Is The Gaming Industry Safe from The New Wave of Tech Redundancies?

As massive companies such as Twitter and Meta slash their staff numbers, those in the gaming industry have started to worry if the trend will spread into their industry.

Indeed, since being taken over by billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk, Twitter has laid off 3,700 employees. On the other hand, Meta recently announced that it would downsize its global workforce by 11,000 employees.

However, the trend isn’t confined to social media companies. Organisations such as the Uber rival Lyft cut around 700 jobs last week. In addition, the payment platform Stripe cut their workforce by 1,100 people over the last month. And although not actively removing positions, both Amazon and Apple have implemented hiring freezes until at least the end of the year.

Causes

Much of this contraction companies have blamed on inflation. The rising costs of everything from raw materials to fuel to production have squeezed companies’ margins to the point of taking austerity measures.

As is often the case with inflation, there is also the impact of a reduction in the average disposable income that customers have and, therefore, a reduction in their ability to buy goods and services.

The Gambling Industry

This global trend will undoubtedly affect the gambling industry, yet organisations seem to be holding their cards very close to their chest about how bad things are or not. The critical thing for betting organisations is investing in sectors representing growth and focusing on growing rather than conserving traditional business.

Like governments, when presented with inflation issues, the gambling industry has two choices. One, they force austerity measures, cutting costs and spending on new projects to preserve business and save money. Or two, they borrow and invest more money into high-growth areas, investing into themselves at the risk of taking on a larger debt to pay off in the future.

One of these identified high-growth areas is E-Sport betting. As an industry that is growing substantially year on year, E-Sports open up a whole new area of potential betting action, which could boost revenue and help create more jobs in the industry.

E-Sports has been a tricky market to understand, however, and the appetite for gambling on the results of computer games doesn’t seem to be as ardent as that for conventional sports.

It isn’t easy to know if the iGaming industry will suffer as badly as its tech partners. Yet, if companies in this industry are to survive, they will be better served by building sustainable business models and finding growth areas rather than retreating into themselves. Maybe only then will the kind of huge layoffs seen elsewhere in the tech area be avoided.