The Gaming Industry Truly Is Shrinking

(Sucker Punch Productions Official Logo)

It doesn't matter what company you work for, gaming companies are rapidly cutting staff by the second. 

Yesterday, Sucker Punch Productions announced they laid off some of their team. Sucker Punch Productions is well known for being the creators of the Sly Cooper series and the Infamous series. It's mournful to see this news occur, but Sucker Punch Productions isn't the only company that's been affected in the Gaming Industry. 

In the beginning of 2013, THQ dismembered. THQ was the talent behind many popular game series such as Homefront, Saints Row, and Darksiders. When the company filed for bankruptcy, they ended up auctioning their game series to other companies. When Naughty Dog founder Jason Rubin left to become the President at THQ in 2012, nobody predicted that the following year the whole company would sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Just a month ago, staff at Crytek USA were just another group of employees to lose their jobs. While the company did not shut down, the "bulk" of the staff was cut at Crytek USA following the sale of Homefront to Deep Silver. Crytek is mostly known for their game series Crysis and Far Cry. 

According to Gamespot, they gave a poll to over 2,200 developers about what developer or publisher they wish they could work for. The number one answer: Valve. While Valve is seen as a highly profitable company due to the success of Steam and their games, it's worth noting that they let go of 25 employees in 2013. You might be thinking, "But 25 people is not a big number?", then think again that's twenty five people/families that are not bringing that amount of income home now to pay for their bills. 

Thinking that any company is safe, is false. Looking at the gaming industry, it's getting harder to maintain a job. Like other entertainment companies, the teams who make games have to put out products that interest gamers. According to VGChartz, titles such as Infamous: Second Son (1.46 million copies sold), Darksiders 2 (1.71 million copies sold), and Crysis 3 (1.99 million copies sold) didn't sell a lot of copies. The reason being is that these games were not marketed good enough, or they didn't appeal to gamers. Sometimes, a gaming company thinks they have a marvelous idea, but instead the idea doesn't maintain that same level to the audience. When a gaming company doesn't make a profit, thus leads to problems at the studio. If these companies want to remain open, the gaming community has to be able to support them. If the support is not there, then what's been quickly occurring since 2006 is just going to continue.