What’s happening to the gaming business?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tens of thousands of people in the video game industry have lost their jobs in the past year.
The industry itself is valued around 200 billion dollars - one of the biggest in the world. And last year saw some of the biggest releases so far. So with so much success, why are there so many struggles? We speak to two workers who recently lost their jobs in the industry, and hear about the effect it’s had on their lives. Tech expert Matthew Ball tells us why there’s a simultaneous battle between success and struggle, and whether it’ll get any worse. But it’s not all bad news. There’s a lot of opportunity out there for smaller gaming companies in some parts of the world. William Sampson of Roro Interactive tells us why he thinks the future is positive.
(Picture: A rear-view shot of a young woman sitting at a desk playing a video game, she is using a mouse and keyboard and wearing a headset. Credit: Getty Images)
Presented and produced by Izzy Greenfield
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily. This week we've got a gaming special. Every day we'll look at a different angle of the business of gaming. In today's episode, |
| 0:09.6 | It just devastated me and it was like it was it was like grieving something. I have to go through that struggle of applying to jobs again and trying to find a new role. |
| 0:23.8 | And competition is so hard that, I mean, yeah, it definitely let me feeling down and stressed. |
| 0:30.4 | Harry and Jordan are just two of the thousands of people who've lost their jobs in the gaming industry in the last few months. |
| 0:36.8 | Microsoft cutting almost 2,000 jobs at Activision Blizzard and Xbox as the tech landscape resets. |
| 0:42.9 | Hundreds of people working at one of the world's top gaming companies are without a job tonight. |
| 0:47.5 | The CEO of Kerry-based Epic Games announced nearly 900 jobs will be cut roughly 16% of its workforce. |
| 0:54.4 | Shares of 10 cents, they're trading higher this morning after announcing its video game developer, Riot Games, is laying off about 11% of its staff. |
| 1:01.2 | Amazon has announced more layoffs. The company says it will cut more than 180 jobs from its games division. |
| 1:08.3 | Last year, 10,500 jobs were cuts in the industry, |
| 1:12.0 | and in the first four months of this year, another 8,500 have been announced. |
| 1:17.2 | But the industry itself is valued at over $200 billion. |
| 1:21.7 | It's one of the biggest in the world. |
| 1:24.4 | Last year, some of the biggest games ever were released |
| 1:27.0 | with the likes of Hogwarts Legacy, |
| 1:28.6 | which sold more than 22 million copies, |
| 1:31.3 | and Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, which sold more than 10 million copies in its first three days of release. |
| 1:38.0 | With so much success, why are there so many struggles at the same time? |
| 1:42.8 | In today's Business Daily, with me, Izzy Greenfield, |
| 1:45.4 | we'll try and find out. Video games are really popular. Around 3.4 billion people across the |
| 1:56.5 | world play them, and gamers have spent nearly $200 billion in the industry's 70-year history. |
| 2:02.7 | When we talk about gaming, what exactly do we mean? |
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