PlayStation Cutting 900 Jobs In Video Game Industry's Latest Round Of Big Cuts

Sony's PlayStation division is cutting jobs in the latest round of high-profile layoffs in the video game industry. From a report: By some estimations, 2024 has already seen more than 7,000 video game industry layoffs. Related to these moves, PlayStation is proposing to close its London games studio, which was most recently responsible for developing PlayStation VR games. Cuts are also coming to Sony's other studios, including Firesprite, Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla. PlayStation's technology, creative, and support teams are also affected by these measures. In a blog post, outgoing SIE CEO Jim Ryan said it was an "extremely hard decision" to make these cuts, which amount to 900 people or about 8% of PlayStation. Ryan is leaving in March.

Peak Digital in full swing.

[Qbertino]

Given that especially the digital creative industry has been optimized in leaps and bounds in the last two decades, this is no real surprise. Modern tooling and now AI once again enable teams of less than 10 to build world-class videogames. Freely available software tools, algorithms and AI generate textures and assets on the fly, a cheap smartphone and an app is all that is needed for mocap and generating ready-to-run assets these days. Ginormous texture libraries come free with unreal engine 5 and once-upon-a-time super-tricky hand-made coding stunts like LOD and other workarounds are automated and build into even the cheapest of 3D and game pipelines by now.

All you need to do pro-level digital publishing is some knowlege and skill that you can get off youtube and free documentation available on the web and some mid-range cheap-ass laptop, an internet connection and some dedication. There are husband and wife teams building premium titles and making millions whilst EA burns hundreds of millions and produces trash. At the same time there is a whole industry of portable consoles pushing the price/performance envelope and exploring niche markets without any big players like Sony or MS even in the mix.

This trend of consolidation and automation is only going to intensify. Given what is happening with generative AI and ML as we speak I expect 90%+ of jobs in the digital creative industry to be gone in 12-18 months. And that includes videogames and other real-time 3D applications.

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[timeOday]

Given what is happening with generative AI and ML as we speak I expect 90%+ of jobs in the digital creative industry to be gone in 12-18 months.

No you did it, you went off the deep end. That's way too extreme.

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[HBI]

This seems like a wonderful betting opportunity. I don't believe any of that is true.

Of course it's an opportunity.

[Qbertino]

By and large this is a significant wealth gain for society in general. However, if you've derived your sense of meaning by building 3D assets by hand or drawing images in a computer program you're only going to be doing that for fun if at all in two years out. That's the thing we have to prepare for.

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[Papaspud]

Spaceborne= a game that is done by a single guy. It isn't AAA, but it is amazing 1 guy did all the work.

Re: Peak Digital in full swing.

[OrangeTide]

For your 90% number to work out, AI would have to boost productivity by 10x in a year or two. That seems unlikely.

What seems more likely is that many companies cut staff preparing for a recession that never came. And since everyone's Quarters are on a different schedule we're going to see a year of layoffs in the industry despite a strong economy and roaring stock market.

Management has this dream they can cut the bottom 5-10% of staff and run a leaner and more profitable company. What they fail to realize i

Re: Peak Digital in full swing.

[drinkypoo]

AI is going to make little to no difference in some jobs, and a massive difference in others.

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[OrangeTide]

I can't think of a single example that will have a 10x increase in productivity in that time frame.

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[drinkypoo]

3d modeling is likely one, the software will do most of the work and the artist will be reduced to making suggestions and correcting bad spots in the mesh until the software figures out how to do that, too.

The artists who create environmental textures are going away soon, too. AI can spit out convincing seamless textures in a hot second.

Those are just pertinent examples based on this thread, but there are jobs going away completely right now in fast food. Taking orders in the drive-through can now be done b

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[SirSlud]

There are husband and wife teams building premium titles and making millions

For every indie that "makes it" there are a bajillion that make babkas. The marketplace is littered with home developers. This "now anybody can do it" trope isoft repeated, but rarely connected to the reality on the ground. "It's easy to be rich!" Great, do it and stop telling us about it. "Anybody can make a top 40 tune!" Cool, do it.

whilst EA burns hundreds of millions and produces trash

EA also makes a shitton of money. As does Ep

Easy money

[Papaspud]

All of the cheap money that governments have been printing for the last 3-4 years has made it through the system= no more 0% interest rates. Now if you don't make a profit, you will go broke, and the big companies are finally waking up to throwing millions into the big money pits some of the developers have become.

Bidenomics

[BytePusher]

We are full swing into the impact of Biden economic and foreign policy. As a software developer, my hope for the future is significantly worse due to this administration's choices. Most inflation was simply due to corporations deciding they can charge higher prices, Biden decided the solution was to make people poorer so they wouldn't have enough money to pay the higher prices. Great, inflation got reduced, but people are still struggling to survive.

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[smooth wombat]

Biden decided the solution was to make people poorer so they wouldn't have enough money to pay the higher prices.

Explain how private companies refusing to raise wages is the fault of the president? How about when President Biden and Democrats wanted to raise the minimum wage and Republicans said no?

Most inflation was simply due to corporations deciding they can charge higher prices,

There's your answer. Companies jacking up prices just because they can. You probably didn't hear the latest f [cnn.com]

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[sarren1901]

Raising minimum wage is not going to help. It just causes more inflation. A great example of minimum wage not helping. In San Diego, 24 years ago, minimum wage was $6 and you could rent a two bedroom apartment in a decent area for $800. Now, minimum wage is about $17 and that same apartment is about $2600.

So minimum wage almost tripled and rents have more then tripled. But yes, we're doing SO much better with a higher minimum wage.

May as well just listen to the LA congresswoman Barbara Lee. She wants a nati

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[jbengt]

You seem to be arguing that raising the minimum wage caused a rise in rents. You could have just as easily argued that rising rent was the reason the minimum wage was raised. In either case correlation does not mean causation.

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[Gilgaron]

Congress has been dysfunctional to the point of barely being able to select a speaker, let alone implementing anything Biden wanted or didn't want to do.

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[Dan Posluns]

You saw a post about a global company headquartered in Japan laying off employees worldwide and your first instinct was to blame Joe Biden for it.

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[bussdriver]

Just. wow....
Must be a mental block because somebody this stupid couldn't program anything.

Biden isn't to blame for a Global company's decision made in Japan... in a world that has had inflation and supply chain problems; many doing worse than the USA. Actually, it's Japan's "lean" thinking that caught on which removed a lot of buffering in business supply chain logistics that amplifies such problems.

What about the corporations who need to maintain growth levels as things return to normal who now routinely

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[SirSlud]

We are full swing into the impact of Biden economic and foreign policy.

uh oh here we go

As a software developer, my hope for the future is significantly worse due to this administration's choices

the fuck are you on about?

Most inflation was simply due to corporations deciding they can charge higher prices, Biden decided the solution was to make people poorer so they wouldn't have enough money to pay the higher prices. Great, inflation got reduced, but people are still struggling to survive.

ah okay, you're ju

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[jbengt]

Unemployment is at historically low levels. The fact that more software developers were hired during the pandemic than are currently needed is not really related to any Biden policies, economic or foreign policy.

Yeah, Playstation VR2...

[unami]

Still more expensive than the PS5 and not a lot of games available... Unfortunately I'm not very surprised that there are cuts there...

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[samdu]

181. There are currently 181 games available for PSVR2.

One word, cyclical

[lamer01]

This has always been the trend, overhire, fire, overhire, rinse repeat.