Game hiring was starting to look like it was getting better in the second half of the year. But Amir Satvat, the job resource aggregator who knows this space, said that it looks like hiring has slowed.
In a post on LinkedIn, Satvat said that the number of available roles has declined more than anticipated, dropping from 14,691 to 12,666 over the last three months. While some of this is due to roles being filled, Satvat’s estimates indicate that a significant portion is also due to a slowdown in hiring.
Part of the shift has been clear. Last week, Microsoft announced it would lay off another 650 employees across the Xbox division. That comes after the company laid off 1,900 people earlier in the year. Other recent job cuts (on Game Industry Layoff Tracker) include six at Evening Star, 25 at Annapurna Interactive, 139 at Lost Boys Interactive, and 90 at Tilting Point — all since the start of September.
“Due to this shift, I’ve had to adjust my estimate for when the trailing 60-day hiring will exceed the 60-day cuts, moving the breakeven point from the end of October 2024 to the end of December 2024,” Satvat said. “If there’s further deterioration in available jobs or additional large-scale cuts, this could push the turnaround from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025. However, for now, I remain hopeful for the very end of Q4 2024.”
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Earlier in the year, the data looked like the crossover would happen in September 2024. Overall, the worldwide game job numbers are fuzzy, but Satvat believes it is around 300,000 or so. He is trying to come up with the most accurate data on the worldwide game job market.
In the meantime, Satvat has updated his list of resources to help people get jobs via AmirSatvat.com. Satvat keeps a list of all available games in the industry, with information updated for thousands of game companies.
In his most recent revision, Satvat said he undertook an extensive review to remove organizations without active career links, those with dead links, or those that hadn’t posted a role in over a year. As a result of these changes, the number of games companies listed has decreased from 3,713 to 3,137. Out of these 3,137 companies, 1,024 are currently hiring.
Satvat will help us sort through the game job market on a panel at GamesBeat Next, our next game business event happening on October 28-29 in San Francisco. Satvat has given out free codes for the event. And you can use this code for a 25% discount: gbn24dean.
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