I'm not convinced the bad market is due to AI at all. That's just a convenient excuse to do layoffs without the bad PR normally involved in admitting you need to do layoffs.
Also, the Open to Work banner has the stink of desperation. Highly recommend disabling it. It's like dating. Act casual.
I think it is both a partial contributor but also overstated for the reason you mentioned. The main culprits IMO are over hiring during the zero interest rate period as well as the never ending increases in the supply of CS graduates.
I believe it's not only the supply of CS graduates, it's their training as well. CS education seems to have changed little over the past 50 years. While the skills needed today are drastically different than those needed 10 years ago.
I have little doubt that if I had an opportunity to use Claude to do my CS homework, I would have used it. It seems that the curriculum should assume that college kids are going to use the latest agents and dramatically increase how hard the homework is.
This is like saying that people are going to the gym with power armor, so personal trainers should dramatically increase how heavy the weights are for their clients.
I think the point is that the banner is more likely to extend your search by sending a negative signal than it is to speed up your search. Fair or not, potential employers often have a negative bias toward people who are unemployed, so indicating that you’re likely unemployed is unhelpful.
It would be far more effective to spin up a placeholder 1-person contracting firm as your current employment even if it's marginal work for pocket change (build websites for a friend or something).
For game dev, I believe that it is remiss to not include mention of the change in the gamer landscape. Ten years ago, it was console vs PC as the big game question... and various studios took bets on one or both sides of that.
Today... it's Roblox vs everything else. Steam has its data at https://store.steampowered.com/charts/ - in the past 3 days, 45 million peak online at once.
Roblox has 150 million daily active users and 380 million monthly active users. https://brands.roblox.com/metrics-insights. Different numbers. Back in August it hit 47.3 M concurrent users (Steam's record at that time was 41.2 M).
As those gammers are growing up... they're not switching to other platforms.
Blaming this on AI doesn't feel like most of the story.
I bought Rust, Conan Exiles, and similar AAA games. But I've been spending most of my gaming time on survival MMOs and idle games on Roblox anyway.
Partly it's because they're easier to get into. It works well on a Mac or even on a phone. Lie in bed, do your three missions, sleep.
Partly because I can play with the kids. No extra account purchases, no teabagging.
I think game devs assume that they're just different audiences, but not really. Just because I like 18+ rated games sometimes, it doesn't mean I wouldn't pay a 6+ rated game most of the time. Who knows, we might see a Civ equivalent on Roblox in time. Roblox is the metaverse that Meta saw a decade away but couldn't capture market share for.
Can you compare daily active users to peak simultaneous users? Seems like apples to oranges. 150 million DAU could easily be the same as 45 million peak online.
Also how believable are both Steam and Roblox's numbers with regard to bot accounts? I have no idea about this, I'm biased towards Steam but based on the HN comments every time Roblox comes up I get the vibes that they are a comparatively less ethical company that might be willing to push the boundaries of ignoring bots for the sake of better metrics to impress investors. Also this isn't data at all but the steam games I play wouldn't benefit from bots, but I could see players of some of the silly little games my kids play in Roblox benefit from having some bot accounts to help you.
Wow. I'm not very clued in lately but I do own plenty of games in GOG, Humble Bundle and yes, Steam. I was just thrilled that Planet of Lana II got released recently.
This is the first time I heard of Roblox. And it's supposedly this huge phenomenon?
There are 151.5 million daily active users on Roblox. (70% growth YoY)
44% of Roblox users are over 17 years old. 56% are younger.
APAC has the most users (29.5%), followed closely by US & Canada (28%). Europe is the third largest market with 23%, while the rest of the world has 19.4%
As of February 2025, the platform has reported an average of 85.3 million daily active users. According to the company, their monthly player base includes half of all American children under the age of 16.
I wonder how sticky Roblox is as the current cohort of kids get older. Of course more kids are being born, but last I checked that number is getting lower.
I still strongly feel all layoffs to date have much more to do with interest rates than AI. This may change but I am deeply skeptical of massive RIFs being caused by AI at this point.
Look up FRED data in Interest Rates, SWE job postings over time and then look at the stock price of one of these companies claiming “AI layoffs” over the same time frame (eg. Block). Then read reports of 0 discernible AI impact to US GDP in 2025…
I feel like game dev is an entirely different market to the typical startups. Different investors, different talent, different marketing and market validation. Those who invest have already made their money in games (or "gaming"). The SDLC of an average Steam game is very waterfall.
