Layoffs continue to be commonplace, and this year more than 7000 people have already been affected by these decisions.
The Crisis Continues
Bad news in the video game industry continues to be prevalent, with Ubisoft being the latest to lay off 45 employees from its workforce. In 2023, the total number of people who lost their jobs due to internal restructuring reached 10,500. During the first four months of 2024, the figure already exceeds eight thousand affected workers. If the trend continues, the previous figure will be greatly surpassed. This obviously concerns the rest of the industry, which seems to be experiencing an unsustainable moment.
Another major player that had decided to lay off a few workers is Embracer Group, which was even considering what to do with Gearbox, the creators of the acclaimed Borderlands franchise. Fortunately for the developer of the famous saga, Take-Two has acquired Gearbox and already has several projects in development, which makes the workers much more at ease and, above all, in a stable job situation.
This Year Some Companies Could Close Down
These 45 individuals are not the only ones affected, as a few months ago, the company laid off another 150 workers to reorganize its operations. Some time ago, we showed how some experts in this industry predicted that if 2023 was the year of layoffs, 2024 could be the year of closures. We’ll see how accurate they are, but for now, the number of people who have lost their jobs seems poised to surpass that of 2023.”
Another company that has been forced to carry out this practice is Electronic Arts; the company has even canceled a Star Wars game that would have been based on The Mandalorian, a release that could have had a lot of potential in the market.
In addition to them, Unity also announced a massive layoff in 2023 affecting 1800 workers, something that really caught attention and, of course, sparked much controversy within the community. We’ll see what happens in the coming months, but if this does not stabilize, there will be really tough times ahead for some of the workers in the video game industry.
Stay tuned for this and other news like Sony Layoffs Affect 8% or About 900 Employees and EA Lays Off 5% of Its Workforce – 600+ People
