Before I became a game developer, I never thought about how games were made. Like most people, I just played them and enjoyed the experience. But that changed when I started trying to create my own. Suddenly, what I once took for granted became a constant uphill battle. I began to see not just the technical difficulty, but the emotional and even existential challenges that game developers face especially when big corporations lay them off or dismantle their studios. Becoming a game developer gave me a new respect for the immense effort, creativity, and emotional cost behind every game, especially as I began to witness how easily developers' lives can be upended by industry layoffs and corporate acquisitions.
One of the first things I realized was just how hard it is to build a game, even a very simple one. I used to think that pixel art games or 2D side-scrollers were easy to make. I was wrong. Just getting a character to walk smoothly in Unity took me days and month's now. Each element ncoding movement, managing animations, setting up menus requires skill and time. And many developers don’t have teams to rely on. They're often working solo or with just one or two others, juggling design, code, writing, and art. It gave me a new level of respect for every title I’d ever dismissed as “low effort” or “ugly. games.
Then came the emotional part. Game development is exhausting. Crunch time, where developers are forced to work late into the night for weeks, isn't just a meme, it’s real. Developers miss family dinners, lose sleep, and burn out. Worse, even after finishing a game, their jobs aren’t safe. Studios get shut down after a single failed launch or when profits dip slightly. I saw stories online of people being laid off just after releasing games they spent years building. Some lost not just their jobs but their will to continue. The passion that drove them was used up and discarded.
But the worst, in my eyes, is what big corporations do to small studios. A giant company will acquire an indie team, absorb their product, and then quietly lay them all off when the financial numbers don’t satisfy investors. It’s happened too many times to count. Developers not only lose their income but also their creative legacy, the IP rights often stay with the parent company. That kind of betrayal can be soul-crushing. I’ve seen developers say they felt like they lost a part of themselves when their studio was shut down or their game was taken away.
Now, I can no longer play a game without thinking about the people behind it. Every title no matter how big or small represents hours of someone’s life, countless failures, and moments of raw emotion. Developers are more than just tech workers they’re artists, dreamers, and real human beings who deserve recognition and protection. We need to stop treating them like disposable tools for entertainment and start valuing them for what they truly are: creators.
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Orland, K. (2021, January 22). Activision absorbs Vicarious Visions, ends support for beloved remakes. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/01/activision-merges-vicarious-visions-into-blizzard-ending-its-remake-streak/
Schreier, J. (2020, September 30). Cyberpunk 2077 developer requires six-day weeks ahead of launch. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/cyberpunk-2077-developer-crunches-six-day-weeks-ahead-of-launch
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