Fair but almost everything in almost every industry is downstream of interest rates. Capital allocation gets much harder in a 7% market than a 2% market.
This post inspired me to donate to the only video game I've played in years, PokeMMO. Btw if anyone here plays my username is ieatpears, send a friend request or whatever, I'd love to play with someone else!
Idle thought. Not an economist.
What if the current tech scene is like how the u.s. capitalist class took power away from blue color workers in the 80s, 90s by leveraging cheaper labor in foreign countries? Now, programmers, sysadmins, system engineers no longer have leverage (real or imagined) because the owners just point to AI.
If they could do it, they would. White collar workers don't have any special status that protects them from getting the same treatment the blue collar workforce got. That said, I think it'll play out differently this time.Offshoring blue collar jobs eventually hurt the capitalist class; they lost whole industries to China. Offshoring white collar jobs is a different kind of risk: you end up with IOUs to countries that might not stay favorably disposed toward you when the power dynamics shift.
> Offshoring white collar jobs is a different kind of risk
Isn't this risk also present with offshorting blue collar jobs? I agree that both are bad ideas, but the capitalist class didn't care before and isn't exactly well known for it's long-term thinking.
> He has a huge influence on the developer community, and he is deceiving his viewers about what is going on.
The sub bubbles of development are so crazy to hear about. Idk if I ever interact with anyone that gets their development world view from people on YouTube.
No real idea why this bubbled to the front page, as it’s just another milquetoast subjective take from a single point of view recapping the same events from their context. Nothing added, no food for thought, just the same old, same old.
We need less folks ringing alarm bells without guidance and more folks offering help in troubling times. This, is not helpful.
I have to wonder how GenAI would have fared if these LLMs had become available anytime before 2020, during the “normal” tech bubble. It feels like the faith in it is as much to slash costs while appearing to be cutting-edge (and thus, worthy of what little investment is still available), as it is because of its capabilities. Where would we be if the tech industry wasn’t in such a dire state due to the end of ZIRP?
I'm not convinced the bad market is due to AI at all. That's just a convenient excuse to do layoffs without the bad PR normally involved in admitting you need to do layoffs.
Also, the Open to Work banner has the stink of desperation. Highly recommend disabling it. It's like dating. Act casual.
I think it is both a partial contributor but also overstated for the reason you mentioned. The main culprits IMO are over hiring during the zero interest rate period as well as the never ending increases in the supply of CS graduates.
I believe it's not only the supply of CS graduates, it's their training as well. CS education seems to have changed little over the past 50 years. While the skills needed today are drastically different than those needed 10 years ago.
I have little doubt that if I had an opportunity to use Claude to do my CS homework, I would have used it. It seems that the curriculum should assume that college kids are going to use the latest agents and dramatically increase how hard the homework is.
This is like saying that people are going to the gym with power armor, so personal trainers should dramatically increase how heavy the weights are for their clients.
Then the situation could be far worse depending on the percentage of people feel like you.
The open to work banner is an extremely negative signal. Nobody should use it.
Unless you're desperate to feed and house your family and anything that shortens your search by a day might keep a roof over your head?
I think the point is that the banner is more likely to extend your search by sending a negative signal than it is to speed up your search. Fair or not, potential employers often have a negative bias toward people who are unemployed, so indicating that you’re likely unemployed is unhelpful.
It would be far more effective to spin up a placeholder 1-person contracting firm as your current employment even if it's marginal work for pocket change (build websites for a friend or something).
There's some data from Aline of interviewing.io who says it's a negative signal during a hot market but a neutral signal during a layoff market.
https://interviewing.io/blog/whos-open-to-work-a-tale-of-two...
For game dev, I believe that it is remiss to not include mention of the change in the gamer landscape. Ten years ago, it was console vs PC as the big game question... and various studios took bets on one or both sides of that.
Today... it's Roblox vs everything else. Steam has its data at https://store.steampowered.com/charts/ - in the past 3 days, 45 million peak online at once.
Roblox has 150 million daily active users and 380 million monthly active users. https://brands.roblox.com/metrics-insights. Different numbers. Back in August it hit 47.3 M concurrent users (Steam's record at that time was 41.2 M).
As those gammers are growing up... they're not switching to other platforms.
Blaming this on AI doesn't feel like most of the story.
Gamers are dying out(*) - Belluar News https://youtu.be/_80DVbedWiI
I bought Rust, Conan Exiles, and similar AAA games. But I've been spending most of my gaming time on survival MMOs and idle games on Roblox anyway.
Partly it's because they're easier to get into. It works well on a Mac or even on a phone. Lie in bed, do your three missions, sleep.
