GDC 2024 State Of The Game Industry: game developers on layoffs, generative AI, and more
Over 3,000 game industry professionals weighed in on this year's State of the Game Industry survey with opinions about layoffs, the use of generative AI, return-to-office policies, and more.
www.gamedeveloper.com
This year's survey, conducted from Oct. 11 to Oct. 29, 2023, reflects the perspectives of over 3,000 game industry professionals. We found that developers are concerned about the increasing number of layoffs, the ethical uses of artificial intelligence, and changing game engine policies and pricing. They're also incorporating more accessibility features in games, have seen an increase in return to office policies and widely use Twitter/X for word-of-mouth marketing, though many have grown frustrated with the platform and owner Elon Musk's policies.
One-third of developers (35%) said they've been impacted by layoffs—either by having some layoffs take place within their team or company or by being laid off themselves. Quality assurance developers appear to have been hit the hardest, with 22% of them saying they were laid off this year (compared to 7% of all developers). Business and finance professionals reported the least layoffs (2%).
Over half of respondents (56%) expressed some level of concern that their company could see layoffs in the next 12 months, while one-third said they weren't at all concerned. When asked to share their thoughts on the rise of layoffs in the game industry, many developers cited post-pandemic course correction, studio conglomeration, and economic uncertainty as possible explanations, and some expressed a desire for unionization to better protect workers.
Even though many developers seem to be uncertain about the industry impact of Generative AI, they are quite certain about the ethical impact. A large majority (84%) of developers indicated they were somewhat or very concerned about the ethics of using Generative AI, while only 12% stated they had no concerns.
Platform surveys:
This is an anonymous poll voted by devs. Interesting that only 8% voted for the Switch's successor as a platform that they're developing for, I'm assuming most don't have dev kits yet.