2K has laid off ‘a group’ of developers at Visual Concepts Austin

Visual Concepts Austin has become the latest studio to be affected by widespread layoffs across the games industry.

As reported by Game Developer, the studio’s former art manager Brad Bowling stated on his LinkedIn page that he and a number of other colleagues had been laid off.

“Well, the games industry bloodletting continues,” Bowling wrote. “Today Visual Concepts Austin laid off myself and a group of very talented developers.

“I have had a great time over the past couple of years working with some of the finest Game Devs in the industry. Over the past 23 years of making game art, I have seen some downturns but nothing like this.”

Bowling’s announcement was preceded by that of software engineer Sydney F, who also stated that they had been laid off.

“Well, after a great year of working at Visual Concepts Austin it’s sad to say I’ve been laid off as of today, along with several other amazing colleagues,” they wrote. “I will miss all of those that I worked with greatly.

“It’s definitely rough as it’s only been a year and a half since I was previously laid off as well. Even in this tough market I found a job once, I can hopefully do it again.”

Visual Concepts’ Austin studio has worked across a range of Visual Concepts titles, including the WWE 2K and NBA 2K series and Lego 2K Drive.

Further reading

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A third of developers saw layoffs at their workplace last year, 56% worry it’ll happen this year

A fifth of QA developers say they were personally laid off

There has been a steady stream of layoffs across the games industry for some time now. Job losses across the industry were widespread in 2023, with 9,000 layoffs estimated, and they don’t appear to be slowing this year.

The estimated total number of layoffs in 2024 so far has already reached 5,900 according to technical artist Farhan Noor’s website Game Industry Layoffs, which has been tracking confirmed games industry job cuts since the start of last year.

According to a GDC survey, around a third of developers say they were impacted by layoffs at their workplace over a 12-month period.

Of 3,000 developers surveyed, 35% said they were impacted by layoffs during this period – 7% were personally laid off, a further 17% said colleagues in their department were laid off, and 11% said other teams or departments had layoffs.