Over the past two years, one in four gaming industry workers have experienced a layoff, according to a new survey by GDC Festival of Gaming.
It’s no secret that the past few years have been challenging for workers in the gaming industry, with successive waves of layoffs forcing thousands of game developers to find new roles or leave the industry entirely. But new statistics revealed by GDC’s 2026 State of the Game Industry published today, January 29, highlight just how grim the situation has become. 28 percent of the survey’s over 2,300 survey respondents said they had been laid off at some point in the last two years.
“In the past couple of years, the industry has faced a lot of challenges, and there have been talks and hopes, or even promises, of a course correction,” said GDC content marketing manager and State of the Game Industry survey project lead Beth Elderkin in an interview with GamesBeat. “But we have not seen that yet.”
The 28 percent figure represents a significant uptick from GDC’s 2025 State of the Game Industry survey, which found that 10 percent of game developers had experienced a layoff in the year prior. This year’s survey found that half of respondents said that their current or most recent employer had conducted a layoff in the past 12 months, with layoffs more likely to occur at triple-A studios than at independent studios.
“In the past 12 months, 17 percent of our respondents reported experiencing a layoff, and then 11 percent reported experiencing one in the year prior, which does match with our 2025 data,” Elderkin said. “Combined, that means 28 percent of our respondents — and that increases to 33 percent, or one-third, for our U.S.-based respondents — have experienced a layoff in the past two years.”
There are a myriad of reasons for the gaming industry’s recent layoff woes, but industry-wide anxiety around tariffs and other political shifts have not helped improve the situation. GDC’s survey polled over 200 industry executives, investors and business and finance professionals about the impact of the tariffs, finding that 38 percent of respondents had said U.S.-based tariffs had impacted their expenses, revenue or financial decisions.
With job prospects continuing to shrink for both experienced and early career gaming industry workers, students of game development are exceedingly pessimistic about the future of the industry, according to the GDC survey, which revealed that 74 percent of surveyed students (out of a smaller sample size of 50) were concerned about their future job opportunities in the gaming industry. Students responding to the survey blamed the lack of entry-level jobs, increased competition from more experienced laid-off workers and potential displacement by artificial intelligence as reasons for their negative outlooks.
“This really underscores one of our focuses this year,” said GDC conference director and head of content J. Ashley Corrigan in an interview with GamesBeat, “which is to increase the amount of career content that we have and have career content and special events that help with professional development opportunities for people of all levels of experience.”