Rejections And Redundancies: An Undergrad's Perspective of The Games Industry In 2024

2024, like 2023 is a hot mess. Thousands are being made redundant across all sectors within the industry. The number is staggering, with 70% of redundancies already marching that of 2023 (which was unfortunately a record year) and we're not even in March yet.

As an undergrad student studying Game Design, I have 0 studio experience so this article is purely based on my opinion and from an outside perspective looking in as well as speaking to those within the industry.

But I'm not going to lie, the closer I am near and many others near graduation, the feeling is the same.

It's daunting.

Seeing the industry we all love and want to join to craft new amazing experiences more or less shrinking in terms of jobs and people, it's quite sad and unnerving. I and many others can't wait to properly join a studio, and get stuck in some proper game development, but now that idea seems very far away.

But because of all of these redundancies, this is only making an already competitive industry to break into, now much more harder and harsher. Jobs that already had hundreds if not thousands of applicants are now being flooded with those who just lost their jobs.

I don't blame them.

As a junior game/level designer myself, I'm now competing with so many more people for the same positions and it's stressful. Often, I'd never hear back from a company for a rejection or just straight-out ghosted. But unfortunately, this is the norm. This is the same for nearly everyone else. There simply aren't enough jobs for everyone and as hard as it is to face, a majority won't get their dream job. That's a reality that I'm now coming to terms with.

Almost every post I have read today on LinkedIn has been about devs being impacted by the layoffs. Is saddening to see but it's not going to stop, if not I feel that there's still more to come, but that's the harsh reality.

Nearly every job board is full of either senior or director roles, obviously, a student such as myself would be pointless for me to apply. There is such a massive drought of junior positions, especially for design-related roles (level/game design to be specific). I've applied to what I can but the sheer volume of applicants must make life very hard for the recruiters so even getting a call back or email back is slim.

But how could all this be? The games industry is bigger than both the music and movie industries combined.

Unfortunately during Covid, with everyone stuck inside, companies mass hired within the industry due to the massive surge in the popularity of video games during this period. Now with everyone out and about, there's a smaller demand for video games to be played 24/7, so unfortunately these events were unavoidable, it was inevitable that there would be some pushback, but I never thought it would be this bad.

Now after going through a myriad of rejections, I'm sat in a very uncomfortable position. The jobs I want to get into now feel impossible to get to. Every day the daunting idea of graduating without a job that I feel passion for comes closer. Now I'm having to replan and look at my position. More than likely I might do a master's degree, to delay myself for another year and hope that the industry picks up next year or perhaps to start looking into other industries.

All that I can do is continue to work on my personal work and add to my portfolio, to further develop my skills. But all we can do is hope and wait for things to get better and for the industry to pick up.

It's an uncomfortable year for all of us, especially for those who were just made redundant, I can't even begin to imagine how hard everything must be and I truly hope everyone lands on their feet.

But I'm no industry expert and this is purely a perspective from someone looking into the industry with 0 (professional) industry experience. But I hope this adds some perspective.

Thank you for reading.