These are a few excerpts from many things I wrote during my “great unemployment.” I wrote them so I would remember what this time was like. But as the mass layoffs in the games industry continue, I feel compelled to share my experience. Those now entering this journey should know they aren’t alone. Many of us have been through it. Many continue to go through it. And it’s hard. Really hard.
In April 2024, I was laid off from Digital Eclipse. I thought everything was going to be fine. I was angry and not keen on being unemployed, but I had just finished a big project of which I was very proud. I had 24 years of experience making video games. I had been a producer of one type or another for most of that time, but I had other skills I’d picked up over the years as well.
I had designed systems and full games. I’d written VO scripts. I’d implemented full features with self-taught C# scripting skills and the use of Unreal Blueprints. I had also contributed more than my fair share of UI and pixel art over the years. And despite all the dabbling, I managed to be half-decent at most of it.
You learn a lot when working with a small developer. As a producer, if we needed a skill and no one on the team had it, I often found myself learning it so the team could do the things at which they were best.
With my experience and a solid base of skills, I thought everything was going to be fine. My co-workers thought the same. As I said my goodbyes, many had the same refrain: “you’ll have a job in no time” and any company “would be a fool” not to hire me. I posted on LinkedIn that same afternoon about my turn of luck. And sure enough, the outpouring of support was humbling. An old friend (and an all-around amazing guy) refered me for a position at his company (a big AAA publisher) and I had an interview lined up within days.
My initial interview was with a recruiter. I was told by the recruiter that the interview process for this position was a bit unusual. The hiring manager would give me one half-hour interview (as he would give to many others I assumed), after which he would make his decision.
I remember jumping on the call and feeling very nervous. It had been only days since walking away from a job that had been a part of me for 11 years and I hadn’t really interviewed for a job in 12 years. Despite all the support, I was feeling a little shaken. And now I had one half-hour to convince a person I didn’t know that I was the right person to be his Senior Producer.
I can’t say that I’ve ever felt that I was great at interviews. Talking about myself, selling myself, just isn’t my forte. I wish I could say I nailed it all the same, but that interview didn’t go as well as I had hoped. During it, in an attempt to settle my nerves, I made the admission that I was nervous. I figured being honest would be a good thing and by admitting it, I’d be able to move forward and just talk about myself openly. But it didn’t turn out that way. It set the wrong tone.
Imposter syndrome clicked into high gear. I felt small. I felt undeserving. I hadn’t had any time to process losing a piece of my identity. Like it or not, where we spend our work days is a part of who we are. And if it’s a good job, we are happy that it is. And it had been a good job. Then, after 11 years, I was released into the wild with two weeks of severance as a thank-you for my service. After 11 years of giving my best, they had rejected me. What could I bring to this big publisher?
I felt all of this in the first moments of that interview. My head wasn’t in the right space. I needed time to heal.
I did not get the job.
Applying for jobs in the current environment is launching hopes and good intentions into a vast empty void. Like dropping a message in a bottle and hoping it will land on some distant beach by someone who cares enough to rescue you. It is an emotionally vulnerable enterprise with no kind face, or any face for that matter. It feels inhuman and distant and cold. And the degree of panic that you feel as you submit resume after resume while watching your savings dwindle and keeping your future plans on hold, can be paralyzing. It will keep you up at night. It will play on your self-worth. It will make you doubt that you had any employable skills at all.
It is only through the support of my family, my friends, and my cadre of ex-co-workers that I was able to assure myself that perhaps I had been good at what I did for a living. That despite not doing it now, those skills built over 24 years remained intact. And you soldier on, applying for yet another position, hoping to hear something back. Even a rejection is welcomed because at least you know now and can put your hopes into those that have yet to reject you.
And so, you find yourself on LinkedIn.
There you will read of successes. Folks talking about how they networked their way to a new lucrative position.
Am I networking enough? Should I hit up that guy I worked with once 20 years ago? What do folks even mean by “networking”?
And then you will read of failures – horror stories disguised as job searches. This guy applied for 600 jobs over three months and now is in danger of losing his house. This very experienced person applied for 1500 jobs over a year and still has not found anything.
How do you even do that? Am I applying for enough jobs? Am I doing enough? Will I also soon worry if I can meet next month’s rent?
And then you read all the advice on how to optimize your job search. This person says you should definitely mark your profile as Open To Work. This other person says that companies don’t like to hire folks who are unemployed, so don’t mark your profile.
