OPINION
If we have more game studios than the industry can support, then we also have more people who want to make games than the industry can support. And game developer training programs are probably not helping.
Catching up:
INTRO
In a recent article I talked about how the game industry can only support a certain number of games, or game studios. That shouldn’t be controversial because it’s just math. Games cost money to make. Players have only so much time and money. Divide spend by games and that is revenue. If revenue is too low then the studio goes out of business.
Yes, that’s a simplification. There are studios of different sizes, and games make different amounts of money. A tiny game can make a lot of money, and visa versa. But it doesn’t matter if the spend distribution is statistically uniform, proportional to game size (amount of content), or something more complex.
The hard reality is that there is only so much revenue to go around and some games/studios just won’t earn enough.
MORE KNOCK-ON CONSEQUENCES
I’ve also written about how layoffs are a bitter medicine that should bring the number of studios closer to a supportable level. Layoffs suck, but if there is only enough revenue for, say, 100 games (studios), then that’s what can be supported.
The logical follow on to the concept of a limited number of studios is that we can only fund jobs in those studios. Everyone else will need to support themselves in other ways, at least until the industry revenue grows/recovers.
Recently I saw an article saying that we’ve lost 15,000 jobs in the game industry in the past 18 months. Another said that in 2023 about one third of game developers were either laid off or new someone who was.
But if the number of studios and games the industry can support is less than our recent peak then some of those jobs will never come back, unless:
Industry revenue increases enough for sustainable support
We have another boom to hire people that we’ll eventually lay off again
A LEAKY BUCKET
Folks who have been in the industry for a while know that there is a natural transition of game developers into other industries for many reasons beyond the scope of this article, but an industry career half-life of 6.9 years was reported in this article. The current layoffs will likely result in an acceleration of that transition lifecycle, at least for a while.
It is notably difficult to get a foothold in game development, even with that natural attrition rate. The leaky bucket of industry employment has always been fed by people who want in, and the stream has more recently included graduates of degree programs with a focus on game development.
OVERPRODUCTION
If game development training programs are creating more jobs than are available then the excess graduates may never have a job in the industry.
This has occurred in other disciplines. Twenty-five years ago I had occasion to research this issue for my own academic career path (psychophysics and mathematical modeling of human visual perception).
Consider the discipline of philosophy. IIRC, twenty-five years ago there was one tenure track job in a philosophy department in the entire US. Yes, you read that right: one job. But universities across the country continued awarding PHDs to folks who expected to get a job in the field. Why? Because programs must have students, and prestigious programs have graduate students.
The same issue was rampant in the neurophysiology domain. Programs were producing PHD candidates because labs needed post-docs, but there was never going to be enough tenure track or research leadership positions to meet the career goals of those folks. Most were doomed to be lab rats with long hours and low pay.
If you were not already aware, the job title “post doctoral fellow” translates to “slave labor” in most modern languages, not just Klingon.
FYI, the result of that investigation is one reason that I mic-dropped academia and started working for tech startups.
ONE SPECIFIC DATA POINT
Looking at some data from a well known institution with game development degree programs, we do see evidence of overproduction.
Within the degree programs of Game Design, Game Development, Computer Animation, and Computer Science at <NAME REDACTED> we have the following aggregate numbers for between the Fall of 2018 through the Spring of 2022.
Note: not all time periods are reported for all disciplines, so I pooled data. These data are their own, self-reported statistics and may not be complete.
2569 total students enrolled (began a program)
1253 graduates within 150% of the expected program duration
1114 available to work (subtracting continued educational paths, disabled, deaths, etc.)
470 became employed within their chosen field (film, game development, etc.)
Those numbers are not great, and they are not all necessarily going to the game industry — there are also film programs.
On the OMFG side, the graduation rate was only 53%. Worse, only 18% of the people who enrolled in these programs obtained a job in the industry of choice.
We’ll save discussion of the accrued school loan debt for another time.
Here is the overproduction evidence: only 43% of graduates available for work were employed in their chosen field. Stated differently, there were 2.37 applicants generated for every job obtained. And that was from just one institution.
Here is more evidence: the program with the largest initial enrollment in any one year was the online (vs on campus) Bachelors of Game Design — a 29 month program. Out of 1015 students from the fall of 2018, 383 graduated (38%). Of the 344 graduates available for work, only 121 found employment in their chosen field (35%).
Presumably, hopefully, the others took jobs doing something else.
MORE DATA
Another source provides data on degrees awarded in Game and Interactive Media Design. Here is an attractive graphic of where degrees were awarded in 2022 (the most recent data available). This is a great breakdown, and shows how widespread training in game development skills has grown.
I can’t vouch for the completeness of the data, and it looks like only the United states is represented. I also don’t know if we could determine how many are landing in the game industry, film, or elsewhere.
The graph below is created using data from the same site and shows the number of degrees awarded per year. That peaked in 2020 and is now declining (data only through 2022).
The graph includes
Estimated *Placements based on the 43% rate from <NAME REDACTED> above (assuming they all went to the game industry, which is not likely)
Estimates of how many people were still in the industry by 2022 based on the game industry career half-life of 6.9 years
The data totals over the range 2012-2022 are:
25966 graduates
11165 estimated placements
7027 estimated to still be working in games in 2022
These numbers are for the US alone, and only for those disciplines that fall under the category of “Game and Interactive Media Design”. Other institutions and other disciplines may have a better placement rate, although surely some of these folks are going to other industries.
OUTRO
I avoid naming and shaming <NAME REDACTED>. It is possible that graduates from this school were just ill-prepared. This is a private, for-profit institution, a category that often struggles to do right by their students.
Numbers for other institutions, especially non-profits, may be better. But <NAME REDACTED> is well known in our industry, reasonably respected, and focused on training people in entertainment disciplines. I would hope that placement rates are good.
And then there are people like me and others I know (us old fogeys) who did not follow the modern path of an industry specific degree program but still landed a job.
It is inevitable that society will train more people for a desirable discipline than can actually be employed. The movie industry is a prime example. Training programs creating more applicants than available jobs make things worse, except perhaps as inflow to the leaky bucket that replaces people who opt out of the industry.
The harder truth is that, if the number of studios and games the industry can support is less than our recent peak, some of the 15,000 lost jobs over the past 18 months may never come back. At least not until revenue grows or the industry goes into another unsustainable boom.
And many of those who lost their job may not even try to come back.
RESOURCES
From Eurogamer: Approximately one third of game developers were affected by layoffs last year
From Eurogamer: International Game Developers Association calls for studio leaders to do more to protect jobs
Interesting stats from Game and Interactive Media Design
Game industry career lengths reported in Games Industry.biz
<NAME REDACTED> graduation and employment statistics