As the trend of layoffs and cancellations continues, with acquisitions changing the landscape in the background, 2024 stands as a crucial time.
Layoffs, sustainability and acquisitions: three themes that in 2024 will inevitably hold sway as the gaming industry changes shape and adapts to a seemingly difficult scenario. The year that has just begun will therefore be the moment of truth for this sector?
The bad trend of 2023, the layoffs in the video game sector do not seem to be over, so much so that in these first days of the new year further announcements relating to closures, cancellations and removalsand we doubt they will be the last.
If it were simply a matter of a rebalancing after the drugged numbers of the pandemic period, which pushed companies to hire en masse to meet suddenly increased demand, would also be normal; but is that really the whole point?
We have had dramatic examples in the past of how the sudden failure of a consolidated reality could drag the entire market with ittriggering profound crises that exceed territorial limits, generating repercussions at an international level.
The unfortunate choices made in recent months by Embracer Group are perhaps not enough to give this terrible input to the video game market in its entiretybut it is certainly a factor to take into consideration.
Because it is clear that when rumors circulate about possible layoffs in Insomniac Games, one of the most successful and talented first party development teams in the current global panorama, it means that the balances we have perceived so far they are actually more fragile than we could imagine.
The role of Microsoft
It is clear and evident that Microsoft has also had an impact on the state of things, which has continued in recent years a very aggressive acquisition policy exploiting their boundless economic resources.
At the same time, the Redmond company introduced a model on which with Xbox Game Pass sustainability many professionals still have strong doubts, but it now appears consolidated and to which competitors will also have to adapt, despite themselves.
In this situation Sony tried to defend tooth and nail the concept of premium gamesrelated investments and an approach to the market that may be outdated but which still guarantees the revenue necessary for products of great quality and substance to arrive on store shelves.
Inevitably, in 2024 all these issues will come to a head: Microsoft's efforts will have to produce concrete results in terms of subscriptions, while Sony will have to find a way to make ends meet other than using all its resources on live services.
And Nintendo? Well… he'll just have to keep doing what he's doing. In the hope that the choices made by the great protagonists of the videogame industry are right and prudent, also and above all for their employees.
What do you think? Let's talk about.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial team and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
#Layoffs #sustainability #acquisitions #moment #truth
