Game developers are fed up with their bosses’ AI initiatives

The video game the industry has been in trouble this past year, with studio closures and job security at the forefront of developers’ concerns. Increase in layoffs with seemingly no end in sight paints a bleak picture for developers while companies are busy pouring in cash AI initiatives.

According to a new report from Game Developers Conference organizers, 52 percent of developers surveyed said they work for companies that use generative AI of their games. Of the 3,000 people surveyed, roughly half said they were concerned about the technology’s impact on the industry, and a growing number reported feeling negative about AI in general. The State of the Gaming Industry report, released Tuesday, is one of a series of surveys conducted each year by GDC organizers ahead of their annual conference. This year’s event will be held in San Francisco in March.

The GDC Report 2025 comes after a tumultuous few years in the industry. Even like games like Astro Bot, Helldivers 2and Balatro found success, studios such as Microsoft and Sony have reduced staff and canceled games. Amid a mix of cultural and economic factors impacting the industry, developers are still grappling with the company’s enthusiasm for technology, which some find ethically troubling.

“I have a PhD in AI, I worked on developing some of the algorithms used by generative AI,” wrote one developer. “I deeply regret how naively I offered my contribution.”

About 30 percent of developers who responded to the survey said they felt negatively about AI, up from 18 percent last year; only 13 percent believe artificial intelligence has a positive impact on gaming, down from 21 percent in 2024. “No matter how you say it, generative AI is not a great substitute for real people, and quality will suffer,” another developer wrote in their response.

For AI developers there is potential to help with several tasks, respondents said, including coding, concept art and generating 3D models, but when asked what applications they see for AI in industry, “the word most frequently used in their responses was ‘none,'” the organizers of GDC wrote.

In theory, generative AI could help some developers lighten their workloads. This is not happening. Instead, developers are reportedly working longer hours than they have in years. Thirteen percent of respondents reported working more than 51 hours per week, up from 8 percent of respondents last year. While those extra hours can be attributed to developers taking on extra work to make up for colleagues lost during the massive industry-wide layoffs in 2024, many have expressed concerns that AI is also a factor. “We should use generative AI to help people be faster at their jobs, not waste them,” wrote one worker.

Abbreviations, industry history for the last few years, still create a huge problem. “Survive until ’25,” the mantra for struggling developers, hardly helped those who lost their jobs. According to the survey, one in 10 developers has been laid off in the past year. There was also an increase in “N/A” responses: “the question was not applicable because they were already laid off or otherwise unemployed. In other words, it wasn’t a problem now because somehow it had already happened to them.