LAST year was considered the best in gaming, with more critically acclaimed games released than ever before.
While gamers were eating well, it wasn’t the same for those making the games, as over 10k industry members lost their jobs.
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This of course seems illogical, as the more games that sell, the more jobs should be available for developers.
However, CEOs and other executives are taking bigger bonuses than ever, and overpromising sales goals to their shareholders.
When the companies don’t make the profits they expect, instead of the executive pay cuts we’ve seen in the past, the higher-ups are instead choosing to let people go.
In the past, Nintendo lost profits after the Wii U failed to sell as planned, leading the company into a difficult position.
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The president at the time, Satoru Iwata, drastically cut his pay, while other executives took a smaller pay cut.
This meant that Nintendo employees could keep their jobs, allowing them to work on the next console, the Nintendo Switch, which was a huge success for the company.
It seems that other companies have not taken this approach, drastically cutting jobs despite releasing best-selling games.
There have been over 5k layoffs in 2024 alone, less than a month into the year.
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A large portion of these come from Microsoft, which recently acquired publisher Activision Blizzard, and has now laid off almost 2k people from jobs in gaming.
The news arrived at the same time it was revealed that Microsoft is the second company ever to be worth more than $3trillion, only after Apple.
It seems that even employees of the biggest companies making record profits are not immune to being fired despite their incredible work.
If you want to read more about the gaming industry, check out how gaming prices are silently increasing through Deluxe Editions.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
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