On February 27, Sony announced it would lay off 900 people across its worldwide games business, affecting several games studios. Among them were Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, both of which had just released big, noteworthy titles–Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launched in October to audience and critical acclaim, while The Last of Us Part II Remastered dropped in January with an updated version that included new content. The Sony layoffs constituted some 8% of the people working in its games division.
On February 28, Electronic Arts announced it would lay off 670 people–5% of its workforce. In a statement to staff, CEO Andrew Wilson said EA is “moving away from development of future licensed IP [intellectual property] that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry.” In EA’s third-quarter earnings report released on January 30, Wilson was quoted as saying, “Our incredible teams delivered a strong Q3, entertaining hundreds of millions of people across our portfolio, driving deep engagement and record live services.”
Sony and EA constitute only recent examples of an enormous, widespread convulsion of layoffs throughout the games industry that began in 2023. A startling number of developers and publishers have made major staff reductions, including Epic Games, the many studios owned by the Embracer Group and by Microsoft, Take-Two Interactive, Amazon, Bungie, CD Projekt Red, Ubisoft, Riot Games, and Unity. In just the first two months of 2024, the games industry saw at least 8,100 people laid off, according to a running tally of announcements kept by a developer at Riot Games.