At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, we’re living through one of the most stacked release calendars in gaming history. Everywhere you look there’s another high-quality title dropping, another “must-play” demanding sixty hours of your life, and another backlog groaning under the weight of it all. For players, it feels like a golden era. But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a far less cheery story — one defined by layoffs, restructurings, and boardrooms chasing growth at all costs.

It’s no secret that the industry has a greed problem. That’s been dissected by journalists, critics, and even the developers themselves. What I want to do here is zoom in on a handful of 2024–2025’s biggest releases and put some numbers behind the contradiction: games generating hundreds of millions of dollars while the very people who make them are shown the door.

Helldivers 2 (Sony / Arrowhead)

Sony’s surprise smash hit of 2024, Helldivers 2, didn’t just land — it carpet-bombed. With over 12 million units sold across PS5 and PC, it became Sony’s fastest-selling first-party title ever. Run the math and you’re looking at roughly $600 million in revenue off a budget analysts peg around $100 million. That’s a six-times return on investment, the sort of margin most industries would kill for.

And yet, in the very same quarter Sony announced those record sales, it also announced 1,300+ layoffs across Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Insomniac, and other PlayStation teams. The soldiers were winning the war, but the generals were pulling bodies off the battlefield anyway.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)

The Final Fantasy franchise has always been about ambition, and Rebirth doubled down on that by rebuilding one of the most beloved RPGs ever. Sales hit around 4 million copies, generating ~$280 million in revenue. Sounds solid — until you remember this is a game that likely cost $200–300 million to develop and market. That puts it closer to break-even than blockbuster.

Square Enix responded not with patience, but with a restructuring that saw dozens to hundreds of staff laid off across North America and Europe. At the same time, they posted a ¥22.1 billion (~$140M) annual loss, citing underperformance. Maybe spending years chasing NFTs and metaverse projects wasn’t the wisest Shinra-esque move after all.

Dragon’s Dogma II and Monster Hunter Wilds (Capcom)

Capcom, meanwhile, is quietly having the time of its life. Dragon’s Dogma II sold 5.5 million units in just a few months, bringing in an estimated $385 million on a budget likely around $100–150 million. That’s nearly a four-times return.

Pair that with Monster Hunter Wilds crossing 7 million sales in 2025 (about $490 million in revenue already), and you’ve got a publisher bucking the industry’s bloodletting trend. Capcom has actually been expanding, posting record profits while most of its peers cut. Proof that consistent hits and efficient budgets can still lead to growth, not shrinkage.

DOOM: The Dark Ages (Bethesda / Microsoft)

Bethesda’s latest demon-slaying outing is still early in its sales arc, with around 4 million units sold (~$280 million revenue). Solid numbers, and they’ll grow as the game hits discounts and DLC cycles. But the shadow over DOOM isn’t in Hell — it’s in Redmond.

Microsoft laid off 1,900 staff in January 2024 after swallowing Activision Blizzard, then hit Bethesda/ZeniMax with another ~650 cuts that same year. By mid-2025, they announced plans to cut up to 9,000 more employees, canceling several projects outright. Even with Game Pass growth and big releases, the axe continues to swing.

Donkey Kong Bonanza (Nintendo)

Over on Nintendo’s side, the numbers are smaller but no less impressive. Donkey Kong Bonanza (arriving alongside the Switch 2 launch) has already sold ~3 million units, generating about $170 million. With a budget likely in the modest $30–60 million range, that’s a fat ROI.

And unlike Sony or Microsoft, Nintendo has been notably quiet on the layoffs front. Whether thanks to evergreen sales (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still topping charts a decade later) or simply more disciplined budgeting, Nintendo stands as one of the few big players not gutting its teams mid-victory lap.

Zooming Out

Step back and add it up: just these six games represent over $3 billion changing hands between players and publishers in less than two years. Billions of dollars, millions of copies, critical acclaim. And yet in that same window, tens of thousands of developers across the industry lost their jobs.

This isn’t about one “bad” company or a couple of unlucky projects. It’s about an industry where even the biggest wins aren’t safe from the chopping block. Where record profits aren’t enough to shield workers from shareholder expectations.

The golden age for players is, in many ways, a gilded age — shiny on the outside, but built on shaky foundations. As consumers, it’s worth asking not just what we’re playing, but who pays the cost for us to play it.