The 2025 Bum Thread

[mid_gen]

Seems there's a few people who are or will imminently be unemployed this year. I'm currently serving my notice period due to an RTO mandate.

Not sure what I'm going to do next. Remote work? Not likely as games job market is dead. Freelance? Maybe. Make an indie game? Maybe. Make some Unreal tools and flog em? Maybe. Bin off games entirely? Build my Youtube channel? Work on videography as a profession? Bugger off to live somewhere very remote and cheap and just do a bit of seasonal work to pay the bills whilst doing loads of climbing and outdoors stuff?

* The last item is very high on my list right now

Fortunately I have a good savings runway and very low overheads so I can not work for years if necessary.

 

[mid_gen]

What work were you doing in video games?

I am a Lead AI Programmer by trade.

Microtransactions.

Oh that I worked on something that was simple, I chose to specialise in the most complex bit of game development

 

[mid_gen]

I got the push late last year my boss and others at the end of dec.

In november I decided to upskill by doing an artificial intelligence short programme at oxford uni. Rationale was I wanted a vendor independent course that had structure and would be recognised.

Now on module 5/6, it’s been really good, resolves many of the questions I have and given me confidence.

From an employment market, it’s probably worth pointing out thay many roles are touted to change but given the law, regulatory flux and BS around AI it’s worth saying it will change with AI augmenting most roles and automating ones thay dont need social skills or expertise inovating or creatively.
I think things will change, but I dont think we’ll see replacements unless you’re simply doing donkey work in law or tax etc. it should be noted that 35-45% speed up for coding doesn’t stretch to complex systems which drop to 10%.

Even if AI only brings about a 20% reduction in required manpower for a given task..... that is a whole lot of people that are going to need to find a new career.

I am torn at the moment between trying to make some passive income ( continue developing my YouTube presence, sell some digital stuff), or moving completely to in-person business dealing in interpersonal transactions, hospitality, tourism etc, which won't go away.

Or do I just bugger off abroad somewhere for one last hurrah and bank as much tech money as possible before the jobs disappear....then retire early.

 

[mid_gen]

OP what would you enjoy the most work wise? If it's to make a game then maybe consider doing it while you can?

I do enjoy making games, but I've been in leadership roles on AAA for over ten years now, and in that time I've only managed to get one game shipped. It's pretty draining. I am building some of my own game prototypes at the moment just to freshen up my skills on the latest version of Unreal. Finding a publisher and getting an indie game out is kinda appealing.

On the other hand, I'm mid-forties now. I'm an active person and I'm not sure I want to spend the next twenty years of my working life sat behind a desk. We don't have or want kids so have quite a lot of financial freedom, so are weighing up various options. My partner is a university lecturer and facing imminent redundancy as well, which is a factor.

One of the options we are very seriously considering is to move to sell up, move a remote area and just do bits of part time seasonal work in hospitality to pay the bills, and use the rest of the time to engage in passion projects of various kinds.

 

[mid_gen]

Have plenty of savings and no debt, so not the end of the world, but definitely feeling a tad anxious for the change!

Same here, I can not work for a few years if I'm frugal. It's hard to push the anxiety about income to the side though.

I've been on an Ebaying binge since the start of the year just shifting anything I haven't used for a while, surprising what people will pay for some stuff!

 

[mid_gen]

I didn't realise we were in such a similar position.
I also think "in getting old, time is ticking, if I spend next 20 years doing the same am I just going to be bitter"

But making the change is hard, hardest mentally. Programmed to work the 9-5, pay off mortgage and retire in bordem is baked in.

Finding it hard to open my mind far enough to make a real change.

We are both fighting that cultural pressure to stick with the grind until retirement. Having no kids really turns that on it's head though, you don't *need* to grind for 38 hours a week.

We could get by on 20 hours a week each, minimum wage.

It's a bit tough to give up the software engineering lark though, it does pay well and (tooting my own horn), I am good at it. I am ready for a break for a bit though, at least while the games industry gets past this bust cycle.

 

[mid_gen]

I'm having a big career shift, and I'm not above working in a super market or something to keep a bit of fun money coming in while I make the change.

Much like @mid_gen has said in his post, while I think the IT/Cyber industry is where I want to do, I'm not having kids, so I'm lucky that I don't have to grind 40 hour weeks out doing something that I don't find fulfilling.

I've done quite well for myself in the last few years financially (not enough to retire in my early 30's of course ), I think a bit of a reset to properly remember the value of money will be good for me if anything

Another aspect that is swaying my thinking is that a very good friend of mine that had planned meticulously for retirement, just died suddenly in his sleep last year aged 40 (undiagnosed brain cancer).

While I'm not in full YOLO mode, I am thinking a lot more about what makes me happy, and ultimately, since moving back to the UK in 2019 (just before Covid), the lifestyle here has just ground me down. People in the UK are so programmed to eat **** from their employers, it's quite depressing. People are gobsmacked I've quit a well-paid job because I'm not prepared to commute 4 hours a day, 3 days a week.

 

[mid_gen]

Well, looks like I may get gardening leave, for the last six weeks anyway, was not expecting that to be approved. Win.

 

[mid_gen]

It's way worse in the US, they accept terrible holiday allowance, having health insurance linked to their job and accept ridiculous hours with zero job security

I did look seriously at moving to Canada a few years back. The 7 days holiday was a factor!

