Amir Satvat provides a lot of job resources for games. He has built a big community of game people, and they are providing him with a lot of data. And here’s the latest data from Amir Satvat’s Games Community and what it says about games hiring today, across functions, experience levels, and regions.
First, Satvat, who was honored for his work at The Game Awards, said in a LinkedIn post that hiring remains concentrated in the middle. This means that most roles, and role growth, is aimed at professionals with five to 15 years of experience. That’s where the bulk of open jobs and actual hires (even if the job description says otherwise) are happening.
Sadly, he noted that early career odds remain extremely low. Even if you’re willing to relocate globally, odds for new grads or early career professionals hover around 7% over 12 months. If you’re staying in North America, that drops to 2%. If you’re not in a major North America hub, that falls to 0.3%.
This pattern has flattened at 7%.
He noted that the categories of jobs are also very different when it comes to demand. Some games areas like narrative roles and business development are dramatically oversubscribed.
“Right now, we’re tracking 52 writing and narrative games roles globally (28 in North America) and 90 total business development games roles worldwide (just 10 for 10+ years of experience),” Satvat said. “When factoring in students, switchers, or unseen applicants, I can easily believe the demand-to-supply ratio for some functions, like these, is 20-30 times, or more.”
Overall game hiring momentum
Satvat said that overall games hiring momentum is stable, but flattened. Games hiring velocity, which was improving a bit, has leveled off, while non-games roles continue rising, especially for adaptable skill sets.
Career switchers are intensifying competition.
“I now have enough data to say with confidence that middle to late career switchers, without any past games experience, are still actively pursuing the industry, further intensifying competition in already crowded functions,” Satvat said.
And he said layoffs may not be the biggest issue going forward.
“We still forecast 5,000 to 9,000 games layoffs this year. Long-term, global labor cost variances and AI may matter far more, with layoffs becoming a secondary concern,” he said.
What this means for you
If you’re a parent or mentor of a young person considering a games career, please be mindful of the data. “Why not try games?” can be a costly mindset if you’re not informed about the odds.
If you run a collegiate program, Satvat urges you to be transparent with prospective students. Game design, and subfields like narrative, are among the hardest areas to break into. Unfortunately, these are also the main areas from which graduating students seem to cross his desk. Offer broader skill development.
“I continue strongly to recommend non-games roles or retraining as a strong path forward, alongside applying to games,” he said.
For those in games, we must be ready for a future that is likely to include shorter tenures, more project-based work, less remote opportunity, and higher mobility expectations.
For anyone struggling to find a role in oversubscribed functions like games narrative or business development, please know this is a 20-30x+ structural issue. It’s not about your worth.
We’ll keep tracking data and help as best we can.
New games role workbook v1.0
Satvat aslo recently announced that a new resource is finally here: the New Games Role Workbook v1.0(Resource #8).
“This is the update I’ve waited three years to give you,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Thanks to collaboration with Mayank Grover and the stellar team at Outscal, we have an improved resource of games and tech roles that will be refreshed twice a week, covering nearly 40,000 roles every three-month cycle, now delivered eight times a month.”
Why twice a week? Because after months of research, he found the critical window for applying to roles is within the first seven days. Anything slower was just not fast enough.
But there’s more. The raw data Mayank’s team pulls comes from many sources. So, just like he did for the original Games Jobs Workbook, he spent months in the background building a system to standardize all roles into 25 categories, based on community feedback and refined for usability.
They are:
Account ManagementAdministrative SupportAnimation & CinematicsArt & Tech ArtBusiness Development & SalesCustomer & Community SupportData & AnalyticsDesign & UXEngineering & DevelopmentFacilities & MaintenanceFinance & AccountingGeneral & MiscellaneousHR & RecruitingInternshipIT & SecurityLegal & ComplianceLocalization & TranslationMarketing & AdvertisingOperations & AdminProduction & ProductProject & Program ManagementStrategy & ConsultingTechnical SupportUser ResearchWriting & Narrative
This is standardized across all 38,000+ roles, both games and tech.
That means job seekers can now filter jobs easily across a consistent, logical set of categories. Every job has a direct link to apply, fully searchable, and structured to support your success.
“I’ll continue maintaining the original games jobs workbook as an encyclopedic view: total jobs by company, industry-wide scope, and macro stats. I will use this data to help Mayank ensure we have all companies tracked too,” he said.
But this new workbook is, now, what he recommends using for active job hunting. This is because the team has finally solved (thanks to Mayank’s team) the frequency problem and (with my efforts) the categorization problem that allows equivalent functionality to the Games Jobs Workbook
A resource with fresh roles updated twice a week, now with categorization, smart filters, games and tech roles, and full apply links at a role and location line item level?
He offered his deepest thanks to Mayank Grover and the Outscal team for this incredible collaboration. This wouldn’t be possible without them.
The post The latest state of the game jobs market | Amir Satvat appeared first on Venture Beat.
