What’s up with the constant gaming layoffs in 2024?

The gaming industry has never exactly been synonymous with job security, but what is causing this unprecedented amount of layoffs in 2024?

By 2027, the gaming industry is slated to be worth a staggering $282 billion. That said, what on Earth is going on with the continuous layoffs being reported across major publishers?

Sony is the latest in a slew of gaming giants to let hundreds of staff members go in one fell swoop. 900 employees were axed this week, with Sony citing missed sales targets and a $10 billion plunge in stock price as the motivation behind the ‘headcount’ reduction.

Prior to this, EA, Microsoft, Epic, Sega, and Twitch had terminated the employment of a combined 10,500 people throughout 2023, according to a trusted layoff tracker. Just 90 days into 2024, that number has reached a staggering 6,000 workers already and the word crisis is beginning to appear in analysts’ vernacular.

While there is no blanket reason for the continued exodus across the board, industry leaders tend to agree that gaming’s resounding success throughout the pandemic inadvertently led us to this point.

‘Unprecedented levels of engagement’ during periods of lockdown, when isolated folk were turning to games in droves for a level of escapism, supposedly fuelled unrealistic projections for industry growth in the following years.

Without a captive audience, however, hefty wage bills from publisher hiring spikes are becoming untenable when weighed against overshot profit projections. In hindsight, the figures were naively optimistic with no cautionary measures to guard against any potential backslide.

Years later, the reality isn’t so rosy for gaming executives. Games investments hit major lows in 2023, Sony has fallen significantly short of PS5 sale targets, and revenue streams are reportedly down by 4% in the US — a far cry from the boundless profits…