Conditions in the gaming industry remain difficult, and layoff rates were still high in 2025, although below the 2024 peak.
Amir Satvat, director of business development at Tencent Games, supports A widely used resource to help people find jobs in the gaming industryand for the past several years, it has been tracking and forecasting the number of layoffs. Crucially, he tries to include layoffs that haven't been publicly reported, and also uses his connections in the community to get real layoff numbers when companies report them without specifying the number of people affected.
At the time of writing, Satvat has come up with a figure of 9,175 layoffs in the gaming industry in 2025, which is slightly less than the 9,769 layoff forecast he made back in January. That's significantly less than the projected 15,631 layoffs in 2024, but still higher than the projected 8,500 layoffs in 2022, when the current gaming industry crisis hit.
Satvat predicts that we will see another 7,500 layoffs in 2026, indicating a slow recovery for the industry. However, he thinks that The share of job openings in North America and Western Europe will continue to decline.
Earlier this year he told The Games Business that “more than 70%, and in some years as much as 75%, of the layoffs occurred in North America,” with AAA studios particularly affected, and more than 50% of the layoffs occurring in California.
Likewise, survey published in October found that more than 26% of European games professionals were laid off last year, with average salaries falling sharply compared to 2024. “Wages for programmers—especially Unity developers—have dropped by almost half, mainly because there are almost no job openings,” said Tanya Loktionova, founder of Values Value and co-founder of InGame Job, the company that conducted the research. “There have been a lot of layoffs and very few new opportunities.”
Satvat predicts that while job opportunities will decrease in Western Europe and North America, they will increase in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. This matches the comments this year GamesIndustry.biz Investment panel Lirui Ding, director of gaming venture capital firm Transcend Fund, on the ongoing geographic shift in the gaming industry. “We do see a lot of money flowing out of the US and Europe into other emerging markets,” he explained, “be it China, Türkiye or even Vietnam.”
Chris Petrovich, chief commercial officer and chairman of developer and publisher FunPlus, made similar comments in A GamesIndustry.biz function in Decemberwhere he predicted that the industry would grow, but in different parts of the globe. “We used to talk a lot about game innovation, creativity and commercial success from countries like the US, Canada, Germany and Finland,” he said, “and now we're increasingly talking about new game development centers like China, Turkey, Israel and Vietnam.”
A year of layoffs
Several studios closed in 2025, including Interactive Toad, FreeJam, nDreams Studio Orbital and nDreams Studio, Fizbin Studio, owned by Thunderful, Developed by Specter Divide Mountaintop Studios, Echtra Games, owned by Zynga, Cobra Mobile based in Dundee, Microsoft-owned initiative, Avalanche Studios Group in Liverpool, Ubisoft Leamington, T-Minus Zero Entertainment, Fantastic pixel castleAnd Bad Brain Game Studio.
Reports also claimed that Ballistic Moon, the British developer behind the Before Dawn remake, was “effectively closed” after nearly all of its staff were laid off, while Aheartfulofgames, the Spanish studio behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed, said he was facing closure after the owner of Outright Games announced his intention to lay off all studio employees.
In addition, British studios Three fields of entertainment And Burst Damage both have launched redundancy consultations affecting all employees.
Dozens of studios are cutting staff in 2025, including:
As for the largest gaming companies, Tencent Games made a series of cuts and sales of its European studios. In February, Tencent-owned Sumo Group announced it will be a refocus “solely on partner development services” which will “have an impact on our studios and people.” This sold by Secret Mode publisher in March. In June, The Chinese Room, owned by Sumo, released small number of layoffs before revealing it would become independent.
In January, Splash Damage, acquired by Tencent in 2020, said: jobs are at risk after the cancellation of Transformers: Resume. In September, the studio said it was acquired by private investorsthen in November the entire studio was placed on consultation in anticipation of layoffs.
In October, Oslo-based Funcom, owned by Tencent and behind the open-world survival game Dune: Awakening, said it would be releasing job cuts as part of restructuring. And in November, Tencent-owned studio Sharkmob, which is working on sci-fi shooter Exoborne, said cuts jobs at its studio in Malmö.
