Reader,

A guy I know just got a five-figure contract dropped in his inbox.

He didn't apply. He didn't pitch. He didn't even know it was coming.

Here's how it found him.

A client of mine, ex-Epic and Bungie, had a hunch his company's product would run better in a game engine. He validated it, built it in Godot, took the FPS from 7 to 60. Then he needed someone to migrate the whole build, so he asked around.

One name kept coming up. A DevOps guy known in those circles as the person who gets more out of Godot than anyone. A day later, proposal sent. Work he never chased, for a problem he was already known for solving.

That's the part nobody tells you about this market right now.

You've seen the headlines. Ninja Theory, the Hellblade studio, got shut down this week. Nine days after they stood on stage at the Xbox showcase to announce a new game. Reports say more closures are coming.

Here are the numbers. One in three US game devs has been laid off in the last two years. Half of studios cut staff in the last twelve months. At the AAA level, two-thirds did.

But here's the part that should change how you think about all this. The industry made record money last year. Almost $200 billion. More than it ever has. And it's employing fewer of the people who actually make the games.

That's not a dying market. It's a restructuring. The work is still there. It's just going to fewer, more specific people.

Which is the whole point of running your career like a business of one. You can't control the spreadsheet that decides the layoffs. You can control whether you're the name that comes up when there's a problem to solve.

Speaking of people doing it right, two client wins worth celebrating this week:

👏 Brayden P. just landed Game Designer at Triumph Studios.

👏 Rolo E. just landed QA Analyst at Side, Inc.

Both of them did the work. Got clear on what they were known for, got in the rooms, made it happen. Couldn't be prouder of these two.

If you're looking at this market and feeling stuck, that's usually not a tactics problem. It's a story problem. And a story problem is fixable.

That's what the Strategy Call is for. We get clear on the one thing you should be known for, and the plan to get there. It's $400, and it's the fastest way I know to stop reacting to this market and start running your own game.

Book one here: [link]​

Talk soon,

Adam

​gamingcareers.gg​