the video game industry is a mess

February 20, 2026 - 01:02 UTC

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Game received significant investment but isnโ€™t done yet? Still fired
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That's what happens when you have shareholders: You can't ever make intelligent decisions again, everything has to be Make Line Go Up and you're only allowed to plan ahead as far as next quarter.
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The employees should own a minimum of 51% of the shares in the company they are working.
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Followed up with a board of executive saying "The CEO did such a fantastic job deciding to layoff all those people that he deserves a much larger pay and bonus package!"
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The destiny 2 devs right now
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The games industry should just be made up of little co-operatives, collaborating where necessary, but ensuring workers' rights come first. The big conglomerates have been a blight on gaming for far too long. (With the exception of Nintendo, who just carry on being Nintendo.)
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You had me until Nintendo, which is a blight on the game and with their asinine attempts to own basic ideas and sue everyone over them.
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Damn. As a video game company employee can confirm youโ€™ve nailed it.
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Rip tango gameworks
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I've made a very similar post about how it is like working for an aristocracy where they can fire you whenever they feel like it. Bad mood? Missed lunch? Made a blockbuster game? All get you fired.
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I guess the best employment strategy is to make sure that the game is as late as possible so that you get to keep your job for as long as possible?
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If the shareholders catch wind of this, fired!
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Everyone saying "just go indie". Yeah, so I'm doing that after losing my FT games job, and it's not the shining beacon of hope you think it is. You still need enough funding to pay for the livelihoods of the devs.
I can afford to make less money and live off savings for a bit, but not everyone can.
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I love games and I will keep making them as long as I can. I'm very, very lucky to be able to do this. But it's "starving artist mode" over here right now. It's not sustainable when there are bills to pay and mouths to feed. Stable jobs are necessary in our society.
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Private equity no doubt
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Make no game. Because you're fired.
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Im just stunned at what Microsoft is doing, especially.
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Plants vs Zombies apparently...
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Just end stage capitalism profit mongers doing their usual thing. Shits fucked and always has been
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Make a killer RNG = You're a Dominatrix and I hate my life #bdsm lol ๐Ÿ˜ญ
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honestly at this point I would get my buddies that got laid off and make our own studio. It would be hard for a bit but do a pitch meeting and use the best idea to make a game. That's how it used to be.
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The suits decided it's time to wrap it all up and pack it in. No more video games. Don't need any more of em. AI will make infinite games anyway and let them make all the money ever. Totally rational series of decisions.
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Life-long Sony fan here.
Filled with righteous RAGE at the decision to shut Bluepoint.
A loyal, quality studio with respected behaviour and work that was making that ungrateful shite-ass company money versus its many insta-failed live service PIECES OF SHIT.
The INJUSTICE fills me with ANGER.
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It's made it even more clear that that bellend - sorry, helm-head - sorry Helmen whatever should step down. The direction Sony is taking is an abject failure. Getting literally conned by Bungie 2 into being bought is one thing, but all this other shit lately is disgusting stuff
Genuinely needs to go
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The issue is Indie Studios needs to stop selling out to these giants.
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Ain't that the truth. What was the first studio you loved destroyed by selling out to a big company? Mine was Gas Powered Games who got bought out and destroyed by Square Enix
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Its time for studios to Unionized.
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"make a game? die lmao"
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But not Nintendo. Game industry.....be more like Nintendo.
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The sue-happy assholes? Fuck no.
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Guy I know that made a very successful, major award winning, game is trying to get funding for a new one at the moment and all the investors are basically saying sorry we donโ€™t do games anymore, weโ€™re all in on defence contractors.
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Maybe they should make simulators for the military then.
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Look, everyone knows that the safest investment strategy is hyper concentration in a single sector that is currently flooded with multiple firms that are likely to fail because everyone is doing the same thing.
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Yeah much like film producers, they don't actually know what a game (or film) is.
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It makes perfect sense from the money's point of view, you hire people to make game and then when game made not need people any more, fire people. Apes together stonks. Or something like that.
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You mean the aaa industry :)
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Microsoft: "Great news, we've just made more money than we ever have in our history!"

Also Microsoft: "We've decided to lay off thousands of staff to cut costs."

Also Microsoft: "Also, we've decided to charge our customers significantly more for Game Pass"

Money is an addiction.
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I knew we were fucked when Xbox gushed about what an amazing success Hi-fi Rush was, just the kind that they needed for the Xbox brand, before cutting the studio off like a gangrene infected arm
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Theres a time in my life where I dreamed of being a environment/level designer. And I spent a lot of time really regretting not sticking with it, and pursuing it more seriously. Lately kinda feel like I dodged a bullet.
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I have bad news about every other industry
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Banking and finance have left the chat
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Trying to find the meme of Dr bashir and Garrick from ds9
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They object to paying people once they have a game they can sell, note it doesn't matter if it is finished, just that people will buy it
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And the hits keep coming.

Sony/PlayStation Shut Down Bluepoint
youtu.be/yl7loAK472E
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Stop making games for triple A studios. Get a paying tech job and build your own games on the side. The best success stories in the last 5 years have been from some time dev teams. I don't need another fortnite clone but I'd buy a good farming sim with cute art and good gameplay loop.
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This hurts my soul.
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Band all the fired game devs together into an employee-owned game company this isnt hypothetical it is who the guys making Forever Winter are and if they can do it you can do it.
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Yeah seems industry current mood.
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I worked on a few games. When the game programming was finished, you were fired. I knew that going in, it's just the way gig work works.
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My only hope is itโ€™ll push for more indie houses to see a gap in the market.
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overheard in journalism
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Which episode of Star Trek was this? ๐Ÿคฃ
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As long as the industry has new blood to keep the machine going
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Sometimes you don't even need to wait for your game to be released. Just look at Bluepoint

Developing a game? Fired
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Can't wait to have many more unions of developers in this industry.
It has never been needed so badly.
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I don't even know if this is a general statement or if it's about any particular successful game
But yeah, sadly whether a studio get to stay alive depends on if it's close to releasing a game
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Power to the Indies
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I don't get the shock and outrage here. The gaming industry was known in the 90s for this. You're hired for a project, the project finishes.. go find work on another project. This sucks, and is why I went into another sector of programming, but it's hardly new or news.
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People are outraged it's STILL terrible all these years later.
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No wonder why game devs are going indie.
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there is always the indie genre
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Been so for years, and doesn't seem to get any better soon.....
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The third panel is about Marvel Rivals.
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THE AGE OF TRIPLE A HAS ENDED! NO MORE LAYOFFS! FOLLOW YOUR VISION, AND YOU WILL NEVER AGAIN GET FIRED! INDIE RISE UP!!!
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STSP (Small Teams/Self Publish).

It's the only way.
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Let the rich own stuff: Stuff gets destroyed.
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