Games Journalism is like fewer than 40 people now. Magazines are basically gone and websites are close behind them. None of this is a surprise to me, but it’s incredibly sad. We had something awesome for a while there. Younger generations have no idea what they missed out on.
As a longtime fan of Computer Gaming World, which I would argue was one of the greatest magazines ever published, I could not agree more. In absolutely related news, we’re informed of the game industry’s darkest hour since the Video Game Crash of 1983:
The movers and shakers of the video game industry will gather Thursday in Los Angeles to celebrate the annual Game Awards, the sector’s equivalent of the Oscars. But no amount of glitz and glamour can put a sheen on what has been one of the worst years in the industry’s history, marked by waves of layoffs and studio closures.
“Game industry continues to be just incredibly bleak behind the scenes,” Mike Bithell, who heads a small British studio, posted on the Bluesky social network this month. “Ecosystem is in free fall. Doubt there’ll be an easy solution, or a quick one. This darkest hour has dragged out to a darkest couple of years.”
At least 14,500 people in the sector were laid off worldwide in 2024, up from 10,500 in 2023, according to the Game Industry Layoffs website. Many studios have also closed their doors. In recent months, French giant Ubisoft announced it would close its branches in San Francisco and Osaka. Sony-owned U.S. studio Firewalk — behind this year’s spectacular flop “Concord” — met a similar fate in October.
The fact that the financialization of the industry led to its complete failure, and that its convergence led to its inability to perform its core function, is not even remotely surprising. The suits were bad enough in the late 1990s; I remember GT Interactive’s vice-president – and eventual Atari president – once calling me tell me that he didn’t like the color of the laser bolts in an early demo of Rebel Moon Revolution.
“Harry,” I said. “You’re a lawyer. First, we’re working on the 3D engine now, so we made the lasers bright pink and bright green so it’s easy to see where they go. Second, you’re a freaking lawyer! Leave the game development to the game developers.”
But the invasion of women and other status-seekers, who were chasing the cachet of being in the entertainment industry as well as the high-paying jobs available in game dev, really sunk the ship. They were more concerned with story and characterizations than gameplay, and once the social justice movement got started, representation and inclusivity and diversity and every form of sexual insanity. I flat-out quit playing new games; I haven’t paid any attention to a mainstream game in years and I’m very, very far from alone.
The good news is that the independent game industry is alive, well, and thriving. It’s actually rather reminiscent of the late ’80s and early ’90s when it was possible to develop a successful game with a small team of 2-to-10 serious and motivated gamers. #GamerGate won, in the end, but it has been a costly victory indeed.