A Bunch Of Game Devs Gathered Outside GDC To Scream

thegamer.com:

The gaming industry is in a terrible state right now. Just as we get some of the best games in living memory, the developers that make them are losing their jobs in endless layoffs. More than 10,000 jobs were cut in 2023, a figure that industry executives are already close to surpassing in 2024. It's so bad that it makes you want to scream - so that's exactly what some people did.

At GDC this year, a bunch of game developers met up in one place and just... screamed. Videos from the event are circulating online, and the attendees certainly didn't hold back, screaming out in the open in pure frustration.

"The game industry is falling apart around us, and we're all flocking to San Francisco for a week to pretend like this is fine," reads the event's description. "Let's take a minute where we all stop pretending, and express just how it feels to be a game developer in 2024."

Reactions to the scream, which was described as a moment of "catharsis, camaraderie, and caterwauling", are split. Many are sympathetic to the attendees, understanding why they needed to let loose like this. Others feel that a meeting of like-minded game devs could have been put to better use, like planning unionisation efforts or doing something more practical. With that said, anyone screaming about the state of the industry is probably pro-union too, and we are seeing an increasing number of workers join or organise unions themselves.

GDC attendees haven't just been screaming into the air over the state of the industry, however. Larian CEO Swen Vincke shared his thoughts in a speech earlier in the week, which many have found cathartic.

"It's always the quarterly profits," said Vincke, as reported by Eurogamer. "The only thing that matters [is] the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 's**t I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken."

GDC is coming to a