The video gaming industry is going through an employment downturn, with some regions losing as many as three-quarters of their staff over the past few years.
Figures suggest that, between early 2022 and now, around 35.000 people in business have been laid off. However, there are some parts of the business which are doing well. For instance, iGaming and online gambling are doing well, with sites like BetOnline helping propel the sector into being worth an estimated $97 billion in 2024, up more than 13 per cent from $85.62 billion in 2024.
For regular video games, though, things have not been quite so rosy. Although the spate of redundancies, firings, and contract cancellations reached a peak in 2023, there have still been 35,000 people who have had to leave their jobs in the last three years or so. This number, according to figures from the UNI trade union, represents about 11.67 per cent of the total number of workers in the sector.
America And California Hit Hardest
When it comes to the places that have been hit the hardest, North America stands right at the top. The region has suffered 75 per cent, or a little over 26,000 worth, of the total number of jobs cuts. And, according to Tencent Games director Amir Satvat, half of the cuts worldwide since 2022 have come from just one American state.
Satvat, who also runs the Amir Satvat’s Games Community jobs site, said that 50 per cent of job losses were in California, describing the AAA game scene in the state as the “epicenter” of the problems the industry was facing. The director is not the only video games industry insider to comment on the Sunshine State suffering the brunt of layoffs, with World of Warcraft developer Ben Pielstick claiming that the state had lost 53 per cent of American gaming jobs in 2023 alone.
The director also said that flexibility with locations would be a key issue for job seekers because, while immediately post-pandemic, as many as 30 per cent of job adverts involved fully remote work, whereas now, he claimed, the number had fallen to 13 per cent.
Asia Proves The Exception
Although the games industry has suffered significant job losses in North America and, to a lesser extent, Europe over the last few years, there is one region where there are more people working in video games. In the Asia-Pacific region, job hiring has shot up, partially as a result of developers like Nintendo coming up with games such as Super Mario Party Jamboree, partly due to relative underdogs such as Vietnam and India growing their industries, and partly due to a boom in mobile gaming creating sector growth throughout the region. Data from LinkedIn suggests that 32.5 per cent of all video game job opportunities are in the region, compared to 28 per cent in Europe and 23 per cent in North America.
It is also worth noting that Asia has the largest market for video game sales, making around $88.1 billion, or 47 per cent of global gaming revenue, in 2024.
