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Respondents answers also give a sense for how developers feel toward live-service games and different platforms like Xbox.
Still, this doesn’t count consoles out of the running (more on that later).
GDC Survey results give interesting insights into PC, handheld, and console gaming.
As such, this finding seems right in line with the shifting focus in the gaming market.
Something to remember here is that the majority of devs are indie developers rather than larger AAA studios.
It’s been adopted into many different industries over the last couple of years.
Steam Deck and other gaming handhelds provide a more convenient way for people to enjoy PC games.
However, it seems that developers are growing less curious and more wary of it as time goes on.
Older developers are more likely to use generative AI than younger ones.
Even studios with well-received titles such asTango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush) are not immune.
Xbox Game Pass gives players access to a wide library of classic and new games.
When asked “how have layoffs impacted you or your company?”
The survey also asked “how concerned are you about future layoffs?”
Seeing which roles have gotten laid off the most is rather telling.
Artificial intelligence and generative AI have become polarizing tools.
Based on survey responses, people with highest reported layoffs were in Narrative roles (19%).
It seems the actual creative and management-focused roles are the least stable.
This all begs the question, why are gaming companies still laying people off?
Microsoft shuttered Tango Gameworks, the studio behind Hi-Fi Rush.
However, 19% of respondents stated that companies didn’t give any reason for their layoffs.
These all seem very plausible.
However, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer when talking about layoffs happening at different companies.
Concord failed to attract enough players and was eventually shuttered.
More than anything, these responses all seem to talk about a shift going on in the industry.
The market is already highly saturated and breaking into it is no easy feat.
33% of AAA developers currently work on live-service games.
On one hand, launching a new live-service game is rather risky.
We’ve definitely seen some shady practices with these areas in the past.
It seems we can’t go a couple months without news of more game developer layoffs.
However, that hasn’t kept older developers or people within certain roles from using it.
Meanwhile, the Steam Deck seems to be influencing more developers to create games for PC.
That said, Xbox and PlayStation are still viable, they just need to rethink or refine their strategies.
Of course, GDC regularly brings up these kinds of hard-hitting topics at its annual five-day event.
It’s likely we’ll see many of these topics talked more about during the GDC event in March.
