There has been a cloud of layoffs over the gaming industry these days. This is largely due to the excessive hiring that the companies did during and after COVID. In 2020, the gaming industry experienced a boom and wanted to make as many games as quickly as they could, resulting in an extensive hiring rate.
During this time, many industry legends left their companies to make new AAA titles or form new companies. This enabled companies to push for more manpower, accounting for their loss of talent. They offered better salaries and incentives to flesh out the best talent in the industry.
Eventually, the market began to fall and revenue generation was not as high as it had been during the last three years, hence, the companies started firing people without accounting for the future.
Currently, companies are desperately trying to manage the losses by firing their employees but that is eventually going to puncture their growth and capability to make games efficiently, and their shareholders would rather feel safe keeping their money in the bank with a 5 percent interest rate. By the end of the year, Xbox and PlayStation are bound to realize the mistakes they have made by firing people out of desperation.
Restrictive view of the future
Companies today are not accounting for the future when they go out firing people, especially the senior technicians who have been with the company for ages, with years of experience in their pockets. It is not fair for them to be fired on account of a company’s failure to predict the market and foresee the problems ahead of them.
In an interview with Chris Tapsell, Swen Vincke, the founder and CEO of Larian Studios, broke his silence over these layoffs. He said –
And he told me: “Well, it’s actually going better than I expected.” I said, “Well, that’s funny…” He says, “Well, no, it’s also a waste.” And so I asked him, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Well I mean, the cycle is just repeating – they fired them all.
So now they’re all looking for co-developers. So by the end of the year, they will be trying to hire again, because they’ll realise they have to make games and they have to tell something to their shareholders.”
Making a game is a very hard and painstaking process. Profits play a huge part in the success of a game as it facilitates more games to be developed but making games just for profit’s sake hinders the experience of a lot of creators as they are confined to a norm by applying the same formula to new games.
Baldur’s Gate 3‘s studio to the rescue of fallen creators
Larian Studios has been doing well as an independent studio. They have a huge office with hundreds of employees, and Larian has managed to sustain that size by making the game that people love. Baldur’s Gate 3 was one of the best games to come out last year and dominated the market despite the release of a new Mario game, a new Zelda game, and new RPGs from Blizzard and Bethesda.
Larian Studios is constantly hiring people whose importance is not being realized in other companies. Larian believes that this current wave of layovers Is gonna have costly consequences in the future and they want to be better prepared for what is to come.
Shedding light on this, Vincke said –
And it’s going to cost them way more, long term – they just don’t realise it yet. But it will cost them a lot.
I’ll give you an example: I heard of a group of technical artists being fired. I can tell you, I’m a developer: if you fire your Technical Artist, you’re an idiot. Because they define your entire pipeline, which is going to define your cost of your assets. They can define so many things and they know your games – especially if the senior ones, it really doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, we’re hiring them to come work for us.
The companies are currently acting out of desperation, which will not lead to a bright future. The gaming industry has been going through a rough phase since last year but the foundation of it still stands strong and with the likes of Vincke and Larian studios there to help out people in a time of crisis, there is hope that the industry will persist and prosper.
