Games industry hiring "velocity trending upward" after 6,000 layoffs in early 2024

The games industry is beginning to hire as many people as it’s laying off as of January 2025. 

That's according to games job expert Amir Satvat's LinkedIn post and reported by VentureBeat. Satvat's research shows that although layoffs were at their worst in early 2024, with over 6,000 in a single quarter, that number has been below 700 since Q4 2024. 

“For a while, I’ve said I hoped we would hit breakeven, where six-week trailing hiring outpaces six-week trailing layoffs,” Satvat wrote. “Initially, I predicted this for 12/2024, then adjusted it to 1/2025. I now believe we reached breakeven this month. That doesn’t mean it’s permanent, but hiring velocity is trending upward.”

Amir Satvat tracks job trends in gaming by monitoring how long roles stay open, move, and close in his jobs workbook. He’s also been working to estimate the number of people employed in core game development and publishing worldwide.

So how was the data pulled?

“To answer this, I took a bottom-up approach, analysing 3,100 companies in our games jobs workbook and estimating employee counts based on the best available data. I also ran a median and statistical distribution analysis to estimate what percentage of employees at a given studio size typically hold open roles,” wrote Satvat.

Satvat estimates that there are around 243,000 direct employees in the video game industry worldwide, though other figures suggest 300,000 - 350,000, including indirect jobs. He tracks 3,100 companies and finds that, on average, 3.2% of their workforce consists of open roles.  

Currently, about 13,500 people are hired annually in core game development, far fewer than the 25,000 annual hires seen during COVID. With 35,000 laid-off workers, new graduates, and career switchers all competing for limited jobs, breaking into the industry remains highly competitive.

“Pulling it all together: I anticipate around 10,000 layoffs in 2025. But if hiring velocity stays above that - an entirely achievable outcome - 2025 could be a net positive year for hiring, even if only slightly,” said Satvat. 

Satvat posts valuable game and job resources, which can be found here.