Are Scattered Game Developers and Journalists Facing Similar Destinies?

A Birthday Wish for South Durham

I’m asking 100 neighbors to help raise $5,000 by Sept. 22 to expand independent local journalism through Southpoint Access.

Southpoint AccessWes Platt

Another week of mass layoffs in the video game industry brought back an old, unpleasant feeling. I've been here before. More than once.

I watched professional journalism begin to fracture as newspapers cut staff, closed bureaus, consolidated operations, and asked fewer people to do more work. I also experienced the instability of game development firsthand.

In 2010, I was laid off from my job working on Fallen Earth.

Years later, I helped create Knee Deep, a theatrical adventure game that earned positive reviews and found an appreciative audience. It didn't, however, become the financial success the studio needed. Eventually, I chose to leave.

One job ended in a layoff. The other ended with a voluntary departure. Both experiences taught me the same hard lesson: Good work isn't always enough to keep a creative business alive.

That's why the latest wave of video game industry layoffs feels like more than another bad week. It feels like part of a larger structural change, one that professional journalism has been living through for years.

Game development may be heading toward a future dominated by a small number of enormous companies at one end, and a scattered population of indie studios and solo developers at the other.

Journalism's already well along that road.