NetEase studio Jar of Sparks said in January that it would be looking for a new publishing partner after NetEase stopped funding. “As we prepare for our next step, our talented team members will be exploring new opportunities,” said Founder and CEO Jerry Hook. Then in February, NetEase-backed studio Liquid Swords, founded by Christopher Sundberg, co-founder of Avalanche Studios, announced job cuts.
A few days later NetEase confirmed layoffs at the American Marvel Rivals support studio, hours before the reveal the game had 40 million players. NetEase also closed T-Minus Zero Entertainmentsold Fantastic pixel castle (which subsequently closed) and left Bad Brain Game Studiostudio, which she opened in 2023 and closed after she failed to find a new publisher.
Microsoft made several major job cuts in 2025. relatively small layoffs in January, the company announced Staff reduction by 3% in May. But The largest round of job cuts occurred in Julyaffecting approximately 9,000 people, or about 4% of Microsoft's employees, and causing major upheaval within Microsoft's gaming division. Affected studios included KingBlizzard, Turn 10Raven Software, ZeniMax Online Studios and The Initiative, the latter of which has closed.
Console competitor to Microsoft Sony also made cuts staff dismissal at the PlayStation Visual Arts and PS Studios Malaysia support studio, as well as initiation of layoffs at Bend Studio, the creator of Days Gone.
Unity implemented another round of cuts in Februaryafter losing about 1,800 jobs in January 2024, and Amazon announced huge layoffs of 14,000 people in October, which led to the cessation of work on the MMO New World.. IntelMeanwhile, layoffs were announced in April And July as part of cost-cutting measures.
Meta will fire a number of people in 2025, reduction of 5% of staff in Januaryand then doing further cuts to Reality Labs in April. But there could be bigger cuts in the future, after Bloomberg reported that Meta was allegedly planning will cut the budgets of its Reality Labs division by as much as 30% in 2026.
Netflix– own night school studio laid off an undisclosed number of employees in February and Craftonowned by Striking Distance Studios, behind the Callisto Protocol, made layoffs in March. Enix Squaremeanwhile implemented “fundamental restructuringin November, taking resources away from overseas development studios and putting more than 100 jobs at risk.
HuggerCompany-owned Crystal Dynamics cuts staff March, AugustAnd novemberto Introducing Tomb Raider: Catalyst at the Game Awards in December, published by Amazon. Additionally, Embracer Eidos Montreal, the studio behind Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, was allegedly affected by layoffs in Decemberafter previous round of cuts in March.
Ubisoft in 2025 there were many job cuts. made cuts at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and announced the closure of Ubisoft Leamington. Then in July it's announced 19 layoffs at the Tom Clancy: Ghost Recon Red Storm studio, followed by nine job losses in the publishing group in September. Finally, in October, he presented “restructuring proposal” for the Finnish studio RedLynx, which could take up to 60 positions, shortly before announcing plans propose voluntary redundancy for employees of its Swedish subsidiary Massive Entertainment.
advisor also cut a number of jobs this year, starting with EA's Respawn studio. cancellation of two “early stage” incubation projects and layoffs of developers from the Apex Legends and Star Wars: Jedi teams, resulting in approximately 100 layoffs. Same day EA announced another 200 job cutsmainly affecting the EA Experiences team. A day later, EA stated that it was “suspension of developmentseries of the World Rally Championship, which led to layoffs at Codemasters.
Finally, several layoffs occurred in studios owned by Take-Two Interactive. In August, 2K Games confirmed that it has “the size of the development team has been reduced“I’m working on BioShock 4, which is being developed by the Californian studio Cloud Chamber. Then in September 2K confirmed “downsizing” of staff at Firaxis, the developer of Civilization and XCOM.
But most controversially, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) accused Rockstar Games, owned by Take-Two, of undermining unions after the studio fired 31 employees who allegedly tried to unionize in late October. This step led to protests outside Rockstar office and sending letter condemning the layoffs, signed by 220 employees at Rockstar North. Rockstar disputes claims of union bustingsaying the employees were fired for gross misconduct after discussing “confidential information in a public forum.” However, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described layoffs as a “matter of deep concern” and said ministers would investigate.
