More than a third of games industry professionals say they have been laid off in the past two years, according to the latest State of the Game Industry report from the Game Developers Conference (GDC).
The 15th edition of the survey, run by the GDC Festival of Gaming, polled more than 2,600 people working in games around the world. According to VGC's reading of the report, 34% said they had lost their job at some point in the last two years, rising to 39% in the United States. That is up from GDC's previous report, published in January, which put the figure at 28%.
Job market and morale
Of those laid off, 54% said they were still out of work, and 27% said they had sent at least 100 job applications. A quarter said their most recent layoff happened within the past three months, while 17% had been laid off twice in two years.
Morale was low across the board. Only 45% of employed respondents agreed, even slightly, that their job was secure for the next 12 months, while 81% said they were concerned about their future in the industry. Another 73% disagreed that they were hopeful about where games are headed.
One anonymous co-founder of an independent studio in Nevada criticised executives who refused to train junior developers and later laid off veterans to cut costs. "You can't simultaneously refuse to let people become experienced and then fire them when they are," they said.
Generative AI use climbs
The report also found that 40% of developers now use generative AI in their work, up 4% on the previous survey. The tools are mostly used for text generation, research, early prototyping, coding and presentations, GamesIndustry.biz reported. Epic recently said its Unreal Engine 5.9 preview was built mostly by AI agents.
Pressure to use the tech differed by studio size. 27% of AAA workers said they felt encouraged or pressured to use generative AI, compared with 9% of indie developers, and 55% of all respondents said AI was having a negative effect on games.
