IO Interactive’s Post

Mortgages and rents, the roofs over heads, don't understand the language of layoffs. 122 tech companies fired 31750+ employees in the last 34 days. 33 of these 122 companies are gaming studios responsible for 7000+ layoffs. The numbers that I am quoting are public figures. Real numbers would surely be high, or way higher than what's in front of our eyes. Behind each number is a real person Talent and Opportunities are distributed. They're scattered all over internet, which is why hiring is a big problem. We can't do much alone, but community efforts put together can solve it. I am asking for 10 seconds of your time. - repost - think of someone who's hiring and mention them in comments. - go through the list in comments (Name, Title, Studio, LinkedIn mentioned) Adding 36 more talented professionals who were laid off from Lost Boys Interactive Recruitment Kevin Rilea- Senior Recruiter Tasha Cooper- Senior Recruiter Lizzie Powers - Senior Recruiter Mauricio Murillo - Recruiter Artist Andrew Giovannini - Character Artist / Groom Artist Nathaniel Ramsey - Character Artist Bryan Luren - Senior Lighting Artist Justin Dinges - Art Director Bill Stutte - Art Director Jonathan Horrell - Environment Artist Patricia Lan-Anh D.- Concept Artist Production Anthony Keogh - Producer Frank Simon - Senior Director / VP of Production Kevin Eckstein - Producer Animation Dan Craig - Senior Animator II John Emerson- Lead VFX Artist Gary Macarevich- Senior Animator II Joel Cisneros Animator Art Gillian Griffiths Character Artist Gabriel Kessler Character Artist Mark Lee- Environment Artist Denys Niezhientsev Environment Artist II Dan Paynter VFX Artist Brian Schultz- Environment Artist II Lamnho Giang - Senior Concept Artist Design Z Dixon - Technical Designer, Central Design Tools Team Ben Stoddard - Senior Level Designer Jeffrey Kung - Lead Level Designer Baqir Shah - Senior Level Designer Ricky Llamas- Lead Narrative & Systems Design Dylan Hendren- Senior Designer Guy Cockrum- Systems Designer II Valentin B.- Snr Technical Sound Designer/ Snr Sound Designer Kyle Rasmusson Technical Game Designer Programming Andrés Pereira- Software Engineer Lee Nagar- Technical Director #games #gameprogramming #Gamedesign #layoffs #layoffsupport

Maybe I am expecting too much, but given the significant number of layoffs in the games industry recently, and how easy it seems to be, is it unreasonable to not want to risk a move across the country for a new job opportunity? The thousands of gamedev layoffs over the last few months have shown that myself and others like me are very expendable and we could lose our jobs at any moment. Is it too much to ask for more studios to be open to remote work? There's nothing I can't do from my own desk that I could from your office, and this way I don't have to take such significant personal risk. #qa #gamedev #gamesindustry #layoffs #gamejobs #remotework #remotehiring

Another big publisher set to fire 600 employees. This post is intended to support those who were recently laid off. Please share it within your community and tag studios and recruiters who are actively hiring. "We'll hear troubling news from the offices of Zynga, Gearbox, 2K, and even Rockstar—a far cry from earlier statements about layoffs from Take-Two's CEO." To combat, I am adding 5 resources below for all impacted professionals : 1) Our flagship Full-stack game programming bootcamp worth $11,000. We're giving course content out on 100% scholarship for anyone who's willing to transition into game programming or upskill in programming. (Mail: [email protected]) 2) Join our Discord Community and help professionals who are asking questions related to portfolio building, job seeking, interviews, and broadly their next career step. We have added help roles for programming, Unity, Unreal, DSA, Careers. Pick these roles and only get notified when someone asks questions related to your expertise. 3) Your team is hiring? Here's a list of 900+ professionals who were laid off recently: https://bit.ly/49Ah2vT Do them a favor by sharing this list with your 1st degree connections who're hiring. 4) We now have 14368 gamedev jobs from all over the world. https://lnkd.in/gerWUkc5 5) Become a volunteer: If you're a senior professional, you can mentor these professionals, conduct mock interviews, assess their portfolios and give feedback on what would work for them and what wouldn't. Join by adding your name here: https://lnkd.in/gwPhHen4 Get more out of Game Dev community on LinkedIn 🍄 Amir Satvat is back on LinkedIn with the OG list of resources. 💼 Caitlin Cooke is the fastest source of fresh jobs in the industry (yes, remote jobs too) 🎤 Follow Jordan Mazer for greatest tips and pointers around game jobs & interviews. 🔥 Hailey's feed will keep you updated with everything that's happening in the gaming world. 🔝 Connect with Arin Goldsmith and be part of her amazing #SocialSunday initiative. #games #gamedev #jobs #layoffs

