Recently, industry observer Satvat stated that Japanese game companies such as Nintendo, Capcom, and Konami have maintained relatively healthy operational conditions. These companies have employee retention rates exceeding 97%, with smaller development teams and more restrained executive compensation cited as important reasons.
Satvat states that Japanese development teams are typically smaller and more streamlined, without broadly following the live-service game trend, and rarely forming large project teams with up to 500 members. Compared to their counterparts in North America and Europe, this staffing structure has resulted in fewer frequent layoffs at these companies.
His statistics show that from 2026 to date, North America accounted for 66% of global game industry layoffs, involving 79% of the affected employees; North America and Europe combined accounted for 96% of all layoff events. Satvat also estimates that during a previous period lasting 12 to 18 months, more than half of the industry's global layoffs occurred in California, USA.
Satvat believes that for developers working at traditional AAA studios in North America or Western Europe, the current impact is comparable to the industry crisis of 1983. He refers to these regions as the most severely affected areas in this round of industry turmoil, while the Japanese game industry presents a different situation.
Executive compensation disparities are also a key focus of his observations. Data cited in the material shows that EA CEO Andrew Wilson's compensation for the previous fiscal year was $38.649984 million, approximately 305 times the median employee pay at the company; during the same period, Nintendo disclosed that its president, Shuntaro Furukawa, received total compensation of around $2 million.
According to Satvat's forecast, the game industry eliminated a total of 57,628 positions between 2022 and 2026, but the number of new jobs added during the same period was comparable. After undergoing large-scale job adjustments, the total number of industry employees still achieved slight growth, with a net increase of several thousand people.