this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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PC Gamer taking a jab at the industry (i.ibb.co)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by ICastFist@programming.dev to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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Sauce https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/foolproof-ways-to-get-laid-off-in-the-videogame-industry/

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 134 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Almost none of this is unique to the gaming industry; it's all symptoms of under-regulated capitalism.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's not unique but the games industry is worse than most.

There's a natural cycle to the development of a video game that's very atypical for most software products, involving a long slow ramp up of workforce followed by (unless you've been very very careful) a total lack of anything productive for 95% of any of those people to do for the forseeable future. What to do? Toss 'em on the street, that's what to do. Then couple that with it being a glitzy career that will attract lots of replacements for any of the hapless people you fired, which also applies to any way you want to abuse your employees or underpay them, and you have a recipe for lots and lots of abuse.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

followed by (unless you’ve been very very careful) a total lack of anything productive for 95% of any of those people to do for the forseeable future

It amazes me these game companies putting out game after game don't simply reassign these people to a future game. These are your seasoned veterans, they know how to do their job. Laying them off and picking up newbies just sets you up for a rocky future.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au 2 points 13 hours ago

The problem is that there isn't that much to do for these armies of people during the early stages, when it's mostly a handful of programmers and designers fleshing out the core concept. Then, during the late stages, you need tons of QA people, grunt workers to create tons of art and fiddly little bits of implementation, localization and bug fixing, and whatever else. But, if you haven't planned ahead so that there is another game perfectly in the pipeline to transition all the grunt-workers over to when the first one ships, they'll all literally just be standing around doing nothing until the next game gets in shape that it's ready for them, and usually the solution is to fire all the people who just made millions of dollars for you pouring their heart into something. It's upsetting.

There are many things that game companies do consistently very very wrong, but this is one thing that isn't completely "their fault." It is possible to moderate the impacts but it's very hard and it doesn't really completely go away even if you work hard at it (which most of them don't care enough to even try to.)

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 57 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yes, but the game industry has faced severe layoffs the last couple years while profits soar ever higher and higher and executives get bigger boats. So it's relevant.

[–] djsaskdja@reddthat.com 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Unionization is also super uncommon at these game development companies. Would definitely help prevent layoffs. True for every industry again, but they are underrepresented here.