Talk:2023–2024 video game industry layoffs

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Date	Process	Result
March 6, 2024	Articles for deletion	Kept

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"The Video Game Industry Is More Successful Than Ever. Why Are the Workers Treated Like Garbage?". Slate. July 30, 2024. The cycles of M&A and subsequent cuts and closures have escalated so profoundly over the past few years ... that Wikipedia has a stand-alone article covering the nearly 21,000 jobs that the gaming sector shed from just the beginning of 2023 up through now.

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Scope

Two things to consider:

It seems the 2024 layoffs may be a continuation of layoffs in 2023. It depends on how sources describe it, but it may be worth expanding the scope to extend from 2023-2024 if sources consider it one event.
Game industry layoffs may be a part of broader tech sector layoffs. I read some articles that described it as such. Consider exploring that angle.

TarkusAB^talk/contrib 07:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the suggestions! I've made the change from "layoofs started in 2023" to "layoffs began to escalate in 2023.". I will research to determine if there is a connection between tech layoffs and gaming layoffs. Thanks again! Ryan York (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If they started in 2023, maybe move the article to 2023–2024 video game industry layoffs TarkusAB^talk/contrib 23:42, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Embracer's $2B deal that fell through needs to be added here. That was a major catalyst within Embracer's studios but has had reverbating effects from there. --Masem (t) 01:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've mentioned it a couple of times in the "Major Layoffs" section, but I can also mention it in the "Causes" section as well? Ryan York (talk) 18:56, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it needs to be as a cause, but I would include it under Mergers + Acquisitions since it was Embracer banking on the $2B deal that accounted for their earlier acquisitions. Masem (t) 20:21, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thank you! Ryan York (talk) 20:35, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, the scope should be expanded. It's definitely not just the video game industry that is being affected by layoffs. Ixfd64 (talk) 01:47, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NFT gaming

Another reason to add to the article is NTF gaming. Lots of companies, famous and others created just for the occasion, invested into crypto/NFT to create Web3 Games. 99% failed, and lots of layoffs occurred due to this. Lots of companies closed, lots of investors just decided to avoid the videogames industry thinking of the NFT bubble. Liderangel (talk) 18:07, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

None of these layoffs gave anything to do with the failure if NFT. That happened earlier, and has only a minor hiccup across gaming space — Masem (t) 19:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but not directly. My point goes towards investors. Lots of financial investors decided to straight up avoid the videogames industry due to their experience with NFT gaming.

There's also a point to be made about publishers that invested into the NFT ecosystem, lost a lot of money and could never recover. Those things eventually lead, indirectly, to layoffs since money was running low. Liderangel (talk) 21:32, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thing is we need to have sources for this, and I've not seen any in connection to these layoffs. Most of the fallout from trying to dip into NFT aspects were in 2021-2022, and the amount of impact on the industry as a whole that had was very low, compared to the 10k+ numbers here. Masem (t) 04:34, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Starting to get into OR territory now

Listing every studio closure or staff reduction this far after the events that initiated this is likely too much detail. We should only be including layoffs that are considered to be part of the larger loss of jobs from across the end of 2023 and early 2024. Otherwise, this is becoming too much original research. — Masem (t) 01:40, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I removed some of the layoff announcements. I removed the ones with fewer than 100 layoffs and also cleaned up the list of studio closures, keeping only those with a Wikipedia page Ryan York (talk) 05:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]