According to Kotaku, the 2026 Game Developers Conference survey reveals a deeply pessimistic industry. A whopping 52% of over 2,300 developers now believe generative AI will have a negative impact, a massive jump from last year. Only 20% plan to bring their next game to Xbox Series X/S, a steep drop from 34% in 2025. Meanwhile, 17% of respondents were laid off in the last year, and nearly half of those couldn’t find another game industry job. The survey also shows Trump administration policies are hurting business, with 31% of developers canceling U.S. travel plans and 60% of non-U.S. leaders saying the climate negatively impacts their desire to do business there.
AI Sentiment Craters
Here’s the thing: the AI hype bubble in game dev has well and truly burst. Last year, folks were cautiously curious or at least split on the issue. Now? They’re horrified. When you see the number of people thinking AI is a positive force drop from 13% to just 7%, that’s a statement. And it’s across the board—artists, writers, coders. The irony, of course, is that actual usage for mundane tasks is still growing. So what gives? I think developers have seen the reality: the promise of a magic creativity tool is colliding with the grim reality of job replacement, ethical nightmares around training data, and frankly, mediocre output. They’re using it to draft emails because that’s low-stakes. But trusting it with core creative work? No way.
Xbox Becomes An Afterthought
But the real shocker in this survey is the Xbox number. Only 20% interest? That’s brutal. It’s still above mobile, but that’s not saying much. This isn’t just about console wars fanboyism; this is a direct signal from the people who make the games about where they see the players and the money. PC is king, PlayStation and the next Nintendo console are solid bets, and Xbox is… an afterthought. And can you blame them? Microsoft’s own strategy has been all over the place—day-one on PC, pushing Game Pass over unit sales, vague hardware futures. When the platform holder seems unsure, why would a developer betting their studio’s future on it feel confident? Microsoft’s pivot to being a publisher everywhere suddenly looks less like a bold strategy and more like a necessary retreat.
Layoffs And A Union Push
The layoff stats are just devastating. We all knew it was bad, but seeing that nearly 50% of laid-off devs couldn’t get another job in games? That’s a talent exodus. That’s years of experience and institutional knowledge just leaving the industry for good. So what’s the response? Unionization. With over 80% of U.S. devs supporting it, the demand is clearly there. The success at Microsoft studios because of that neutrality agreement shows it can work. But the struggle at places like EA and 2K is the real battle. The industry is at a breaking point. The business model of constant growth, bloated budgets, and mass layoffs is unsustainable, and workers are finally saying they’ve had enough.
Politics Meets Pixels
This is where it gets really messy. The game industry is global. Always has been. Conferences, collaboration, talent recruitment—it all depends on relatively open borders and stable trade. The survey suggests the current U.S. political climate is actively damaging that. When a third of devs cancel travel and 60% of international leaders are rethinking U.S. business, that has a real financial impact. Tariffs affecting 38% of respondents? That hits the bottom line. This isn’t about partisan politics; it’s about practicality. If it’s harder to get your team together, more expensive to manufacture hardware, and riskier to plan a major market launch, you’ll look elsewhere. The industry might be digital, but it’s built by people who need to move and work across physical borders. Basically, when politics makes that impossible, everyone loses.
