Not the first report I see on this, but the first long, detailed one from a major publishing website
Much longer text in source, quote key points of interest to me:
Working in the video game industry is notoriously difficult. Some companies demand “crunch” time, where people work even longer hours in the lead-up to a project. The industry has also been grappling with a pervasive culture of sexism and gender discrimination, as well as its overall lack of diversity across gender and racial demographics. The game industry is also typically referred to as a “passion industry,” because people who make games often love the games they make; companies can and do exploit that passion for profit.
“Some people are even questioning their identities,” Boccamazzo said. “There’s so much passion that goes into making games. I’ve been around a lot of creative professions, and I think the passion that goes into making games is unique. It becomes a part of [people’s] identities — they make games, they’re a game dev. And so the loss of the job is not just the loss of a job and financial stability, it’s also a threat to self-identity in a lot of cases.”
Video game workers are paying for the mismanagement of leadership; video game executives aren’t seeing the same hits to their jobs and compensation. For instance, Electronic Arts laid off more than 700 employees in March as $1.3 billion in gross profits were reported in the previous fiscal quarter; even CEO Andrew Wilson said at the time that EA was “operating from a position of strength” as he takes home an estimated $20.7 million in total compensation in 2023. (That number, however, is down from the more than $39 million he received in total compensation in 2021.) Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney’s salary isn’t public, but he’s estimated to be worth almost $10 billion, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index, thanks to Epic Games stock. It’s safe to say Sweeney is not living paycheck to paycheck.
The game industry’s growth over the past few years inevitably had to slow, but during that time, executives clearly incentivized short-term profit over long-term stability and the value of their workers. “A lot of reckless expansion of game monopolies has caught up to [the industry],” former Volition mission designer Alex Cline told Polygon. “Embracer owns a large part of the industry. Tencent owns a large percentage. We have huge consolidation of labor and IP. When you’re trying to get as much money as possible — if that’s ultimately your fundamental goal — then you’ve got to remove some expenses there. People were just an expense. They don’t necessarily care about the human impact.”
“The saddest thing I noticed is people who are younger and haven’t gone through this before who think this is their fault,” one former Singularity Six worker said. “It’s not their fault. They didn’t do anything wrong. There wasn’t anything better they could have done. They didn’t fail in some way. There’s nothing wrong with them — they’re not ugly and they’re not unpopular. This is just investors and other people who depend on investors throwing darts at a board. They just happened to land on those numbers. That’s it.”