As someone who has crossed over both and currently working in games, it's actually kind of wild how different a mindset games are. It takes a very specific skillset even in software engineering and there are unique challenges to both sides of the fence. Crossing over is not quite as easily transferable as you'd think

I’d argue that the skills required to work in the videogame industry are easily repurposed for other IT or creative jobs.

I know dozens of people who've been looking for over a year, for anything in the software field. The issue is companies would rather hire a kid straight out of school than pay for someone with experience. I'm in a discord channel of people (from the last place I worked at that has now gone bankrupt) and the vast majority are still without a job. Most are going outside the industry into the standbys (food service, warehouse, etc). My linkedin was so depressing, post after post about people who used to be engineers I worked with now getting hurt working in Amazon Fulfillmment centres, I just stopped going there and use discord/indeed for job searching. I'm really close with the QA team from my last job, and all but one of them have moved back in with their parents.

It is fucking bleak in software right now.

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether.

Not sure where people think everyone is going to go; there are more closures than job openings.