Shifting the Meta: Bridging the Gap Between Scholar and Developer Perspectives of the Post-Pandemic Game Industry

This proposed study examines the working conditions and career pathways of game developers in the post-pandemic industry, motivated by mass layoffs in 2023 and 2024 that eliminated roughly 20,000 jobs over eighteen months, with more layoffs in the first half of 2024 than in all of 2023. The authors argue that persistent problems, including extensive crunch, poor internal communication, and job insecurity, receive insufficient investigative coverage from institutional media and enthusiast outlets, and that academic game studies scholarship needs a clearer understanding of how developers build careers under these conditions.

The proposed work is organized around four themes drawn from existing literature: industry preparation, employment stability, information sharing, and sources of support. The authors contend that educational programs and hobbyist cultures can encourage unrealistic expectations and normalize unpaid overtime, while the industry's reliance on reputation, connections, and project-based "gig" roles, combined with scarce union representation, leaves developers largely to advocate for themselves. Non-disclosure agreements, reputational concerns, and conflicts of interest within journalism and trade organizations are presented as further barriers to open discussion and collective action.

The methodology calls for 45-minute, semi-structured remote interviews with 20 American developers across indie, AA, AAA, and freelance roles, recruited through online developer groups, existing contacts, and snowball sampling. Anonymity is intended to encourage candid accounts, and transcripts will be analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. The study is framed as a call to action for game studies scholars, aiming to surface experiences that are often obscured in public discourse and to inform efforts to address exploitative labor practices in the games industry.