We Can’t Look Away from the Layoffs | Unpacked

All this is why we must support independent studios when they make games we may enjoy. The only path to a human future is spinning out from the AAA studios, and letting artists make a living while retaining control of their work.

I know there aren't very many who play the franchise "Life is Strange", but my recent experience taught me how important all the talent in a studio is. "Life Is Strange: Double Exposure" came out in 2024, and I enjoyed it a lot. It is set in a New England College, and they managed to put enough detail to make the setting and characters feel real. I played it a few times. In December 2024, Deck Nine laid off an "undisclosed number of employees". Then this year Deck Nine released Double Exposure's sequel "Reunion", and the layoffs showed. Gone are the fine details and fun side quests, the writing was done by an obviously smaller team. They reused most sets from the first game, and the new sets did not have the lived in feel the first game had. Basically, I was disappointed. Now, when I hear of layoffs at game studios, I know that the games affected are going to suffer the same fate as LiS: Reunion.

Game development is something you get into for passion, not profit, like professional music. This has been evident for decades. This is not a good thing, but is common to many careers done for the love of the work. Full respect for those who put up with it, but this sort of cr*p should not be catching anybody by surprise.

Yahtzee has been talking about the collapse of the AAA game industry I feel like for almost a decade now. What I think we are going to see is a radical reshifting of the industry wit large, there are too many converging factors from all across the different spaces within the gaming industry. Unfortunately, the democratization of game development and game releases have oversaturated the market, the exponential profit chasing of the publicly traded AAA space, and even the completely detached from reality privately owned AAA companies are creating a truly horrendous gruel of a in art form and also entertainment products. There is little if anything that can be done by us the consumers except to hold our no as the endless stink of bad news and toxic rhetoric pours from our screens. It's hard to love something that has been so thoroughly corrupted sometimes.

You covered the one reason why "voting with your wallets" won't do much/anything. The people making the decisions will still be overpaid and maybe even make a bit more as a bonus from the layoffs.

One thing that’s sometimes papered over: this is a love-based cycle. People get into game development because they want to develop the games they love. And they do. They put their souls into their games. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Management - who are interchangeable, an MBA doesn’t care if they’re managing games or a company that makes ball bearings - knows there’s a supply of people, making them disposable. This will never change. If anything, it’s going to get worse as AI becomes more pronounced.

The reward for success in a corporation is exploitation.

How long until tech CEOs realize that they still have to pay PEOPLE and not AI?

The divide of having to report the layoffs while also having to report new games and showcases, I've been pondering for a while now. Unfortunately I acknowledge that most people have to report on both, but it still sucks.

Damn good video, Nick. As a recent YouTube convert I'm surprised by how much more enjoyable the watching experience is just by getting to hear someone unreservedly say the word "fuck."