How many people work in the game industry? | Two different views
1 min read
Summary
Game developer Kenn White, working with colleagues Brandon Hagerman and others, has estimated there are between 740,000 and 900,000 people employed in the gaming industry.
This top-down figure was ascertained by looking at global census data, labour bureau reports and academic pipelines, and is meant to be a snapshot in time.
It includes developers and publishers working on PC, console, mobile, AR/VR and external developers and outsourcers across functions such as art, engineering, production and marketing.
It does not, however, include people whose primary job or company competency is not gaming.
Previously, industry expert Amir Satvat had estimated just 230,000 people were directly employed in game development, but he has since raised that figure to 350,000 following White’s research.
Satvat focuses on a bottom-up approach, counting developers tied to publicly visible job pages, while White’s team took a top-down methodology.
Both methodologies are valuable and, ideally, the numbers can be worked towards a combined estimate to better reflect the scale of the industry.