Small teams with big ideas can change the industry
Over 5,300 gamers attended the opening night of Gamescom in Cologne, a record for the event, showcasing blockbuster titles and indie games. The gaming industry has cut nearly 30,000 jobs since early 2023, though global market revenue is projected to remain steady at $190 billion.
- 5,300 people attended Gamescom's opening night in Cologne, a record
- Nearly 30,000 gaming industry jobs cut since early 2023; over 4,000 in 2025 alone
- Global games market projected at $190 billion in revenue for 2025
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 releases November 14; Lego Batman coming 2026
- Nintendo returns to Gamescom; Sony stays away; Microsoft showing portable console
Gamescom 2025 opened with record attendance as major publishers unveiled upcoming games including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Black Myth: Zhong Kui, even as the industry grapples with nearly 30,000 job cuts since 2023.
Cologne's convention center was packed Tuesday night with more than 5,300 people crowding into one of the massive halls—a record opening for Gamescom, the world's largest video game trade show. They came to see what the industry had been building while the rest of the world wasn't watching: a dystopian Call of Duty with actor Milo Ventimiglia as its lead, a Lego Batman game that promises to mine decades of comic book and television lore, the next chapter of Resident Evil's horror franchise, and a surprise sequel to last year's Chinese phenomenon Black Myth: Wukong. The energy was palpable. People lined up to test unreleased games. Fans wearing the red berets and striped shirts of the indie game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 recognized each other in the crowd and smiled. A composer performed live music from an upcoming adventure game. On the surface, it looked like an industry firing on all cylinders.
But the showcase's brightness obscured a darker reality. The gaming sector has been in free fall for nearly two years. Since early 2023, the industry has shed almost 30,000 jobs—more than 4,000 of them just this year. Studios have closed. Projects have been cancelled mid-development. Budgets have tightened. Felix Falk, who manages Germany's game industry association and helps organize Gamescom, acknowledged the strain without softening it: the sector hasn't had an easy time, he said, and while consolidation and layoffs are normal in such a dynamic industry, "it's nevertheless not pretty when it happens."
Yet the numbers tell a more complicated story. The global games market is projected to hold steady at just under $190 billion in revenue this year, according to data firm Newzoo. The industry is not collapsing—it is contracting, consolidating, and reshaping itself. The big publishers are still spending hundreds of millions on blockbuster franchises. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 arrives in November. The Outer Worlds 2 is coming. A new Lego Batman game is slated for 2026. These are not the projects of a dying industry; they are the bets of companies that believe they can still win.
What has shifted is the landscape of who gets to make games and how. Nintendo returned to Gamescom this year after sitting out 2025, riding the momentum of its record-breaking Switch 2 console launch in June. Microsoft is showcasing its own portable device, due out by year's end. Sony, the Japanese PlayStation maker, has chosen to stay away. The show's master of ceremonies, Canadian television presenter Geoff Keighley, made a point of highlighting the indie games on display—titles made by small teams with budgets a fraction of the Call of Duty behemoths. "Small teams with big ideas can change the industry," he said. The evidence was there: Hollow Knight: Silksong, a sequel that fans had waited eight years to see, drew crowds. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a French indie game, had inspired enough devotion that its fans were recognizing each other by costume in the halls.
Organizers are hoping the full week will draw around 370,000 visitors—a return to pre-pandemic levels. Last year's show attracted 335,000. The gap suggests the industry is still finding its footing, still figuring out what it looks like after the cuts and closures and cancelled projects. What Gamescom 2025 revealed is that the industry has not stopped making games—it has stopped making as many of them, and it has stopped employing as many people to make them. The showcase was real. The games are coming. But the path to get here has been brutal, and the people who built these worlds are not all still here to see them released.
Citações Notáveis
The sector hasn't had an easy time in the last two years, with consolidation, job cuts, studio closures, and premature project cancellations—it's not pretty when it happens.— Felix Falk, managing director of Germany's GAME industry association
Small teams with big ideas can change the industry.— Geoff Keighley, Gamescom master of ceremonies
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a trade show matter when the industry is cutting jobs at this scale?
Because it's where the industry tells itself a story about the future. When 5,300 people show up on opening night, when companies spend millions on booths and reveals, they're saying: we're still here, we're still building, this still matters. The layoffs are real—30,000 people lost their jobs. But the games are still coming.
So it's a kind of denial?
Not quite. It's more like triage. The big publishers are consolidating, cutting the fat, keeping the projects they think will sell. Nintendo came back because the Switch 2 is selling. Microsoft is pushing its portable console. Sony stayed home. The industry is reshaping itself, not dying.
What about the people who were cut?
They're not at Gamescom. That's the thing no one said out loud in those halls. The games being shown Tuesday night were built by teams that are smaller now, or by people who found work elsewhere, or by people who left the industry entirely. The showcase is real. The human cost is also real.
Is there anything hopeful in what happened?
Yes. The indie games. Small teams with small budgets proving they can move people, can create communities, can matter. Hollow Knight waited eight years for a sequel and people still showed up. That's not about money. That's about craft.
Will the industry stabilize?
The revenue projections suggest it will. But stabilize doesn't mean recover. It means finding a new equilibrium at a smaller scale, with fewer people, making different kinds of games. That's what Gamescom 2025 was really showing—not the future of games, but the future of the industry that makes them.