It's not been great for those people working in the industry and I don't think it's going to be good for people playing games in the future if it continues the way it is.

So the question is what are these events and what can it tell us about what's coming in 2025 and how should we prepare for it?

So first of all let's take a look at the games industry within 2024.

We've had 13,000 job losses this year alone and that's compounded by the fact that we had 10,000 job losses in 2023.

So this is the likes of Microsoft Gaming.

They had nearly 3,000 layoffs, Unity Technologies over 1,800, Sony, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Take-Two Interactive, Riot Games and Sega.

What's really interesting to me and it seems typical of industry today and how we operate big business, each of these companies made a substantial profit last year.

Take Microsoft Gaming, laid off 3,000 members of staff but made a $5 billion profit.

Unity $1.2 billion, Sony Interactive Entertainment $3.5 billion, Electronic Arts $2 billion and so on.

So let's dig a little bit deeper and take that a bit further.

The average annual salary for a game artist in the United States is $123,136.

That actually sounds a little bit high to me perhaps it's being pulled up by some high earners there somewhere, but we'll take it that it's $123,000.

Now Microsoft Gaming in their wisdom, they laid off 3,000 members of staff.

So that's 3,000 times 123,000.

So you've got just under $370 million.

That is a percentage of their $5 billion profit is 7.4%.

I don't exactly know the employment laws in the US, but let's say there's other costs in there.

Perhaps you have to put something to pension if you're an employer.

So let's raise that to 10%.

So 10% of their profits, this is just their profits, could go on to keeping those staff, but it's not.

And unfortunately, this is a trend we see across many industries.

These companies have to show that they're growing.

It's not just okay to have good profits, they need to show that the profits are going up each year.

Otherwise the shareholders get a bit scared and they might withdraw their money.

And of course, to make sure these profits keep going up, they will cut where they can.

And in this case, it's the staff.

I can't help but feel this is really counterintuitive.

If you've got 10% of your profits that you could be putting on to staff to make these games, the product that you are selling, you'd think you'd want to keep them.

But then I'm not a wise CEO.

So those are some of the figures.

And we also get reports about how difficult it is to work as an artist within the industry.

It seems artists in particular are treated quite badly, difficult conditions, huge pressure, long hours.

So people are not only losing their jobs, but they're not particularly nice jobs to start with.

So why is this happening?

And what does it mean for us?

And what can we do about it?

Well, unfortunately, this is the common progression of putting profits before people.

And it's the natural progression of big corporations.

They purposely bring these type of people in who are making these decisions to sell off staff because they're only concerned with profit.

And they will tell that person, your job is to make this company profitable or more profitable.

And unfortunately, the inevitable treatment of workers follows.

But wait, there's more.

We haven't got to the worst part of 2024 yet.

There is, of course, the elephant in the room, which is AI.

AI has the potential to take away a lot of jobs in the industry.

And of course, CEOs will always look for ways to cut costs.

A big cost for any company is the staffing.

So CEOs are absolutely desperate to get AI working instead of those staff members.

The AI will work 24 hours a day and they won't complain about tough conditions or high pressure.

Now, AI certainly isn't there yet, in my opinion, but it's definitely having an impact already on the workplace.

I've heard of lots of freelance concept artists having less work.

And the type of work that's out there seems to be cleaning up AI and it's bad job that it's done.

So is there anything around the corner that's going to protect us or save us from this AI scourge?

Well, you might be thinking, what about the court cases that are coming up?

They're being sued for copyright infringement because they've scraped artists' work without their permission.

And maybe these big companies won't be able to scrape people's artwork anymore and artists might get paid fairly.

But in my opinion, I'm afraid to say I don't think that's going to happen.

If we take a brief look at history, we've got things like the banking industry in 2008.

They're a huge industry, lots of money, of course, that's where all the money is, and they caused an absolute catastrophe.

The banks gave out very dubious loans and regulation wasn't particularly tight back then, so they did it a lot.

This affected millions of people.

You could even say billions of people because the shockwaves from this were felt all around the world with a global financial crisis.

Many people lost their homes, their savings, and it was an absolute disaster.

What was the result of this once we got past this catastrophe?

Was there any justice?

Well, there was one person that went to jail.

And to be fair, that's actually unusual that anybody got any sort of justice.

This was a case where many big banks were pretty much committing fraud, and that would have taken quite a huge coordinated effort of people kind of hiding a bit of the facts here, hiding facts there, and we have one person that ended up going to jail as the kind of scapegoat for it all.

This is all allegedly, please don't come after me.

Now, as a response to this, the government being the responsible things that they are, they got involved and they actually bailed out the banks, gave them loads of money, taxpayers' money, mine and yours money, and now we've got regulation so it will never happen again.

And that regulation is slowly being watered down by each successive government that we have since 2008.

This pattern is repeated over and over.

We've got big pharmaceutical companies that make addictive painkillers, allegedly.

Then there's things like the tobacco industry.

Cigarettes kill eight to nine million people a year, but you can still, with some restrictions, buy cigarettes.

Then you've also probably heard the stories about nasty chemical industries that have polluted rivers and communities have been killed by these things.

It's horrible stuff, but they're big companies and unfortunately they regularly get away with these things or they get some sort of slap on the wrist, perhaps some sort of fine that affects their profits.

But it's very rare that these companies really get held to account or the people, in fact, that are involved in these tragedies.

Now, I don't mean to dwell on these things or be overly negative.

What history has taught us is that big money and big business has a huge sway in our societies.

