| Hi everyone, it's Jason Schreier. Earlier this year, Google announced that it was ending internal software development for its Stadia video game platform, shutting down offices in Los Angeles and Montreal. A few weeks later, game studio V1 Interactive closed. Two weeks after that, the publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. eliminated dozens of employees.
All together, the video game industry has shed hundreds of jobs since the beginning of the year. At first glance, it may seem like economic consequences of recalibrating after a deadly pandemic. But the video game industry is richer than it's ever been, estimated to have brought in a whopping $180 billion in revenue last year, according to IDC data, far surpassing the global film business.
In fact, in games, instability is the norm. The industry is constantly beset by studio closures and mass layoffs. A 2017 survey by the International Game Developers Association found that game workers had an average of 2.2 employers in the previous five years.
Over the years, well-regarded companies like Telltale Games (maker of The Walking Dead), Carbine Studios (WildStar) and Capcom Vancouver (Dead Rising) have abruptly closed. Sometimes, as with Telltale, there was no warning or severance, leaving some employees stranded and broke. Derek Wilks, an artist who had started at Telltale just three months before it closed, told me he was only able to make it back home to Kentucky by raising money from benevolent gamers on Twitter. He and his wife were able to bring in around $500, enough for two one-way plane tickets. They then moved back in with his family.
In reporting my new book, Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, I found that the upheaval was often rooted in executive mismanagement. One game company might be saddled with a failed project that it never wanted to make. Another might fold because the corporation that owns it has decided it no longer wants to develop video games. Others might be the victim of shifting priorities and board room shenanigans. There are also cases when a studio may close even when things appear to be going well. The Boston-based Irrational Games, creator of one of the video game industry's most popular franchises, shut down just one year after releasing BioShock Infinite because creative director Ken Levine wanted to do something smaller. Curt Schilling's 38 Studios suddenly closed after taking a $75 million loan guarantee from Rhode Island. Employees, wooed by lavish perks, had thought the company was flush with cash, not realizing that it was burning through millions of dollars a month. Job cuts are a cold reality of the video game industry, which lacks protections for its workers. There are potential solutions to fix this volatility. Further adoption of remote work after the pandemic could help people find new jobs without having to uproot their families for new cities. Unions, which don't exist in the North American video game industry, could offer protection for workers and guarantee severance during mass layoffs and closures. But it remains to be seen how flexible companies will be on remote work or how successful a long-running union push will ever be. In the meantime, especially in a year that will likely see some kind of drop off in gaming as other activities resume, volatility is likely to continue. —Jason Schreier | 
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