The Game Developers Conference (GDC) has again released its annual State of the Games Industry survey ahead of the 2025 conference itself in March, and it paints another bleak picture—or potentially a promising one, depending on your perspective on live service games, which seem to have a stink. An astonishing 41% of the 3,000 developers surveyed said they were impacted by layoffs in 2024, up from 35% in 2023. Devs are also very aware that live service games are a risky bet, at best; 42% said they were not interested in working on a service game at all.
The reasons for the current state of games are myriad; the respondents cited declining revenue, marketing shifts, and restructuring as the primary causes of layoffs (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz). GDC asked attending devs why these issues seem to be so persistent, and the blame was placed on "COVID-era overexpansion, rising production costs, declining player interest, unrealistic expectations for the 'next big hit', poor leadership and mismanagement [of studios]."
The survey revealed some other potentially interesting statistics. For example, 80% of respondents (up from 66%) said they were currently developing games for PC, 37% were working on PS5 or PS5 Pro projects, and 33% were on the Xbox Series X|S. Perhaps it's too soon to announce the end of the Console Wars, then.
Further, 13% were working on something specifically for Xbox Game Pass, and another 9% on games for PS Plus (Extra or Premium). GDC thinks the increased interest in PCs is probably due to the Steam Deck, which everyone there was super hyped on, and likely bodes well for the future of handheld gaming.
GDC found that devs' feelings on service games, a new realm that Sony, in particular, is having a tough time breaking into, were quite mixed: "Many respondents said they saw value in live service—not only on the financial side but also in player experience and community building. Others noted their concerns about declining player interest, creative stagnation, predatory practices and microtransactions, and the risk of developer burnout."
Are you optimistic about the future of the games industry in 2025? Short of an Atari-style collapse, it surely can't get any worse, can it? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source gdconf.com, via gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 10
Not surprised. I think Concord and Suicide Squad must've been a massive wake-up call for the industry.
Also, really smart to disable comments for the other article (not being sarcastic but genuinely smart)
These corporations act like there is some mysterious arcane formula for success in the gaming industry today, and yet the likes of Astro Bot routinely comes along and proves that the actual answer is "just make better games".
@LifeGirl problem is they don't want to spend budget like astrobot and yet stil want to charge the same amount, and then they release crap and wonder..oh why didn't our game sell,.well definitely the workers fault let fire them,.that'll fix the problem..yet as we've seen it fixes nothing and serves to end the company usually
There is no mystery in the increase of developers interested in developing for pc.
GDC and GDC related stuff is flooded with indie developers and it's easy to self publish on pc contrary to needing a publisher to release on console unless you already have a big name in the industry (funny thing is a lot of devs actually go to GDC looking for investors/publishers and those publishers could actually mean the end of their game in the future if the business goes wrong, ironic isn't it?). Every year there are more and more indie developers and most don't have the kind of project a publisher would be interested to publish on consoles for "free". There are publisher who can publish your game for a payment and there are publishers who publish your game for free but take a share of sales, in most cases games with potential take the second option from big publisher because of the marketing and opportunities the game can get. Developers who know they don't qualify for those options just focus on pc knowing selling your game isn't easy but not impossible.
That without counting the fact that porting your game to consoles and mobile also means more time/money you need to invest. Godot for example, is very popular these days but it doesn't have free porting options integrated to the engine, you need to either get a good publisher who can port for you or pay for the services of a third party company who has developed the tool needed for porting and their payment isn't a one time only payment, it's a service, you have to pay them every year as long as you want to keep their tech support for your game.
Poor leadership and mismanagement is the root cause.
@GymratAmarillo Hey, just asking out of curiosity - are you in the industry ? how do you know all of this?
@breakneck fact that 1 company doesn't know what it's doing doesn't mean that developing live service is a lost cause.
Marvel Rivals and Deadlock are saying hello.
i never said it was. i think it just opened eyes with how risky they are and expensive.
again, i've long defended sie going into live services because they are a strong revenue stream (when successful) but I think too many studios were working on them.
The data also shows that most of the layoffs happened in areas that could be either automated or outsourced.
2025 will obviously feel better than 2024. Once April rolls around there will be tons of news about new Switch games, and a never ending list of ports. Plus Sony has to show something about Wolverine eventually. And maybe GTA 6 actually releases. But even if it doesn’t they’ll announce an early 2026 date this year so good enough for some.
As for firings (layoffs is such a lame way of saying it 😝) I think Sony has announced most of those 12 games already. Marathon and Fairgame$ seem doomed but maybe not retconned out of existence like Concord, leaving behind only a mocking Amazon Prime tv episode.
Of course we don’t really know how things outside of the industry are going to go, has LA stopped burning yet or has it’s 15 minutes of fame just expired? 🤷🏻♂️ I remember when No Man’s Sky was delayed like 2 years b/c a flood took out their servers, surely someone in LA was making games. Is Santa Monica Studio near LA? I finally started GoW:R last night. Didn’t get far, stupid bear. Thor wouldn’t have lasted 10 seconds against that bear.😂
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