Helldivers 2 Studio Head Says Business Leaders With "Stupid Risks" Caused Devs to Lose Jobs

Summary

Gaming industry layoffs are due to business leaders making bad growth decisions, leading to job losses for developers.
CEO Shams Jorjani criticizes executives for chasing trends and ignoring the needs of gamers.
Developers like Arrowhead Game Studios urge executives to cut costs and grow responsibly to avoid layoffs.

With more and more layoffs and studio closures happening in the games industry, some might be wondering who’s at fault here. Is it because gamers aren’t buying as many games? Developers over-extending their budgets?

Helldivers 2 game developer Arrowhead Game Studios boss Shams Jorjani believes most of the blame lies with the “suits” up top.

GDC Survey Shows More Game Developers Are Impacted By Layoffs Than Ever Before

The recent Game Designers Conference survey for this year shows, among other shocking statistics, that 41% of staff feel impacted by layoffs.

Helldivers 2 Studio Boss Says Business Leaders Felt “No Repercussions” From Bad Decisions

Speaking to The Game Business, Jorjani talked about the studio’s growth, and how they’re approaching that cautiously even with Arrowhead’s tremendous success.

“From my history, I know what happens when there is uncontrolled, very rapid growth. It can lead to disastrous effects,” Jorjani stated.

The studio boss also mentioned how the industry is in a rough spot, and it’s due to “stupid risks” by business leaders.

Jorjani said, “I want us to be a role model for how to do sustainable growth, because the industry today is not in a good place. A lot of companies are shedding a lot of jobs. And it’s not the people at the top that are losing their jobs, it’s people who have moved half across the world to take jobs. And that’s because of bad growth decisions made by business leaders who have taken stupid risks.”

Given how execs are mostly chasing trends and out of touch with what the gaming populace actually wants, I can’t say I disagree with Jorjani.

Helldivers 2 CEO Was “Inspired By No Man’s Sky” When User Score Was At Its Worst

Having fought their way back from a 19 percent user score, Arrowhead game studio CEO explains their enduring battle of growth and hardship.

With game development budgets ballooning, it’s time executives figured out a way to cut costs and expand responsibly. Unfortunately, most are content with what’s happening as long as their bottom line doesn’t get affected.

Jorjani’s statements are a harsh reality of the gaming development world today. Here’s to hoping things change, or we’ll see more developers out of jobs for reasons they’re not really accountable for.

In regards to the game, Arrowhead recently released a patch for Helldivers 2 that cuased more harm than good per the community.