The GDC's 2025 State of the Game Industry report reveals a grim outlook for game developers, with 11% job loss and significant layoffs expected. Live service games, despite previous failures, remain popular, with 33% of AAA developers currently involved. However, 41% of all developers express reluctance towards this model. Conversely, there’s notable growth in PC game development, attributed partly to the Steam Deck. Additionally, while executives favor AI's potential, developers report a negative impact, with 30% viewing AI as detrimental to the industry, marking a rise in concerns from the previous year.
It's a challenging time to be a developer these days, according to GDC's 2025 State of the Game Industry report that surveyed over 3,000 game devs and industry professionals. In one of the worst years ever for game industry job losses, 11 percent of developers said they were let go from their positions in 2024 and 29 percent observed direct colleagues being laid off.
Meanwhile, live service games appear to be here to stay, despite the spectacular flameout of Concordand the axing of several Sony projects. One-third of AAA developers said they're currently working on live service games (GaaS), with 16 percent across the entire developer base working on such titles.
One encouraging upward trend is in PC games, where 80 percent of developers reported that they were working - up massively from 66 percent last year. That could be due in part to Valve's Steam deck, as 44 percent of devs said they were interested in working specifically on that platform.
Finally, while gaming execs seem to love the potential for AI in gaming, developers hate it, with 30 percent saying it's having a negative impact on the industry - up 12 percent from last year.
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