“THE games industry as we know it is dead.”

That was the verdict of videogame journalist, Chris Tapsell, deputy editor of Eurogamer, earlier this month. And to be fair, he’s not wide of the mark. The old ways of working just aren’t — well — working. The paradigm of the big budget, triple-A studio is failing. Spectacularly.

The scale of this disaster, spurred by overproduction, worker exploitation, dependencies on monopoly capital, cuts to arts council funding, Trump’s tariffs on China, and, of course, AI technologies, has reached apocalyptic proportions. The C-suite fantasy, whereby miracle machines will quickly and efficiently produce art in lieu of actual artists, with all their ideals and meaningful social discourse, is becoming more and more ridiculous. To be sure, what we’re seeing isn’t the beginning of art as procedurally generated play but a grotesque imitation of it — a kind of counter art, or, to borrow a phrase from those campaigning against killer robots in the military, a “death by algorithm.”

Things have got so bad that the entire videogame sector, which is worth about £240 billion globally, is now banking on the annual success of one or two major videogames. This year, it was meant to be Grand Theft Auto VI.

The long-awaited title, in development at Rockstar Games for over a decade and poised to surpass lifetime revenues of more than £15 billion, was set to revive the industry. In fact, the hype surrounding its launch has proven so overwhelming that other studios have held fire on their marketing campaigns, postponing announcements until they’re certain the digital coast is clear. That ended abruptly several weeks ago, when we learned Grand Theft Auto VI would be delayed until May 2026.

As you might expect, that’s posed something of a cashflow problem for 2025. Already, risk-averse videogame investors are looking elsewhere and turning to the relatively secure returns of AI technologies, all but guaranteeing another round of mass layoffs and studio closures. Yet, despite this, we have some reasons to be hopeful. At least, for the long term. There’s a sense of an impending, systemic reckoning. If it’s one thing we’re all pretty sure of, it’s that this mess can’t go on much longer. The age of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star, is almost on us.

And it’s hardly surprising. Thanks to streamlined production tools, open-access engines, and the rise of “playbour” — that is, free labour from unpaid mod-makers — increasing numbers of people from working-class communities are entering the industry (for context, approximately 13 per cent of videogame developers in the UK come from “routine social backgrounds”). Particularly interesting here is how advocacy groups and trade unions are actively transforming workplace demographics from the bottom up. The gate to videogame development is coming off its hinges — and frankly, it’s about bloody time.

Last month, the United Videogame Workers, supported by the Communication Workers of America (UVW-CWA), was formed, making history as the first-ever US videogames union with a clarion call to “raise expectations and raise hell.” Meanwhile, in the UK, the Game Workers Branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain is making waves with its 2024 manifesto, which includes a push to remove entry barriers for lower income workers through studio apprenticeship programmes. Similarly, the IG50 initiative, organised by Into Games, awards a once-a-year opportunity for 50 economically disadvantaged and working-class candidates to join the industry professionally. The closing date is May 16 — check it out!

Obviously, it’s early days still. We’re learning as we go, and “doing” politics is, for most of us, rather new. But there’s a growing consensus we must begin the struggle others have begun so often. That what comes next is necessary: that the rules of the game aren’t only changing — they’re being rewritten from below.