Last week, my employer announced that they will layoff 5% of their workforce or about 670 people. Some of those losing their jobs have already been told but for some unknown number, it might take up to 30 days for them to find out.
Just to get it out of the way, the odds of me losing my job are probably very slim, but you can never rule out anything when it comes to business. Instead, we should focus on the fact that for the majority of the people who are getting laid off, their ability, skills, and intelligence had nothing to do with them losing their jobs. I have no doubt some of those people could actually do my role better than I could. My point is that sometimes, I guess most of the time, in the games industry, a person getting laid off has nothing to do with how good they are as a game developer. That’s the part that makes it so frustrating. Your career sometimes hinges on sheer luck.
I don’t know where all of this is going. I read somewhere that just barely three months into 2024, we’re already reached half the number of people laid off in the video game industry in 2023. How many more people can lose their jobs before we see just a handful of games released in a year?