They have a heavy influence on our politics and therefore our laws.

So back to the artists that have had their works scraped and copied and are in fact losing their jobs to the machines that did it.

These big companies that broke copyright law are extremely big.

They have a lot of power, especially compared to the rights of a relatively small number of artists.

And yes, much of the artist community are up in arms, but that's a small group.

And is anybody else?

Perhaps there are a few supporters who are worried about their own jobs maybe.

And even if these court cases are successful, what will the results be?

I don't think AI will stop taking away people's jobs.

I think it will continue to grow.

The big companies might get a slap on the wrist and perhaps have to pay something out of their masses of profit.

Will it stop them developing this software?

I don't think so.

The industry will actually just find a way of taking away your copyright rights.

And we've already started to see that with companies like Adobe saying that they own the rights to use your work that you create in their program for their AI training.

And yes, of course, you can opt out, but for how long?

It seems like most of these companies are developing ways to kind of take away your copyright rights.

Unfortunately, we need these companies.

I need YouTube in order to show this video to you.

And YouTube, to a degree, can say what they like in the rights that I have.

So I'm fairly confident that these companies will keep doing what they're doing and AI will therefore get better and better.

It's certainly not there yet for the more complex tasks and it needs quite a lot of human intervention to help it along and get it to a point where it's even passable.

But it will steadily take more and more jobs away from the industry.

There will be some created by it, but not as many as taken away, in my opinion.

So this is all sounding a bit doom and gloom.

I'm trying to be pragmatic and realistic here.

So are there any positives?

And what can we do about this situation that we're in?

Well, I believe there is a way we can respond.

It's not necessarily fighting back, but it's adapting to these changes that are happening around us.

Now, don't get me wrong, you can fight back.

You can unionize and gather together as people and kind of fight the power, as it were.

And I do believe that's important.

But I do also think we need to be aware and ready for the changes that will inevitably happen.

So I do think these tumultuous changes will continue into 2025, but I do have some advice for beginners or people starting a career out there, or maybe in the first run of their journey.

So my advice would be this.

Most importantly, don't give up on your dream.

If you are desperate to become a game artist, then continue along with that.

But the way I would approach the following years is as follows.

Firstly, I would still recommend a good grasp of the basic and all the different skills that you need.

For example, AI has still not come up with a solution for retopology.

And retopology is still very important within the 3D modelling world.

And let's say AI did figure out retopology, you'd still need an understanding of retopology in order to check that it's got it right.

And that's the same with all these different skills.

The more you know, the more you will be able to see whether AI is doing these things correctly or not, or be able to guide the AI systems, if you have to end up working with them, into the right pathway and into what is good art.

And that's if you are working with AI.

You may not be working with AI for a long time to come because it may not get that last bit that seems to be quite tricky, which is from AI artist to real artist, if we can call it that.

So learn lots of different skills, as many as you can, so you understand the different parts of the industry.

Practice your drawing, practice your 3D modelling, practice your hard surface modelling and so forth.

Getting a good grasp of all the different skills, I think will be really important, so you can be adaptable and perhaps move into the different areas that are needed.

Now personally, and this might be for a different video, but I wouldn't actually suggest going to college or university.

Now that does depend a little bit on your location, in fact, and your general situation.

But I think if it's going to cost you a lot of money to do that, I'd rather be spending it on smaller, shorter courses and equipment that I can use that will do the job, and maybe I can get a few jobs whilst I'm learning.

And along with that, and probably the most important part, I think, is instead of having big dreams to work for something like Disney or Pixar, then instead look at thinking about smaller studios, the indie studios.

And even better than this, look to start making your own indie games in maybe a team, make connections, collaborate with people and different artists, different developers.

Now I'm not saying this is easy at all, and lots of the time, these sort of people that are doing this have jobs on the side, but that can kind of be true for people at university or college.

They have to have a side job to support themselves whilst they're going through studying.

And yes, it's still difficult.

You might not get there for a few years, but you will learn a huge amount by working in a team with these different people, collaborating, failing lots.

But I really think that gives you the best chance to get into the industry.

You do still need to invest in yourselves and obviously taking courses online.

I know that it sounds like I would say that because I produce courses online, but I really think and I really do believe in those.

And even a short program that you can take online rather than going off to university, I think that's a better plan and more bang for your buck as it were.

I also think that those courses are more likely to be up to date because people are regularly releasing these courses and therefore you're more adaptable to the changes in the industry.

You may also choose to try and use AI and learn AI.

I would understand that you might get a lot of stick from the artist community for doing that, but it's likely to be part of your journey as you go through because it's inevitable unfortunately.

You're likely to also find that it's not quite there yet and you need that understanding of the basics in order to use it properly or get the most out of it.

You might choose not to use AI and that's commendable, but an understanding of AI I think will be important.

Generally what I'm trying to encourage is that you take control of your situation rather than thinking I'm going to try and aim for this big company that has a choice of thousands of artists and only two positions which might end up being one position eventually.

You're not really in control there.

If you make your own indie studio, then you are in control.

If you join a group of people who are like-minded on the similar level that you are, then you are building something together.

And there are success stories, the big ones being Manor Lords, Palworld, Wukong, but there are of course also thousands that are unsuccessful.

But I do think that if you stick with it and you're passionate about it and understand that there will be these difficulties down the road, you will eventually get something out of the industry and you have your best chance.

It won't be easy, but it never actually has been.

It's always been very hard work to get into this industry.

Times are certainly changing, but they are always changing and they always have been changing.