More than 10k lives have been disrupted by the layoffs/closures of almost 150 game studios. You are blessed if you still have your job and can look after your family because many aren’t able to. The downsizing has affected game devs in unimaginable ways. It wrenches my heart to think about someone who must have put years of hard work into building a game from scratch, only for it to be cancelled or taken away from them. We have heard infinite such stories in the past 6 months. This is a humble reminder for those who are still employed - You can make a big change with small steps. Simply reposting this to your feed and tagging any recruiters you know are hiring will help game developers who have lost their jobs immensely. This post will reach founders, hiring managers, and HRs in the gaming industry who are actively looking for new talent. If you are a game developer or belong to any of the related game development fields: Leverage this by dropping a comment below a) Your introduction b) Your current location c) Open for relocation? d) Most important: Link to your portfolio I am requesting fellow community members Jordan Mazer, Caitlin Cooke, Alexander Rehm, Kelly Bender, Ruty Rutenberg, Matt Barney, Hailey Rojas, Ali Farha, Kevin F., Kat Craig, and Amir Satvat to boost the thread by dropping the hottest opportunities/resources in the comment section below. WAGMI 💪 #layoffsupport

What is the next step in video game recruitment? In my six-year journey as a game industry recruiter, I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with some of the most talented professionals in the field. However, recent layoffs have seen many of us, myself included, stepping away from our roles. This shift prompts a critical question: what’s the end goal for recruitment in the video game industry? Despite the industry’s state of flux, the demand for exceptional talent remains paramount—after all, without a team, there is no game. This leads to pondering the strategic direction for studio hiring practices. With a wealth of candidates now on the market, are studios expecting roles to be filled organically? Or is there a trend towards delegating recruitment responsibilities to external agencies? The answer isn’t clear. I’m eager to start a conversation on the current and future state of recruitment within the video game industry, so let me know what you think. #gamesjobs #videogames #computergames

Question for game dev hiring managers: How does “shipping” a AAA game correlate with a candidate’s likely success in an open role? Specifically, how is this different than experience working on a AAA game? These are always separate requirements, it’s never and/or. So why are you filtering out more experienced candidates that didn’t get to work on games that finished over less experienced candidates who were lucky enough to be in the right place(s) at the right time? Is there an implicit conclusion that game devs whose games don’t ship are actually less qualified than those whose games launch? What’s the reasoning? Full disclosure: I’ve never shipped a AAA game.

The video game industry isn't really challenging in its hiring, companies just want someone who's old enough to have a decade of experience shipping multiple AAA titles, but young enough to be trained and not set in old ways; who knows how to use Unreal and Unity, but is ready to use an in-house engine and tools from scratch; who is ready to work long hours for low pay with the constant threat of layoffs, but highly motivated and loyal; fresh and seasoned, enthusiastic and serious, hard-partying and professional, stable and ready to relocate, world-class in their specialty and a generalist, and a great individual contributor who values teamwork and excels in self-motivated designs at directed implementation handed down from above. Seriously, though: While company spreadsheets may look at candidates as fungible numbers, a seat to fill to meet a hiring rec, every candidate is unique. If you are looking for unicorns, you will find a thousand reasons not to hire someone, and in the process miss that their unique features bring amazing variety, depth, and idiosyncratic specialties to your team. Hiring shouldn't just be about looking for all of the reasons not to bring someone aboard; it also needs to be about looking at all the reasons that you should include someone on your team. Anything that someone could learn is not a deal breaker: You can teach design, structure, layout, even collaboration. "Better is the enemy of done," to paraphrase a saying, so don't let perfect be the enemy of hiring a great candidate. In the long run, it may hurt your project more to leave a spot empty than to bring in the "imperfect" candidate who can actually deliver something that you need.

I couldn't have said it better myself. 😊 This goes for a lot of other fields to a degree, as well, unfortunately. 🤔 Being a junior, or entry level is a double edged sword, if you didn't get the 5-7 years of experience they expected you to get in your 1-5 years at school. 😱🫠😭 They'd gain - and learn so much if they would take a chance and put that bit of effort and time in to actually make space for people who are mid entry to entry level.🥹 They still have a lot to contribute and they're hungry. But it has to something real and tangible. Being used and tossed doesn't count.😐 I don't know what it's like for them, I'm not in their shoes. For me though, there's typically always a solution to a problem to make things work, but only if you're willing to work together and embrace change and compromise.. Isn't that teamwork? Isn't that the core and message of some of the products you represent? It's basically the foundation of any company. Just a thought: Special assignments for someone who doesn't typically work in that area, but make it a temp thing or even work it to be long-term, new postion. Make space and have them organize a junior program, and a junior recruitment program. Have them come in and do temp work in a more learning-based environment for short projects. Having multiple companies do this ensures multiple spots being open for those who need more work. There could even be a system between companies to keep track of that if they were willing to work together. They get experience and the companies get to see who they want to keep; the details and everything can be tweaked, but I'd say that's a win-win. It's SOMETHING. I'd like to throw a question out into the æther: What's it costing right now, doing what's being done now? Please take a look around.😥 Thank you for reading, if you did. v.v;

Tough year folks. I will continue to share these resources for you who is in the hunt for a new place to work and continue to progress on your career. You are not alone. Let me know if you think I can do something to help you. #gamesjobs #gamesresources #jobhuntingtips