The 2024 GDC State of the Game Industry survey reflects a growing rise in concerns about consolidation.
The last couple of years have seen some blockbusters deals in the games industry. Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is obviously the biggest of them all, but Sony’s buyout of Bungie is up there too, and even (relatively) smaller deals, like NetEase’s purchase of Quantic Dream or Nacon’s takeover of Daedalic, can’t be overlooked. And while we on the outside can debate the relative merits of this industry consolidation, GDC’s latest State of the Game Industry survey indicates that it’s making people who actually work in the business a little nervous.
In 2023, the first year developers were asked their thoughts about industry consolidation, 17% of respondents said they believed “major acquisitions” like Microsoft’s takeover of Activision would have a positive impact on the industry. By comparison, only 5% shared that opinion in 2024. The percentage who said these acquisitions will have a negative impact held roughly steady—43% this year, version 44% in 2023—while those who feel it will have no meaningful impact either way shrunk from 7% in 2023 to just 2% in 2024.
That shift in attitude is understandable. 2023 was a brutal year for layoffs in the games industry, and 2024 has yet to show any signs of being better. Many of those cuts have been laid at the feet of over-aggressive expansion during the early days of the Covid-19 (of course, for the most part the executives who made those decisions still have jobs) but one respondent pointed out the particular egregious case of Embracer Group, a Swedish holding company that ballooned into a gaming behemoth through a multi-year acquisitional rampage, only to put hundreds of people out of work and close multiple studios when a single investment deal—a very big deal, yes, but still just one—fell apart.
