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"Greed has been f*cking this whole thing up for so long."
Image credit: Larian Studios
The Game Developers Choice Awards 2024 celebrated the best games of the last year and once again crowned Baldur's Gate 3 as Game of the Year. In his speech, Larian's CEO Swen Vincke addressed another prominent trend of the past couple of years, standing against the layoffs in the industry.
"Greed has been f*cking this whole thing up for so long, since I started," he said (via Eurogamer). "I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over."
He blamed companies chasing quarterly profits, numbers that double every time, "and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 'shit 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."
Vincke believes publishers just need to "slow down on the greed" and let developers do what they do best:
"Be resilient, take care of the people, don't lose the institutional knowledge that's been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off."
He then added on X/Twitter that not every company is like that, of course. Taking things slowly and respecting employees will reap greater results than "squeezing out the last drop."
"There are plenty of people in publishing I met who have their hearts in the right place. This message was for those who try to double their revenue year after year. You don't have to do that. Build more slowly and make your aim improving the state of the art, not squeezing out the last drop. And respect the people making the games. You'll find it brings you more joy."
Vincke's sentiment was supported by Independent Game Festival's chairperson Shawn Pierre, who introduced the awards evening:
"Between the countless announcements of layoffs, we're also reading too many stories of how people are being systematically pushed out of the game industry rather than being empowered or recognised for their contributions," he said. "They're being made to feel like they don't belong, that the work they are doing is not significant, and instead harmful to games. This is beyond unacceptable, and change is well overdue."
Vincke and Pierre are not alone in their resentment. Earlier, the Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams called those responsible for layoffs greedy, horrible people: "They can all eat s***, I think they're horrible, and I think they're bad people."
A group of developers even set up an event at GDC where they screamed in anger over the state of the industry.
We can only hope that their frustration will be heard and this difficult page will finally end.
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