The first quarter of 2024 saw massive layoffs in the gaming industry, after more than 10,000 jobs were cut globally in 2023.
The gaming industry is dying | More layoffs in 2024 than in all of 2023
We're halfway through the year and the damage done is staggering.
By the end of June, global gaming layoffs for 2024 were fully higher than last year. The first quarter did see more significant layoffs at high-profile companies, including Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard and Unity Software, which each cut nearly 2,000 jobs, followed by layoffs in the high hundreds at Sony’s PlayStation, EA, Tencent’s Riot Games and another 500 at Amazon subsidiary Twitch.
But Q2 didn’t dispel the notion that these layoffs were the latest pitfall to come after the industry’s publicly traded leaders sorted out their budgets for the year. The second quarter saw Take-Two Interactive slash more than 600 positions in the third wave of layoffs in the past year, the result of intense cost-cutting as the publishing group prepares “Grand Theft Auto 6” for the finish line.
