Recession, layoffs hit the eSports and gaming industry

US-based organisation The Guard let go of all their employees in a drastic decision.

Update: 2023-02-24 12:09 GMT

Once upon a time, video games were looked upon as a pastime or a hobby. Now, things have become far more professional.

An impending recession has grasped the world tightly and resulted in massive changes in the administration of a lot of companies. A consequence of recession is layoffs. According to a Business Today article, some other reasons behind companies' laying off employees include:

  • Over-hiring during Covid-19 pandemic
  • Pressure from investors
  • Growth of the tech sector
  • Lack of earnings

Corporate bigwigs like Meta, Amazon, Morgan Stanley, and others have let go chunks of their employees, whether in India or worldwide.

Now, it is the eSports and gaming industry which has been hit by the lay-offs, starting with US-based company The Guard. Headquarters in Los Angeles, the eSports giant has just slashed the jobs of reportedly all of their employees, ranging from their social, content, talent, to creative teams.

It was one of their producers named Hunter who announced this development on their Twitter handle.

Another former employee named Carlie, who used to be an apparel designer at the company, was one of the first people from inside The Guard to reveal this to the public.

FaZeClan - one of the most popular eSports organisations in the world also laid off close to 20% of their staff after a massive fall in their stock prices. Their stock price fell below $1 for the first-time in January last month after going public last year.

There have been multiple other eSports teams and companies which have either let go of their whole staff or done considerable cuts in the staff this year alone. These include the likes of Immortals, eUnited, and others.

Dynamo shuts down Hydra eSports boot camp

Aaditya Sawant, fondly known as 'Dynamo' in the Indian eSports fraternity, recently revealed that the company had shut down the operations of their boot camp 'Hydra eSports' long time back.

While he didn't explicitly cite the upcoming recession as the reason behind this decision, an AFK Gaming article states that the workload was all on his shoulders, and it was getting difficult to bear the expenses of the numerous content creators and machines.

Nonetheless, it is visible that recession and consequent layoffs have certainly hit the eSports and gaming industry, and slowly has started finding its way into the Indian scene as well.

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