who had started at Telltale just three months before it closed, told me he was only able to make it back home to Kentucky by raising money from benevolent gamers on Twitter. He and his wife were able to bring in around $500, enough for two one-way plane tickets. They then moved back in with his family.
In reporting my new book, Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, I found that the upheaval was often rooted in executive mismanagement. One game company might be saddled with a failed project that it never wanted to make. Another might fold because the corporation that owns it has decided it no longer wants to develop video games. Others might be the victim of shifting priorities and board room shenanigans.