GDC Survey: 41% of devs affected by layoffs in 2024One in ten respondents were laid off last year, with roles in game narrative being the most affected at 19%Image credit: GDC News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Jan. 21, 2025 The Game Developers Conference released its annual State of Games Industry survey today, which found that one in ten developers were laid off in 2024. Overall, 41% of developers were impacted by layoffs last year compared to 35% in 2023.In partnership with market intelligence firm Omdia and Game Developer, the GDC State of Games Industry report surveyed over 3,000 developers on their experiences of current conditions affecting the industry. These include layoffs, job roles, which platforms they're using, working hours, and generative AI.Going back to layoffs, 29% of respondents saw their direct colleagues affected by redundancy than staff in other teams and departments, which was 18%.The majority of those surveyed cited restructuring, declining revenue, and marketing shifts as the main reason for layoffs.GDC asked developers why they thought layoffs continue to affect the industry, with many placing "the blame on specific issues like Covid-era overexpansion, rising production costs, declining player interest, unrealistic expectations for the 'next big hit', poor leadership and mismanagement."While union support among developers remained relatively unchanged during the ongoing wave of layoffs, one-fifth of developers said they'd talked about unionising over the past 12 months. 29% said their companies were supportive of these talks, while 19% were mixed and 12% opposed.19% of game narrative devs surveyed were laid off in 2024The job role most affected by redundancies in 2024 was in game narrative at 19%, despite this segment seeing the most year-on-year growth from 14% in 2024 to 17% today.There was a decrease in developers working for AAA studios, dropping from 18% to 15%. Of that percentage, almost half of developers work at studios with over 250 employees. In comparison, over half of indie developers work for studios with 20 staff or fewer.The majority of developers continue to work 40 hours or less per week, though this has dropped from 64% last year to 57%.13% of those surveyed are working more than 51 hours per week on average, compared to 8% in 2024. When asked why, two-thirds of developers said it was due to self-pressure a slight decrease from 71% last year.Looking at platforms, PC dominated the year with 80% of developers making games for the platform up from 66% the previous year.GDC suggested that this increase could be attributed to the rise in popularity of the Steam Deck, even though it didn't single out the device as its own platform in its survey. When respondents were asked to name other platforms that interest them, almost half said the Steam Deck.As for consoles, PlayStation 5 came out on top with 37% of developers focusing on projects on the PS5 or PS5 Pro compared to 33% for the Xbox Series X|S.80% of devs are working on projects for PC, compared to 66% in 2023However, Xbox outperformed PlayStation in cloud services. 13% of respondents are making games for Xbox Game Pass, with 9% focusing on PS Plus (Extra or Premium).Mobile development increased for the first time since 2020 with 29% of developers in the process of making games for Android and iOS.Surprisingly, web browser development saw a significant jump in interest with 16% of those surveyed working on these games, up 9% from last year.Elsewhere, live-service games were a major topic of conversation with developers being asked whether this genre was worth the risk in light of titles such as Concord, Anthem, and Redfall being taken offline.42% of developers said they weren't interested in developing a live-service game, and there were mixed opinions on the segment as a whole."Many respondents said they saw value in live-service not only on the financial side, but also in player experience and community building," GDC found. "Others noted their concerns about declining player interest, creative stagnation, predatory practices and microtransactions, and the risk of developer burnout."Another issue was the risk of market oversaturation, with developers noting "how tough it is to break through and build a sustainable player base" with the live-service model.