This week we had 42 sessions and 97 speakers at our GamesBeat Next 2024 event. And lots of them spoke about our theme of getting the gaming industry back on course for growth. Thank you all for coming and listening.
David Glass and I developed the theme months ago within the hope that the gaming industry, which has experienced 2.5 years of layoffs (which eliminated 33,000 jobs), would grow again. But over the course of the day and a half event, I spotted what that basically meant.
During the Game Changers session (where we ended our conference by announcing the list of the highest 25 game startups), Lightspeed partner Moritz Baier-Lentz asked me for a prediction for the longer term. And I said I would like the gaming industry to return to balanced growth.
Balanced growth
This in fact means a return to sales growth, with the numbers showing good percentage growth 12 months on 12 months. I feel we'll give you the option to do that easily with big games in 2025 like Grand Theft Auto 6 from Rockstar Games. But that's not all we’d like.
We also need balanced growth. If we increase industry revenue in 2024 and in addition see layoffs of greater than 13,000 people in gaming, that will not be balanced growth. We want the industry to return to sales growth next 12 months. But we also want more hiring than layoffs. Amir Satvat, the quant who works for Tencent by day and helps people find jobs in his free time (he has helped 2,800 people find jobs through his free online resources), has collected a lot data about job seekers that he can predict what the large picture will appear to be In-game jobs are changing.
By December, Satvat forecasts that recent hires will exceed this month's hires on a 60-day basis for the primary time in years. This is a major event and it could be wonderful if there was a crossover.
If there are only a thousand more layoffs this 12 months, the transition to next 12 months may very well be delayed, Satvat warns. But in an industry with around 300,000 employees, we wish to see far more than simply a return to more hiring. We'd wish to see the return of talent wars so that folks who desire a profession in games can achieve it on their terms.
Many people at GamesBeat Next were on the lookout for jobs, and so were a few of our speakers. In my fireside chat with him, Satvat calculated that there are currently greater than 10,000 people actively on the lookout for work and 45% of them have been unemployed for greater than a 12 months. The young people leaving college now with zero or three years of experience have a 1 to 2% probability of finding a job next 12 months. And there’s also age discrimination. For those over 50, the possibility of finding a job in the approaching 12 months can also be 1 to 2%. These numbers show that gaming is a reasonably brutal industry. Only through Satvat do we now have transparency in the case of job numbers.
Of course, all of us have fears and hopes concerning the impact AI can have on games. Many fear that much more jobs might be lost in consequence. But we're just starting to see its magic. Electronic Arts brought back EA Sports College Football this 12 months (after parting ways with longtime licensor NCAA) and signed greater than 11,000 college athletes to its game. It managed to create realistic likenesses of players in the sport in only three months, thanks partially to the efficiency of AI creation. Our AI and gaming panel, moderated by Hilary Mason of Hidden Door, focused on ethical AI.
I feel we’d like to embrace the longer term and make the most of the technology that’s coming our way. Gaming has at all times done this, and it has typically benefited each developers and consumers. We don't need to reject recent technologies because they may make old ways of doing things obsolete. We need to learn how it might make it easier for young people to enter the industry or improve an individual's possibilities of finding meaningful work.
Balanced diversity
Another place where we’d like balance is diversity. When gaming culture reaches its true dominance and the war for talent finally returns, we’d like everyone who may help. Dametra Johnson-Marletti, Corporate Vice President of Gaming Consumer Sales at Microsoft, spoke with Rachel Kaser at our ninth Women in Gaming Breakfast about moving into the perfect firms and remembering that you simply're there for a reason. They bring a singular perspective to the corporate; Find your voice, express your ideas, be vocal and take a look at. You will find you can make a difference.
Our Diversity in Gaming panel, led by Bridget Stacy of needed to show their dreams into reality.
At our event, Shelby Moledina made a brief film, Resting Pitch Face, about what it's like for ladies to lift money from gaming VCs, and she or he had a standing-room-only audience laughing on the dark comedy. And Amy Hennig and her team at Skydance made me laugh once they discussed their “no asshole” policy.
Johnson-Marletti said you’ll spend $90,000 on work in your lifetime. Make sure you find yourself in a spot with the proper culture and show people why you belong there. Microsoft's motto is: If all of us play, everyone wins. About 25% of gamers are BIPOC, Johnson-Marletti said, and the gaming industry can't afford to forget them because it desperately seeks more players for its blockbuster games.
Balanced technology
Yes, we’re afraid for our colleagues due to AI. And we all know that there are false gods within the hype cycles that make quick money for many who don't really imagine in what they're selling. Of course, we wish to reveal the scammers who make the most of the cycles and are easy to deceive.
But as brutal because the industry, the cycles and the scams will be, gambling can also be rewarding. We also need to be sure that real technology is used correctly in order that it increases not only our efficiency but in addition our creativity. The result’s that games of the longer term can stimulate the minds of those that play them. If AI works, it means an organization with 100 people might get by with just 10. But it also signifies that one person attempting to break into the games industry as an indie gamer could potentially do the work of 10 people.
There will definitely be many winners and losers in 2025. We saw solid growth in Microsoft's Xbox results and Electronic Arts' earnings this quarter. But there are firms like Ubisoft which might be struggling, and the corporate has greater than 19,000 employees which might be facing cost cuts. The picture might be mixed for some time, and we will only hope that those that see the trail make the proper decisions, because there’s a lot at stake for many who follow them into battle.
Finally, as we discovered in our sessions with Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, and Neal Stephenson, the writer of Snow Crash who coined the term “metaverse,” we also want creativity and a return to the expansion of our universe see ideas. Like these visionary seers, I would like us to listen to the word “Metaverse” and never consider all of the scams and idiots which have happened along the best way, but slightly the hope is that at some point it would grow to be a reality.
According to Stephenson and Sweeney, the metaverse must be a spatial expression of the Internet, and the one option to construct it’s with open technology, unencumbered by non-contributing platforms. And then it would help take gaming, entertainment and all the digital world to the subsequent level.
Thanks
I don't need to sound like a carnival salesman. But we’re very joyful that you simply got here and hope that you’re going to come back.
A complete of 577 people got here to our event at the attractive meeting point Convene in San Francisco inside a day and a half. That was greater than the 550 that got here last 12 months, though it was such a tricky 12 months for the players. That means lots to us.
Thank you for coming. We appreciate your support and might be joyful to pay it back. We had the support of generous sponsors and we supported those in our GamesBeat community who needed discounts or free tickets to attend GamesBeat Next at no cost. We gave speaking roles to individuals who needed work. And I used to be thrilled to see so many individuals connecting in our central event spaces in any respect times of the day. We hope good things come from this.
We hope that at some point your startup or company may very well be certainly one of our game changers and find yourself within the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square. Or perhaps show up on the Nasdaq Tower a second time if you launch your IPO.
We can dream. See you next time.
