PC Gaming

Actors have unions. Actors also get royalties or a percent of sales.

Afaik video game workers have neither unions nor do they get a % of the profits.

They are not.

They're not. It's not uncommon after a game is developed for there to be a degree of churn in the development studio, but 1) that's not ideal, 2) that's not what's been happening recently.

They typically don't refer to the typical post game churn as "layoffs", and they also typically happen after a game launches, not inline with the entire industry laying off a bunch of people.

That's just.....that's just not how this stuff works m8. By and large no, "video game workers" are not gig/contract most of the time. It does happen, especially at lower levels; but it's foolish to believe anywhere close to the majority of layoffs come from contracts. Those often have built in buy-outs anyways - this is talking about the full time artists/staff/programers who are always working on something

You don't honestly think Infinity Ward laid people off after not getting the contract for Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) following Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) do you? Or consider the time between Naughty Dog's Crash Team Racing (1999) and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001) - That's two years. Two years without releasing a game, yet they didn't lay anyone off?

Buddy, there is always a next project. Project Managers will fill every single artist's calendar of deliverables for supporting the current game (someone has to make DLC, though it is sometimes outsourced) and any future projects. They also do buy assets and employ contract work in these domains, but again, it's small in the grand scheme of things.

Programmers will always be optimizing the engine, working on patches for an updated build, or again working on the next game because every business worth it's salt isn't going to fire experienced staff in preparation for the next project as demanded by the need for more returns

Unless other economic factors change - a company may choose to engage short term solutions to keep profits looking healthy. If it's cheaper to lay people off then it is to compete on merit (make a new game) why would you from a business perspective?

These companies are run by bean counters; not artists and devs anymore. Almost every game company was started by people who wanted to make good games, and now these same companies are laying people off regardless of their position in the market.

Idk. Games come out way too frequently to support the idea that these people are getting laid off in between projects. It doesn't add up. These layoffs are very recent in the grand scheme of the game industry.

The studios who are laying people off are the studios with hundreds or thousands of employees with multiple projects active at any given time. No, it's not gig work. Even small studios working on one project generally don't do this. When one project is done, the next one is through pre-production and ready for development to begin usually, or they'll have a break. Usually keeping employees happy and loyal will be more effective than training new employees every time a project starts. It's stupidly inefficient to do that.

Plus, that shouldn't be acceptable almost anywhere. People should be able to have stable lives with reliable incomes and locations. Expecting anything else is horrible for the workers lives.

No? They're employees.

The difference is, actors do it out of choice, and through power. If the gig workers are doing it through no choice and because employers don't want to give them the same benefits as permanent employees, it's exploitative.