The Four Horsemen of the Video Game Industry, Part 1.
Part 1: Is this the time to jump from the Gaming Industry?
“Those are Rookie Numbers.”
Matthew McConaughey as Mark Hanna
The Wolf of Wall Street
The bigwigs of the industry love breaking records. In this case we went from 8,500 layoffs in the video game industry in 2022, to nearly 12,000 in 2023, and are on track to break the record again in 2024 with staggering job losses as we hit July. I think there is an argument to say the industry is being gutted of talent, and we will see a creative drain worse than any previous cycle.
I love video games, and I always have. When I grow up, I want to keep this love strong and alive. I want to do what I love for work. And, for the better part of my life, I’ve been blessed to be able to work in gaming. But, as I navigate my unemployment, I began thinking about the importance of tribes and if, in light of the data, it wouldn’t be a good time to finally extract myself from video game tribe.
From there I started thinking about the characteristics, blessings and curses, of the video game industry that keeps me coming back, despite an (often) unwelcoming environment. I have named these the Four Horsemen of the game industry because it’s kinda catchy, and because I’m on the cusp of deciding if they will bring my time in video games to an end. Still, I think everyone can mark their professional or educational journey to some version of their very own Four Horsemen.
For me, it shook out something like this:
The White Horseman blinds you with Treasure
The Black Horseman exemplifies Endurance
The Pale Horseman resolves to Antipathy
The Red Horseman flares with Resentment
Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb
So first, the black pill.
We start with a tale as old as time, one that has seen far too much use throughout history as economies and industries rise and fall.
Like many, I have been impacted by the downturn in the game industry. It’s only been a few months, so based compared to others, I’m doing pretty well. I apply for dozens of roles a week. I’ve heard back from 4, still without getting past 1st bases (the recruiter call). I am far from alone in saying, “it could be worse.”
Still, that phrase gets knocked down a peg each time the bills come due while staring down a barren inbox day after day. No amount of handcrafting resumes or cover letters, or research into companies, is going to help when the ATS’s are backlogged so badly no one seems to get through!
Though the overall economic picture may look good, this is not yet reflected much in the video game industry. Despite trying his best to sprinkle in good news, the reality of the data collected by Amir Satvat and his amazing team (a team that spends way too much of their time supporting us out of work professionals via his website amirsatvat.com, LinkedIn, and Discord) is a hard pill to swallow. Things look bad until the end of the year, then they look a little less bad.
Good news is good news, right? The trend might be changing, and we start seeing our way out of the nosedive sometime near the end of the year, but for many people, that’s a long way a way. That’s mortgage payments, tuition, school clothes and lunches. Unfortunately, debt doesn’t disappear or diminish at the same rate as income.
Using slightly old data (Amir keeps on top of this pretty regularly so it often changes) there is a ~5.5% chance of any one person getting any particular job. Not only that, but could be as many as 10x the number of people looking for jobs as there are actual jobs! This can skew pretty far, as some disciplines are always in higher demand than others.
Sure, some companies have always used very aggressive filters for screening candidates, but in this day and age every company is scrambling to find a way to hold off the deluge of applicants and filters are common. Using LinkedIn premium, I can see hundreds and hundreds of applicants applying for any one job in my discipline. AI filtering is now even more of a necessity to help cope with the flood of people champing at the bit for each and every job posting.
On top of that, I’d say perhaps half have sent me a “Your submission was received,” reply. I’m getting ghosted by Applicant Tracking Systems before I even have the privilege to get ghosted by a recruiter or hiring manager!
Of course, the best way to get past the filters and AI is to know someone on the inside who can shuttle your resume to the right place, but even that is a disappearing reality as companies are not keeping their job postings “fresh” and there are often roles which are not hiring or roles which are posted just to give the illusion of growth. A CBS News investigation found serious issues with how companies are using job postings, sometimes just to troll for resumes.
In light of the current state of video games, I started thinking about my options. I spent some good years outside the industry, maybe it is time to abandon gaming as a career. Heck, I cut my teeth on traditional software! There must be some industry who needs team leaders and can benefit from my experience with shipping complex technical programs.
This got me thinking about “tribes,” the people like you that you want to band together with for some purpose. This could be a bowling league or a fantasy sports league, table-top game, people who love the same things you do and can talk about them till the wee hours of the morning.
Boring Background
I have always been a gamer. Ever since I hooked my first Radio Shack Pong Clone up to a tiny black and white TV, I wanted to be part of making games more than anything else I could think of… except be an astronaut, or maybe a fighter pilot. Those would have been cool too. Nearly every step I’ve taken personally and professionally has pushed me in the direction of making games. And, dammit, I made it!
Still, there was a time this looked in doubt. Many moons ago, I was working as a Test Engineer on an Operating System. This was just after the game EverQuest (EQ) had come out but, aside from some online friends, no one I interacted with on a daily basis cared about video games, much less this new thing… a 3D MMO? Who cares? But for me, it was all consuming. I spent hours on the (still newish) internet learning as much as I could about the game.
One day I happened to run into a kindred spirit, to protect their identity, let’s call them “Cory.” Cory and I would meet up in the break room and start talking about EQ and our latest adventures.
Inevitably, someone who had no clue what they were missing out on would wander in to grab a soda or coffee, overhear us, and scowl. After all, they were serious software people making serious software, in a building dedicated to making said serious software. They ain’t got no time for this!
That was the first time I really understood what it meant to have a tribe. Fortunately, I was able to break into the industry shortly after. After that, it was harder to find people who didn’t share the same excitement in these things as I did. Most people who find their place in the world understand that feeling. The people you meet and conversations you have become fixtures in your memories.
It was an embarrassment of riches that, as tends to happen with human nature, I eventually began taking for granted. I had found my people, but somewhere the magic turned into a job and I fell out of sync and I could no longer identify with a tribe.
Then, error of errors: I left the industry. I would work in learning and medical stuff, dabbling with VR (not games!). Among other mistakes, I began to realize how much I missed my tribe. It became nearly a physical pain, bottling up all the interesting things I wanted to discuss at a depth and length most people around me likely wouldn’t understand or appreciate. Sure, there were gamers, but it can be difficult to discuss the art and science of games now that I’d seen how the sausage was made. I wasn’t as happy to limit the discussion to the surface level, I wanted a feast!
Now the itch to leave gets especially strong. But is it the right move in the long run?
In addition to all the other noise in gaming right now, there are things I have taken to calling my Four Horsemen. Many new graduates, those summer children, will look at these and say “That’s awesome!”. Many professionals will recognize some of their own fears and insecurities lurking under these hooves, even if they choose to brush it away as “the dubious honor of working in games.” Of course, this is not the same for all people, and I am sure other folks can come up with their own Horsemen, but these are the bogeymen who have followed me and my friends for a long time.
Let’s discuss in Part 2.