13 Nov 2026 at 4:15 pm UTC
| Last updated: 13 Nov 2026 at 4:22 pm UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand
The GDC 2026 survey has been released, and it’s another interesting look behind the scenes of the gaming industry as a whole. Compared with the earlier report there’s more people in it this time, with “over 2,600” game industry professionals going through the survey across 69 different countries.
Starting off with the rough patch, 34% of those responded had been laid off in the last 2 years. Pretty shocking, but we already knew that sort of question was going to have a lot of people in it because of just how many studios have shut or cut their staff down. 17% of those have been laid off twice in that time. Not looking good for some either with 54% of laid off workers noting they’re still unemployed.
Plenty don’t feel secure in their game industry job either, the report noted that 51% of those surveyed were strongly concerned about their future in the industry.
A few choice quotes from anonymous developers on it:
“We’re losing tons of institutional knowledge … [and] we’re betting against our own future by not fostering juniors.”SENIOR EMPLOYEE (PROGRAMMING), FRANCE
“I think we’re going to see another massive indie boom. These industry crashes tend to happen in cycles and, at least to me, are more predictable than we might realize.” FORMER DIRECTOR (AUDIO), UNITED STATES / LAID OFF 12-24 MONTHS AGO
“It’s going into a vicious loop where the more people are laid off, the worse quality the games will be; and the less money will be made, the more people will be laid off.” CONTRACTOR (VISUAL AND TECHNICAL ARTS), CHINA
Generative AI is a thing that’s going on in the world which the report also touches on. Data centres sucking up all the hardware, even if they’re not using it yet. And with that, a lot of change for the industry. Lots of developers have begun using it for all sorts of different things.
40% of those surveyed said they use generative AI as part of their job. Higher percentages for people working on free to play and mobile games, and with 27% of AAA workers noting they’re being “encouraged or pressured” to use them. More from the report:
“After years of speculation about how large language models, diffusion models, and other generative AI tools would impact the game industry, a clearer picture is coming into focus. It’s on devices and in search engines; it’s a common feature for most productivity software. However, usage has not changed significantly—at least for those based in the United States.
Forty-percent of surveyed game industry professionals said they use generative AI tools as part of their job, up from 36% last year. Results did not change much for those based in the US, moving from 36% last year to 38% this year, which is within the margin of error. The increase was more prevalent for those outside of the United States, going from 37% to 44%, a 7-point increase.
Age remains a determining factor: Over half (54%) of people 45 years or older reported using the tools, an 8-point increase from last year’s survey. There is also more usage among men (45%) than women (33%)—with the number of men using the tools increasing by 4-points—as well as those in business operations or services (63%), marketing and PR (51%), and programming (48%).”
What’s perhaps most shocking (to me) is the education side of it. The report noted that “62% of educators said they allow, encourage, or require their students to use generative AI tools in their game development coursework”. Not really giving the next generation the skills to need if they’re just learning to prompt. That will be a bigger problem as time goes on I think.
Some choice quotes from the report on using generative AI:
“Gen AI is a tool; and like any tool, it should be applied to the right job. I try to think of it like a screwdriver: Great for tightening a screw, not great for painting a wall.”SENIOR EMPLOYEE (PROGRAMMING), MICHIGAN
“It helps with code generation; productivity is higher. But I am afraid it will soon be used to replace people. It is already stopping us from hiring juniors.”SENIOR EMPLOYEE (PROGRAMMING), UNITED KINGDOM
“AI is great to go from 2 to 8, but you need someone with actual experience to go from 0-1 and from 8 -10..”DIRECTOR (GAME TECHNOLOGY, SERVICES, DISTRIBUTION). TENNESSEE
“I did not get into a creative industry to hand over the creativity to an algorithm.”SUPERVISOR (VISUAL AND TECHNICAL ARTS), UNITED KINGDOM
There’s some that do appreciate generative AI though, especially from an accessibility point of view:
“As a disabled founder without the financial or institutional support that larger studios take for granted… without generative AI, I would not have a company.
I would spend so much of my available capacity navigating systems, researching unfamiliar processes, and trying to acquire decades of institutional knowledge that there would be very little left for actually making games.
When that barrier is removed, something interesting happens:
I can make games.
I can design systems. I can learn Godot. I can write extensive documentation. I can build the game. I can perform the functions of a developer when you take away the artificial constraint of, ‘You must already know how to do this.’
We use generative AI as an accessibility and knowledge-amplification tool, not as a substitute for humanity and authorship. It does not and cannot build the game for us. It cannot operate Godot for us. It cannot establish creative direction for us.
Expertise is not at all the same thing as access to expertise. A senior dev sitting next to me can help me solve a problem, but I haven’t got one of those sitting next to me. If an AI system can break the concept down and explain it well enough that I can implement it myself, then my game gets made and nothing has replaced my creative labor. It is giving me access to a resource I otherwise couldn’t afford.
People are concerned about their jobs and about AI using established creative work, and I get that. I really do. But I also think we should take just as seriously the idea that AI can be a powerful equalizer for people who were already excluded by cost of expertise, admin overhead, geography, or lack of access to professional networks.
My goal is not and was never to make fewer people necessary.
My goal is for people like me to participate at all.”
OWNER/FOUNDER (INDEPENDENT STUDIO), NEVADA
How about game engines, how has the industry changed there? The free and openth 11% of indies specifically noting they’re currently using it
As for platforms, Linux seems to be doing okay overall. Especially when you take into account Steam Deck and Steam Machine (which use SteamOS Linux):
There’s so much more to the report, it’s well worth reading through.
🌐 External Sources:reg.gdconf.com
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: AI, Game Dev, Misc, Survey, Survey Results
2 Likes
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
Electronic Arts (EA) to shut down BioWare and cancel the next Mass Effect
EA bring back many classic games to Steam including Road Rash, Wing Commander, Ultima and more
Proton Experimental brings new fixes for Helldivers 2, BeamNG.drive and more
Steam Beta for October 15 brings a 64bit Linux client, Achievement Sets and moreAll posts need to follow our rules. Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us for any issues or concerns.
