Game Developer Conference (GDC) organizer Informa has released the results of its annual State of the Games Industry survey. Some of it is truly devastating!

Gamesindustry has summarized the insights into the games industry. Topics included developer experiences and attitudes, layoffs, generative AI, unionization, and which engine and platform is being used for development. Informa conducted the survey in October in partnership with Omdia via Game Developer. More than 3,000 people took part, and the results show that news of cutbacks in the games industry reflects the personal experiences of developers.

35% of respondents were affected by the 2023 layoffs (7% personally, 17% a colleague, 11% within the company, affecting another department). Quality assurance was the hardest hit, with 22% being laid off last year. Meanwhile, only 2% of business and finance professionals said they had been made redundant. Pessimism is also widespread, with 56% of respondents at least somewhat concerned that people will still have to leave their jobs in 2024.

The proportion of people working an average of 40 hours a week has increased (62% last year, 64% this year), but so has support for unionization (from 53% to 57%) and opposition (from 13% to 12%). 5% of respondents are now members. Support is linked to age (72% of 18-24 year olds support it, with a decreasing proportion with increasing age: 25% of 65+ year olds). Among developers or their colleagues, 49% use generative AI (ChatGPT, Dall-E, GitHub Cpilot, Adobe Generative Fill) and another 15% are interested. For those who use it personally: 44% of business and finance professionals and 41% of community, marketing and PR professionals use the technology. Those least likely to use it are in QA (6%), storytelling and writing (13%), and audio (14%). 42% of respondents are very concerned about the ethics of using generative AI in games, 42% are somewhat concerned, and 12% are not concerned.

33%-33% use Unity and Unreal Engine, 14% work with in-house engines and 4% use the open source Godot. 7% have switched engines in the last year and 28% are considering it. 51% would switch from Unity or UE to Godot. (Unity announced runtime fees around the time of the survey).

Oh, and 8% of respondents are working on a successor to the Nintendo Switch, and 32% are interested. (PC led with 62% interest, PlayStation 5 scored 41%.)

Source: Gamesindustry, VGC