Video game companies are bad | Take-Two sack 580 people (5% of workforce)

Monkey Man wrote:Everyone's playing old games -

Newzoo’s data shows that the top 10 games on each platform (ranked by their average number of monthly active users, or MAU) are filled with old, established titles. Fortnite took the crown on all platforms, including Switch and PC. The rest of the lists included titles that won’t surprise you, like Grand Theft Auto V, Counter-Strike 2, Roblox, Minecraft, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Fall Guys, Valorant, and Call of Duty. Across Xbox and Playstation consoles, only one dedicated single-player game cracked the top ten: Starfield.

To further prove that gamers are primarily focused on older games, Newzoo’s data shows that just 66 titles accounted for 80 percent of all playtime in 2023. And 60 percent of that playtime was spent in games that are six years old or older. In fact, in 2023, five old games—Fortnite, Roblox, League of Legends, Minecraft, and GTA V—accounted for 27% of all playtime in the year.

It gets worse. Of the 23 percent of playtime spent in 2023 on new games—defined as 2 years or younger—more than half was spent in big annual sequels like the latest Madden or NBA game. Only 8 percent of video game playtime was spent on new, non-annual titles like Diablo IV or Baldur’s Gate III.

https://kotaku.com/old-games-2023-playt ... 1851382474

Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO.O), opens new tab will lay off about 5% of its workforce, the publisher of the "Grand Theft Auto" franchise said on Tuesday, as the gaming industry extends its job cuts from the past two years into 2024.
The company said it would also scrap several projects that are in development as part of a cost-reduction plan, which is expected to lead to total charges of $160 million to $200 million.

The plan is expected to be largely complete by Dec. 31, 2024, it added.

Sky News wrote:Why are thousands of video game workers losing their jobs?

In the last four months alone, more than 8,000 people who make video games have lost their jobs around the world, including in the UK. At the same time, our games industry is growing - so what's going on?

"I had just woken up and I got an email that said, 'We're going to have a company-wide meeting'. I knew right away."

James, not his real name, was visiting his family earlier this year when he saw the message.

"I started thinking about everything I was set to lose."

He had worked as a game designer at one of the UK's biggest video game studios for nearly a decade. It was a job he loved and had dreamt of since he was nine years old. But recently he had been worried.

All around him, friends in the gaming industry were being let go.

"My mind was racing, what could I do? I wasn't going to be the only one job-seeking at the moment because there were so many layoffs. They all happened at the same time."

He went to the meeting, where his worst fears were confirmed. The company's chief executive said around 25% of people at the studio would be cut. James was one of them.

"It was rough," he said, shaking his head.

Gaming is an anxious world right now. There's been more than 8,000 jobs cut globally since the start of this year and in March, the number of available jobs in the UK hit a record low, according to the report Games Jobs Live.

But in London, as the BAFTA Games Awards 2024 rolled around last week, gamers could just enjoy themselves.

It was a night of glitz and glam with a black-tie dress code. The red carpet was laid along London's South Bank and hundreds of gaming's elite turned out.