Partly because I can play with the kids. No extra account purchases, no teabagging.
I think game devs assume that they're just different audiences, but not really. Just because I like 18+ rated games sometimes, it doesn't mean I wouldn't pay a 6+ rated game most of the time. Who knows, we might see a Civ equivalent on Roblox in time. Roblox is the metaverse that Meta saw a decade away but couldn't capture market share for.
Can you compare daily active users to peak simultaneous users? Seems like apples to oranges. 150 million DAU could easily be the same as 45 million peak online.
Also how believable are both Steam and Roblox's numbers with regard to bot accounts? I have no idea about this, I'm biased towards Steam but based on the HN comments every time Roblox comes up I get the vibes that they are a comparatively less ethical company that might be willing to push the boundaries of ignoring bots for the sake of better metrics to impress investors. Also this isn't data at all but the steam games I play wouldn't benefit from bots, but I could see players of some of the silly little games my kids play in Roblox benefit from having some bot accounts to help you.
Wow. I'm not very clued in lately but I do own plenty of games in GOG, Humble Bundle and yes, Steam. I was just thrilled that Planet of Lana II got released recently.
This is the first time I heard of Roblox. And it's supposedly this huge phenomenon?
I guess this is what getting old feels like.
A key part of that is a that its dominated by kids. The video I linked is one to start with...
https://www.takeaway-reality.com/post/roblox-demographics-st...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RobloxI wonder how sticky Roblox is as the current cohort of kids get older. Of course more kids are being born, but last I checked that number is getting lower.
I still strongly feel all layoffs to date have much more to do with interest rates than AI. This may change but I am deeply skeptical of massive RIFs being caused by AI at this point.
Look up FRED data in Interest Rates, SWE job postings over time and then look at the stock price of one of these companies claiming “AI layoffs” over the same time frame (eg. Block). Then read reports of 0 discernible AI impact to US GDP in 2025…
I feel like game dev is an entirely different market to the typical startups. Different investors, different talent, different marketing and market validation. Those who invest have already made their money in games (or "gaming"). The SDLC of an average Steam game is very waterfall.
Fair but almost everything in almost every industry is downstream of interest rates. Capital allocation gets much harder in a 7% market than a 2% market.
Games imploded long before AI was in wide use. There were back to back worst years ever for layoffs in 2023,2024.
This post inspired me to donate to the only video game I've played in years, PokeMMO. Btw if anyone here plays my username is ieatpears, send a friend request or whatever, I'd love to play with someone else!
Idle thought. Not an economist. What if the current tech scene is like how the u.s. capitalist class took power away from blue color workers in the 80s, 90s by leveraging cheaper labor in foreign countries? Now, programmers, sysadmins, system engineers no longer have leverage (real or imagined) because the owners just point to AI.
Brevity is the soul of wit:
You’re pretty much spot on.
If they could do it, they would. White collar workers don't have any special status that protects them from getting the same treatment the blue collar workforce got. That said, I think it'll play out differently this time.Offshoring blue collar jobs eventually hurt the capitalist class; they lost whole industries to China. Offshoring white collar jobs is a different kind of risk: you end up with IOUs to countries that might not stay favorably disposed toward you when the power dynamics shift.
> Offshoring white collar jobs is a different kind of risk
Isn't this risk also present with offshorting blue collar jobs? I agree that both are bad ideas, but the capitalist class didn't care before and isn't exactly well known for it's long-term thinking.
The topic has been done to death by now but this
> He has a huge influence on the developer community, and he is deceiving his viewers about what is going on.
The sub bubbles of development are so crazy to hear about. Idk if I ever interact with anyone that gets their development world view from people on YouTube.
I would expect the majority of developers on their twenties
Did i age my self with that comment?
Yes, but also it’s also crazy where people under 25 get their “facts.”
Well, my non-tech execs get development world view from YouTubers among other influencers.
No real idea why this bubbled to the front page, as it’s just another milquetoast subjective take from a single point of view recapping the same events from their context. Nothing added, no food for thought, just the same old, same old.
We need less folks ringing alarm bells without guidance and more folks offering help in troubling times. This, is not helpful.
I have to wonder how GenAI would have fared if these LLMs had become available anytime before 2020, during the “normal” tech bubble. It feels like the faith in it is as much to slash costs while appearing to be cutting-edge (and thus, worthy of what little investment is still available), as it is because of its capabilities. Where would we be if the tech industry wasn’t in such a dire state due to the end of ZIRP?