Why would being unemployed be disqualifying? I’m not sure what I should do.
This person will use AI to review your resume so that it gets through the gates. This service will create professional AI pictures of you, because that’s what’s holding you back.
Do I need these things? Maybe this is why folks aren’t responding to me?
Oh my god… so many posts about AI. It’s the future – the beginning of a new age of storytelling – and here’s a video to prove it. If you don’t learn how to use AI to your advantage, you will be replaced by it.
That video is pretty bad, but the comments say it’s amazing. Am I too old to get it? Why am I here again?
So many distractions. So many claims that the world is changing and if you don’t change as well, you will be left behind. It’s a battlescape of comments and everyone wants to tell you that you are doing it all wrong. But you eventually find your way to the job postings. And you apply and you apply.
I never hit the 600 or 1500 applications. I kept a detailed spreadsheet of every job I applied for and I walked away impressed with the number. In total, I applied for 195 positions. Maybe it could have been more, but I kept away from spamming applications. I applied only for jobs that I felt I was actually qualified for and only in the Bay Area or Remote.
At first, I wrote lots of cover letters – hand-crafting each application, taking the time to figure out what nice things I could say about the company to explain why I wanted to work for them, avoiding the all too present urge to just say “I need the money.” And then I stopped. In my sample size of 195 applications, I can say that I noticed no change in reply rates. I remember mentioning this to a friend of mine in another industry. He had hired many people over the years and could not recall ever having read a cover letter of an applicant.
And then there are experts who say you should customize your resume to use keywords from the job description you are applying for. I never did this exactly, but I did turn out a new version of my resume each month, with small revisions and new turns of phrase taken from various job descriptions that I liked. Tweaking for a better first impression made sense to me, but inserting keywords painstakingly picked from hundreds of descriptions for bespoke versions of your resume for every listing, was simply not sustainable.
Over time I found the top indicator of whether or not I got a reply, any reply, was often how quickly I applied after the position posted. Nearly every interview that I had, I had applied for the position within a couple of hours of the posting. This was news that I was not happy to discover – the last thing I needed was justification for opening LinkedIn every few minutes throughout the day and into the evening. But alas, these were the ins and outs of looking for a job in this industry.
Over 10 months, I interviewed for 14 positions. Many did not proceed beyond the initial recruiter screening, which was always a bit of a blow. Two of them went the full distance, one of which unfortunately could not make an offer when they lost the project they were hiring for. Of the ones that didn’t interview me, 99 sent me rejections and 84 never responded at all. Most rejections that I did receive happened quickly, within two weeks, but there were a couple that I had well moved into the Never Heard Back category for months before I got a rejection.
If you hear back, the vast majority of rejections responses are vapid form letters. This is pretty understandable if the anecdotal numbers that I’ve heard are to be believed. Folks have reported single positions getting hundreds of resumes, even for senior positions. Thousands of layoffs in the last two years in the game industry, combined with remote work from anywhere, and the ability to apply for a job in an instant look to have created a system where form letters, or simply not replying at all, are the norm. Combined with the supposed corporate practice of posting “ghost jobs” posted for appearance’s sake, or to staff for projects that just never happen, make for a horrific experience for the job seeker and the recruiter alike.
I don’t have a solution to any of this, but I will say that it is deplorable that anyone would consider posting a fake job. I have no idea how many of the positions I applied for never existed at all, but I suspect it may have been more than a few – some positions continue to be available or reposted again and again for months and months.
If at first you don’t succeed, try 171 more times. My first (and only) job offer was the 172nd job for which I applied. My application was submitted on December 12, 2024. I heard back from the recruiter on December 16th and had an interview with the hiring manager on the 20th. After a short production test and two additional interviews, after ten months of unemployment, I got a job offer on January 28, 2025. I started work on February 3rd. And then was laid off again in October of the same year.
That’s what the state of this industry is. Fortunately, I was lucky the second time around. Within a week, two old bosses from my early career, who now run a company together, reached out and offered me a job. I promptly accepted.
This industry is not in a good place. I fear it is only getting worse. Too many colleagues and friends are still struggling – thousands of resumes continue to fill the vast application void. I was unemployed for a long ten months. It seemed like forever. But I know now I was incredibly lucky. I can’t shake the feeling that perhaps the next time, I won’t be. Despite everything, the specter of those ten long months continues to haunt me.