A lot more money though.

Yes, the salaries are way higher, particularly in tech. Although living costs in the bay area where most of the jobs are are insane.

 

[mid_gen]

I've not even been in tech anywhere near as long but yeah the market is absolutely cooked. I may end up doing the last thing if I have said career cut short. Maybe come back in a few years who knows.

I've been a little surprised by how much interest I got when I announced I was going to be available. How much of it would actually come to fruition I don't know yet, as I've promised myself I'm not getting into applications while on gardening leave.

I'm currently very strongly leaning towards just starting up as a freelance consultant, doing game AI stuff. Seems the game contract market is so bad at the moment with everyone reducing headcounts, but still wanting to get games out the door.

 

[mid_gen]

Talking to a uni shortly about some part time lecturing work. Don't think I want it full time (partner is a lecturer, HE is a mess), but if I can some to an arrangement that'll pay (some of) the bills but leave me enough time to develop a business.....could be tempting.

 

[mid_gen]

Always good to share knowledge!

Yeah will be a nice change from the grind of AAA car crash projects I've been on the last few years

 

[mid_gen]

Well looks like I am going to be a lecturer as of Monday morning, not sure how that happened, hah! Will be a nice change, and it's only an 8-week engagement.....just enough incoming to justify spending the rest of my time dossing about climbing.

 

[mid_gen]

Congrats, you found a job now! Might aswell temporary close this thread

Signed the final contract for my Senior Microsoft Engineer role, wont be starting till April 1st due to their on-boarding process.

Booked a holiday to Egypt for March as abit of an celebration.

Well, it's not a career, I have no desire to go into teaching full time, so the job plans will continue. Plus I'm still a bum 3 days a week for the next 8 weeks.

Although my YouTube channel is doing pretty well atm, might start making me some pennies soon.

 

[mid_gen]

Well this thread has taken some weird turns

Finally finished up at the big bad last week so I'm just on my two days a week at the uni for next 6 weeks.

Been having some conversations with people about options if I start my own business. Seems there's plenty of work around in my space for someone with my experience. Had to politely turn down a local studio who's CEO was chasing me for a management role too. Seems my main problem is going to be making sure I choose an option that is gonna work for me in the long term, not just find whatever I can.

Spending some days working on some AI middleware I've had for a while and giving it a thorough spruce up. Tossing up the idea of taking it private and licensing it, versus open-sourcing it all and using the visibility to drive consultancy work. Leaning towards the latter at the moment.

 

[mid_gen]

Industries/fields that will be safe from AI :

Building trades
Gardening
Making (I mean hand-making things and marketing as such, not importing cheap chinese crap)
Hospitality/experiences
Food/drink

Basically, anything that isn't digital and involves people and/or things.

AI isn't going to make tech jobs disappear completely, but it is going to massively shrink the required workforce. A LOT of people are going to need new careers.

 

[mid_gen]

It's got to tie it's shoelaces first before it can run that marathon.

Been applying for roles today, hand writing the applications from scratch and not using LinkedIn jobs.

AI already saves me a significant chunk of time, makes me more productive when coding. It's already reduced the number of man hours required to get stuff done. Even just using tiny 1.5billion parameter local models.

 

[mid_gen]

It's always strange to here people say this to me, because I see the complete opposite, but I don't know what context most people use it. But people obviously have success, so maybe I need to temper my expectations with what I use it for, which isn't the super popular stuff like Javascript/Python/Typscript/Node etc.

I'm primarily in automation, Ansible, Terraform, Bash and at home for home-projects sh and C. Terraform isn't too bad in LLMs but the rest is absolute gash. I find they give badly structured, out of date code running with parameters which don't exist, I damn near got into an argument with one as it started making up parameters even after I spelled out which were available. I'd dread to think of the Javascript/Pyhton code they provide considering how much bad code for those is on the web to be scraped.

I did end up asking Claude where the hell it was getting it's info, because it didn't have a clue

The more I try to use them, and see other people try to use them the more suspect I get of the claims of big companies pushing their agenda. I'll be kept in a job fixing AI slop if nothing else.

I run LLMs locally, so no cost to me (other than a little electric i guess). Even 1.5billion parameter coding models provide plenty of useful autocomplete, I'm working in C++ and the main models all know Unreal.

There's quite a bit of boilerplate generally in gameplay code, big timesaver.

The value AI provides doesn't come from 'hey AI make a game for me', it comes from 'you just typed the function named algorithmXYZ, is this the implementation you were about to write? Yep, done.

Not replacing the senior, experienced programmers, but streamlining our workflow. Lots of value there.

 

[mid_gen]

I'm doing two days a week at a uni, which will be running until early May.

The other three days I'm alternating between going out filming climbing, or working on my Unreal projects to spruce up the portfolio, weather dependent.

My Youtube channel got monetised yesterday, so that's been going well at least!

More chats coming soon about future work, still likely to just go freelance and start working day rates.

 

[mid_gen]

Honestly a bit surprised I am being actively chased by several companies, having a good reputation in a small industry pays off, going to have to make a decision soon on what I'm gonna do. Was leaning towards contracting but being approached for remote salaried roles. Hmm.