Industry Retrenchment And Restructuring

Despite three straight years of industry growth, a new record high for revenues, and a smattering of new hits each year, private funding for gamemakers fell another 55% in 2025

Major gamemakers continued to whittle their portfolios, cancelling even more of their pipeline in 2025 and shutting down scores of still-operating titles

EA cancelled Black Panther and shut down Cliffhanger Games as part of sharpening focus and putting creative energy behind significant growth opportunities

Amazon Games was gutted amid 14,000 layoffs with work on first-party games and MMOs scaled back

Ubisoft cancelled 6 games, including Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake

A new Titanfall game was actually real but was cancelled

With budgets cut and funding scant, layoffs continued. 2025 was 40% lighter than 2024, but the year still saw some 9,200 losses and brought the four-year total to nearly 44,000

2022, 2023, and 2024 each set new all-time highs for reported layoffs in the video game industry

Hiring has returned in the video game industry with ASGC tracking over 13,000 open postings at the end of 2025

California represented 43% of gaming layoffs from 2022-2025

Private studio and publisher funding fell another 55%+ by dollars and deal counts

Another 9,000+ layoffs occurred following 35,000 from 2022-2024

Even more games and studios were cut outright or had budgets trimmed

The video gaming industry continued its restructuring and retreat despite revenue growth