More than 6000 devs lost their jobs in 2023

2023 has both been one of the best years for gaming as well as one of the worst. While 2023’s output would easily make it an amazing year full of high quality titles, the industry itself has suffered dearly – with constant reports of industry lay-offs. In total, more than 6000 developers have been laid off this year – with it seemingly only set to get worse.

As reported by technical artist Farhan Noor via the site videogameslayoffs.com, since the start of 2023 more than 6100 jobs have been lost in the industry across 80 different companies. Due to some companies not disclosing its lay-offs, the full list of affected employees is likely much higher.

What’s more, the trend seems to be worsening, with September said to be the biggest month so far in terms of lay-offs – as 17 different companies are said to have cut jobs during this period.

Additionally, Gamesindustry.biz has shared that 11 studios in total have been shut down entirely since the beginning of the year, those being:

• Calypte
• Dang
• Puny Human
• Volition Games
• Mimimi Games
• Vanpool
• CyberConnect2 Montreal
• Antimatter Games
• Campfire Cabal
• Kiloo Games
• PixelOpus

It is disappointing to see so many publishers letting go of dozens or even hundreds of developers in such a short period of time. Hopefully the video games industry is able to regain some form of consistency and job security moving forward – though this is unfortunately unlikely.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of all these recent layoffs? How can companies avoid this in the future? Let us know your thoughts down below.

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