At DICE and GDC this year I heard talk of a trend in game development that sent a chill down my spine: “deprofessionalization.” As A16z marketing partner Ryan K. Rigney defines it, deprofessionalization is a phenomenon driven by the overperformance of older titles (particularly free-to-play live service games), large studios struggling to drive sales, and the outsized success of some solo developers and small teams.
These three forces, he argues, will combine to “drive career professionals from the traditional, professionalized side of the games industry.”
“Some of these people will decide to go indie,” he continues. “Others will leave gaming altogether. And in between there’s a vast spectrum of irregular working arrangements available.”
Deprofessionalization is built on the back of devaluing labor
Rigney offered some extra nuance on his “deprofessionalization” theory in an email exchange we had before PAX. He predicted that marketing roles at studios would be “the first” on the chopping block, followed by “roles that seem replaceable to management (even if they’re not).”
“The winners will be the creative renegades. I’m talking about the people making work that would have never gotten greenlit at one of these bigger publishers in the first place. Some of these creatives will start their own studio, or dabble in side projects…This is the only creative industry on the planet where one person can make $100 million making something by themselves.”
That held up in my survey of the games boothing at PAX. The developers of Mycopunk and Cat Secretary had some of the larger teams on the floor of about 5-6 people. Indie publisher Playism was showing off a number of excellent-looking games like Mind Diver and Break Arts III. Executive producer Shunji Mizutani told me the average team size the company is looking to back is around 1-3 developers (though he said it’s not a hard and fast rule).
[…]his key example of a post-deprofessionalization game developer is veteran developer Aaron Rutledge, a former lead designer on League of Legends, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and Apex Legends. After leaving Respawn Entertainment in 2024 he founded a consultancy firm Area Denial, acting as a “gun for hire” for studios.
Rutledge deserves his success, and the life of a traveling creative called on by other studios sounds romantic. But as a foundation for game development, it’s a framework that celebrates the few over the many. It narrows which roles are considered “essential” for making great games (often designers or programmers) and treats other positions as somehow less essential. You could see someone like Wehle hiring someone like Rutledge to bring some of that triple-A experience to a small game.
But that feels like the polar ends of who can benefit in the deprofessionalized world—developers with the stability to swing big for big-shot ideas, and programmers or designers with deep career experience that can be called in like a group of noble mercenaries. People in between will be left out.
A shift is definitely happening, but idk if counting booths at PAX and GDC is representative.
PAX’ audience are primarily comic and board game nerds, they’re historically light on video game booths in their expo hall, usually prioritizing indie booths when they can. GDC’s audience is game developers not players, so the expo is typically a bunch of hardware and backend service companies.
That is entirely untrue. PAX has a specific tabletop convention (PAX Unplugged), but the main cons are very heavily video game focused. The expo hall have an indie game section, but the vast majority of the expo hall is major companies (Nintendo often has the largest booth). I have been to PAX West nearly every (I missed the first year and last year), and board games are there, but never the focus
I’m not saying they have no presence, I’m just saying PAX has not historically been a priority for AAA studios compared to things like E3 and Gamescom. On the whole, PAX is like 75% comics, tabletop/board game, and general nerd stuff, and less than 25% game studio presence. Which makes sense because Penny Arcade is a comic and they’ve always had an association with that crowd. Video games just tend to have a lot of overlap with that crowd, so it’s been worth it for studios to have a presence, some years more than others, some years more indie than AAA (ex Indie Megabooth).
Yes, I understand you think it is 75% board/tabletop/comics and, at least at PAX west, that is untrue. Nintendo literally did a mini event inside PAX two years. Larian has had a huge presence since BG3 was announced. There are esports events the whole time. Most of the panels are video game related. It may be that you don’t do the AAA stuff, but there has historically been a huge presence
Yes, I’ve attended everything you mention. I understand you think that is a large presence, but it amounted to less than 25% of the show. Larian and Nintendo were the exception, not the rule, they made up the bulk of the AAA presence.
Ive been going to pax West since 2011 and AAA absolutely had a huge presence there. It was the bulk of the show. Tabletop had a tiny section of the floor