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Over 5,000 games industry workers have already lost their jobs in 2024
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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It's more due to AI and/or the expectation of automation being able to reduce the workforce before that actually gets set up functionally. Also that tech companies are doing it to try and kick back against people demanding their wages increase with cost of living, so game devs are piling onboard with layoffs for the same reason.
The layoff wave started way before the AI hype. It is more tied to interest rates imo.
It's not only that. Companies are getting richer and richer and they could easily afford LOTS of employees. Microsoft reached the trillion-dollar market cap and a few days later fired 1900 people
Right, but they're doing it because they believe they can make up the lost manpower through automation that won't be integrated enough to do so for another couple years. So they're going to overload their current employees even further than they likely already are and the product/s will continue to suffer and fall off.
This isn't happening in a vacuum, it's happening currently because they believe AI is far enough along to pick up the slack.
It's the same thing that happened in tech. People got used to the near-decade of essentially free money. Interest rates were low for a long time, so easy loans, and demands to endlessly/rapidly grow. Now the free money's gone and none of them know how to exercise discretion, so they "trim the fat" of their rapid growth.
I don't know if it's that, though. There's so many cuts on the tech sector not just gaming.
I literally said they're following the tech sector, and why wouldn't AI also affect tech in general?