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Helldivers 2 CEO says industry layoffs have seen 'very little accountability' from executives who 'let go of one third of the company because you made stupid decisions'
The gaming industry's recent massive layoffs, exceeding 50,000 jobs in two years, are blamed on unsound business decisions by executives during and after the pandemic's growth period. Arrowhead's CEO advocates for sustainable growth prioritizing job security over rapid expansion, contrasting with examples like Embracer's significant losses and layoffs.
The game industry has seen massive layoffs in the past few years, much of which can be attributed to overzealous growth during the pandemic. Ultimately, these are failures of studio executives that are paid for with the livelihoods of developers, and Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani says he doesn't want to make those same mistakes at the Helldivers 2 studio.
"I wish that our industry hadn't shed almost… 30, 40, 50,000 jobs over the past two years," Jorjani tells The Game Business. "A lot of people at the top were making very unsound business decisions, and there's very little accountability on their part. Who among these executives is stepping down? Or slashing their salaries?"
Jorjani acknowledges that it's the devs who are "paying the cost of that," and that vast, quick expansion is "a terrible way to run our industry." And that rapid expansion might not even be terribly helpful to an absurdly popular online game. He cites a conversation with the Genshin Impact devs, saying that MiHoYo has "1500 developers working on stuff, but it's still not enough for the players. Despite us dropping really cool updates, new factions and weapons… we just can't keep up. Nobody can."
Jorjani says he wants Arrowhead "to be a role model for how to do sustainable growth, because the industry today is not in a good place," with companies shedding jobs because of "bad growth decisions made by business leaders who have taken stupid risks." Here's hoping those risks get a bit less stupid in the years to come, but the game industry regularly proves how little care executives are willing to pay when gambling with people's livelihoods.
"I'm not saying don't grow, but do it in a way where you don't have to then let go of one third of the company because you made stupid decisions," Jorjani concludes. "I’m not going to hire a hundred people, I would like to do that and help people in the industry, but my first priority is to make sure that people have jobs for many years." Fingers crossed a few more CEOs are willing to take that kind of stand.