Tim Kane, co-creator Falloutrecorded a new video on YouTube, where he unvarnished the current state of the video game industry. According to him, developers who entered the industry over the past 5-10 years and expected “stable work for 30-40 years” were wrong from the very beginning.
Industry has never been stable and will not be like this in the future.
Seriously. If you are someone who got into the gaming industry in the last 5 or 10 years and thought it would be a stable job that would keep you going for 30-40 years, you were wrong in your assumptions.
You are wrong.
Kane is not speaking from hearsay. He witnessed the collapse of the US video game market in 1983, which he said “destroyed 100% of the jobs of American console game developers.” He later watched as in the early 90s, studios massively replaced 2D artists with 3D specialists as they transitioned to a new visual style, and by the 2010s, mid-level studios with teams of 50 people had disappeared.
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The industry is now deflating from the bubble that formed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns sharply increased demand for games and fueled inflated hiring growth. Nothing that happens surprises him – according to Kane, he has seen this more than once.
Kane explained his theory of the instability of industry by the nature of art itself.
Art itself is unstable by nature because people’s tastes change. This is why my house is not filled with deep pile carpeting.
Technology is also inherently unstable, but in a different way. Technology is constantly changing.
According to him, now literally every person, regardless of profession, is trying to understand how generative AI fits into their work – be it changing artistic approaches or adapting existing technological processes.
When it comes to video games, many developers view generative AI as both ugly and useless, but many studio executives, including Kane himself, think otherwise. At the same time, he admitted that AI creates a special, rather specific instability – it affects the cost of game production, provokes massive layoffs and reduces investment flows. This is especially dangerous when combined with the consequences of the industry’s “drawdown” after the pandemic boom, the developer added.
However, developers have nothing to worry about, because the industry in its current form is still facing another collapse.
This is what will happen, I guarantee it. In 20 years, people who are now still just babies will enter the labor market and talk about how easy life is for you all now. They will laugh at any claim you make that today’s industry was hard.
You yourself laughed at what I said about the 80s.
As practical advice, he offered two options: either develop skills that are applicable in related industries, or perfect a highly specialized competency – for example, become that same person who “does only pixel shaders” in order to make himself an indispensable specialist.
Many people online believe that Kane’s position is realistic, and some recall the meme about the grandfather from “The Simpsons.”
