It has been a brutal year for the video game industry as more than 10,000 employees have lost their jobs in 2023. And things are expected to get even worse as analysts forecast upwards of 11,500 additional layoffs by July of this year.
Chris Deering, the former president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, has drawn criticism for his comments dismissing recent gaming industry layoffs. During Simon Parkin's My Perfect Console podcast, Deering did not see the widespread job cuts across companies as a result of "corporate greed."
I don't think it's fair to say that the resulting layoffs have been greed. I always tried to minimise the speed with which we added staff because I always knew there would be a cycle and I didn't want to end up having the same problems that Sony did in Electronics.
When asked about how laid-off developers should respond, Deering suggested they "drive an Uber or whatever" and find "a cheap place to live" near the beach for a year.
I think it's probably very painful for the managers, but I don't think that having skill in this area is going to be a lifetime of poverty or limitation. It's still where the action is, and it's like the pandemic but now you're going to have to take a few…figure out how to get through it, drive an Uber or whatever, go off to find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year.
He did admit to Sony's own layoffs this year, along with the closure of the London studio. However, he felt it was reasonable given revenues not matching development costs on the previous game.
That's on top of many studios and major companies like Xbox, Nintendo, and Ubisoft that have been through rounds of layoffs. The constant pressure to continually raise revenues and match unrealistic development timelines has created an unsustainable environment.
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