Amir Satwat, who tracks layoffs in the gaming industry, stated that this round of massive layoffs has been concentrated mainly in North America and Europe, with the Japanese gaming industry being relatively less affected. He believes that smaller development teams and significantly lower executive compensation may be reasons for the regional differences.
Satwat has maintained a gaming industry layoff tracking project since 2022. He estimates that from 2022 to 2026, the industry will have cumulatively cut 57,628 jobs. However, the number of new positions added during the same period was roughly equivalent, so the industry as a whole still achieved "very limited" growth.
The regional distribution of layoffs is uneven. Tracking data shows that in 2026, North America accounted for 66% of recorded layoff events, involving 79% of all laid-off employees; when Europe is included, the two regions combined account for 96% of industry layoff events. Satwat also estimates that for a consecutive 12 to 18 months, more than half of the global gaming industry layoffs occurred in California, USA.
The Japanese market presents a different situation. Satwat stated that employee retention rates at Nintendo, Konami, and Capcom all exceed 97%. In his observation, Japanese development teams are usually smaller and more streamlined, and they are less likely to follow the live-service game trend, without commonly assembling teams of around 500 people to produce large-scale projects.
He also listed executive compensation as a possible factor. Satwat noted that executives at major Japanese game companies still earn substantial incomes, but typically in the range of two to three million dollars, rather than tens of millions. He cited two companies as examples: EA CEO Andrew Wilson earned $38,649,984 in the previous fiscal year, approximately 305 times the median employee salary; Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa received total compensation of around $2 million during roughly the same period.
Satwat believes that the current situation is very severe for developers at traditional AAA studios in North America and Western Europe. Although the total number of industry jobs has not seen an equivalent net decrease, layoffs have been highly concentrated in Europe and America, while major Japanese game companies currently maintain high employee retention rates.