Why Bigger Isn’t Always Better: Lessons from the Industry’s Transformation

Hello, my fellow gamedevs!

It’s so exciting to think about ideas, aesthetics, technology, and come up with a great game design that potentially has success, right? Because let’s be honest — we all want to make a living with it at some point. It’s a way to validate your capacity and efforts.

You are into videogames for fun, but probably you are also interested in the industry and you may be aware of the massive layoffs it has been through starting in 2024, until our days.

Big companies and gaming groups decided to restructure their gamedev departments not only affecting development teams, but artists, marketing, QA, and many other areas.

In this post, I want to read the room of our beloved videogames industry. Let’s break it down:

• Industry Layoffs Analysis

• Games as a Service Factor – A Big Lesson

• Player Time Investment – and the Niches It Creates

• Indie Market Niche (Triple I opportunity)

Industry Layoffs Analysis

Between 2024 and 2025, the gaming industry has seen tens of thousands of jobs cut.

Here are the numbers that set the scale:

Estimated Total Layoffs

2024: ~14,600 industry-wide

2025 (until Aug): ~4,000 industry-wide

• 2024 was one of the harshest years in gaming history, with nearly 15,000 jobs lost across AAA and indie studios alike.

• In 2025, layoffs have slowed — but over 4,000 jobs have already been eliminated by August.

The restructuring wasn’t limited to developers — marketing, QA, and art departments were also hit hard. Even celebrated studios weren’t immune: BioWare, Eidos-Montréal, and smaller indie teams all faced cuts.

Game as a Service Factor – A Big Lesson

One of the loudest lessons of the past two years has been the collapse of the Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) dream.

Sony bet heavily on live-service projects, with over 10 in development. By early 2025, almost all of them had been shut down or indefinitely delayed.

Two major examples stand out:

• Bungie’s Marathon – When Sony acquired Bungie in 2022 for $3.6 billion, part of the strategy was to leverage their expertise in live-service shooters. Marathon, Bungie’s revival of its classic IP, was pitched as a GaaS cornerstone. But production troubles, delays, and skepticism around live-service fatigue left the project in limbo, far from the “next Destiny” Sony hoped for.

• The Last of Us Online – Naughty Dog’s ambitious multiplayer project, based on their award-winning franchise, was canceled after years of development. Sony admitted it no longer made sense to pursue, considering costs and uncertain long-term engagement.

The Fortnite Mirage

Fortnite’s success convinced publishers that GaaS was the golden ticket. But Epic’s juggernaut is an outlier, not a replicable formula. Fortnite combined timing, cross-platform accessibility, strong social hooks, and cultural momentum. Most studios trying to copy that magic ended up sinking enormous budgets into games that couldn’t retain players.

In fact, industry analysis shows 4 out of 10 GaaS titles shut down within two years. The lesson: building infinite-content games is not sustainable for most teams — and the audience’s attention is too fragmented.

Player Time Investment – and the Niches It Creates

When we talk about spare time, it’s important to measure how much time players really spend gaming — and where those hours go.

The Numbers

• Global average: Gamers play about 7–9 hours per week.

• UK 2024: ~6h52m/week for players aged 16–64.

• PC/Console 2024 trend: Playtime rose +6% year-over-year, but only 12% of hours went to new releases — the rest stayed in established titles.

• The top 10 games (Roblox, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Minecraft, EA Sports FC, etc.) soak up nearly half of all hours across global markets.

• Genre dominance:

  • Shooters dominate PC hours (CoD, VALORANT, CS2).

  • Sports dominate console (EA Sports FC, NBA 2K).

  • MOBA/hero-shooters like League of Legends pull consistent playtime.

What This Means for Gamedevs

With limited time and so much of it absorbed by giants, the opportunity isn’t to replace Fortnite — it’s to complement it. Here are the niches where indies and AA devs can shine:

• Snackable Games

  • Short, finishable experiences that fit into limited weekly playtime.

  • Perfect for narrative one-shots, roguelites with quick runs, or puzzle bursts.

• Complementary Experiences

  • Players log their main hours in Fortnite or FIFA — but want something different in between.

  • Cozy sims, creative builders, or light adventures are the perfect “secondary 

Indie Market Niche – The Triple-I Opportunity

While AAA are surrounded by uncertaint, the indie and AA scene is gaining momentum as the number of players is increasing every year.

Steam Data

• In 2025, 5,707 games have already launched on Steam — the majority from solo or small-team developers.

• That’s an average of 48 games per day, with nearly 60% tagged as indie.

Godot’s Growth

Indie developers are increasingly embracing Godot, an open-source engine:

• In 2024, Godot (with GameMaker) powered 5% of all games released on Steam.

• By mid-2024, there were 394 Godot games on Steam (vs. ~100 in 2020).

• Community counts now estimate 1,800+ titles live or in development.

• Godot has become the second-most-used engine in global game jams like GMTK.

For indie devs, this means Godot is no longer “niche.” It’s a rising standard with growing credibility in commercial spaces.

The Triple-I Movement

A new niche is rising between AAA and indie: the Triple-I space. These are ambitious, polished, but still agile projects — Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Hollow Knight, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are prime examples. They’re not made by thousands of devs, but they look premium and deliver value.

For small teams and solo devs, this is encouraging: 

There’s space for creative, sustainable, mid-sized games that don’t require endless crunch or billion-dollar budgets.

Food for Thought – Predicting What’s Next

Looking at all these signals, the direction of the industry provides the following indicators:

• AAA is increasingly uncertain — the number of major announcements has dropped over the last year, showing publishers are cautious about betting billions on giant projects.

• The Games-as-a-Service market is contracting, with only outliers like Fortnite or Genshin Impact holding long-term attention.

• Player time will stay limited, so finishable, flexible, or complementary experiences will feel more attractive than “forever games.”

See you in the next dose of Gamedev Pills, where we’ll dive into tools and workflows tailored for agile indie development.

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