The State of the Game Industry is bad

Informa Group, as part of the leadup to GDC in March, has released their 2026 State of the Game Industry report. They surveyed 2,300 industry professionals on everything from studio size to demographics to generative AI to layoffs. And it's ugly.

Let's start with layoffs. Worldwide, 17% reported being laid off in the last year and another 11% said they were laid off the year before that. That's a little over 25% — 1 in 4 respondents. The number jumps to 1-in-3 for US-based answers.

Half of the people who responded said their companies had laid people off in the last year. For AAA studios, that number jumps to over 65%. Who is getting laid off isn't evenly distributed:

Game designers (including narrative) reported the highest percentage of layoffs within the past 12 months (20%), and those working in business operations and services said they experienced the least (8%). Of those who’ve experienced a layoff, almost half (48%) said they haven’t found another job yet. This includes 36% of game industry professionals who were laid off 1 to 2 years ago.

Informa Group had questions for educators and students (about 100 people) to get a sense of their outlook on the industry's future. And it is also bad. When asked, "Do you expect the current economic and industry climate to have an impact on the placement rate of your students into the game industry?," 60% said yes.

One teacher said, "Most of my students will not have a career in game development," while one student put it more bluntly:

There aren’t any jobs. Everyone’s getting fired. It’s fucked.

Uncertainty isn't the only alarming thing in the report. Almost 90% of full-time employees reported working more than 44 hours per week. About half of them said they work 50 hours a week on average. Almost 20% of respondents said they've had to put in at least one 60+ hour week in the last year.

While only about 10% of people were in an industry union, almost 90% of people making less than $200,000 per year support unionization efforts. Same for people who'd been laid off in the last 12 months. Same again for people younger than 45. "In fact, there were zero 18 to 24-year-olds opposed to unionization."

The US's current political climate (which is, in a word, fucked) is also impacting the industry. Two-thirds of the respondents said they have cancelled or are reconsidering travel to the US due to "current immigration of gender identity policies." About 60% said that current immigration policies have impacted their ability or desire to work with US-based companies. Similarly, almost 40% of executives and other high-level professionals said that Trump's tariffs are impacting their expenses, revenue, or financial decisions.

In one bit of good news from the report, only about one-third of people reported using generative AI as part of their jobs and a little over half thought that generative AI is having a negative effect on the industry. Creative roles like the technical arts, design and narration, and programming had the lowest opinion of generative AI. Unsurprisingly, those in upper management used AI more than actual workers.