When Holly Hudson enrolled on a university video game design course, she imagined a job at a studio would be waiting at the end of it.<\/p>\n
Holly graduated in 2023, just as a wave of layoffs and studio closures began to sweep across the industry she hoped to enter.<\/p>\n
It’s a trend that’s continued and, in 2025, the picture is still fairly bleak for those looking for jobs in gaming.<\/p>\n
According to industry body UKIE, as of June this year, there were just under 700 active vacancies in UK game development.<\/p>\n
But Holly and others like her are finding ways to follow their passions and get their creations out there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Despite struggling to find a full-time job in the industry, Holly has just released her first commercial game alongside uni course mate Harvey Hayman.<\/p>\n
Morgan: Metal Detective – a “cosy” slow-paced adventure game set in Cornwall -began life as their end-of-year project.<\/p>\n
Players take on the role of Morgan, a young girl who uses her late grandfather’s metal detector to find lost items and return them to residents on a small island.<\/p>\n
Holly and Harvey tell BBC Newsbeat it’s a personal project for both of them, inspired by childhood holidays in south-west England, but one they’ve had to work hard to get over the line.<\/p>\n
Funding for new video games has also declined in the past two years, so the project has been largely self-financed.<\/p>\n
“It’s basically Holly and I trying to pick up contracting work where we can,” says Harvey, who also has a job at a TV production company.<\/p>\n
“And so it’s like having to balance these different things,” he says. <\/p>\n
“We really want to release this game, but also we need some money to live on and make sandwiches.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Studio Morgan<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n
The most recent figures from the UK Parliament show that 4,800 students began video game-related degrees in 2021.<\/p>\n
Holly believes that the route she and Harvey have taken is “quite common” among their peers.<\/p>\n
“There’s a couple of us that have gone on to start our own studios,” she says.<\/p>\n
Other young people are finding success via Roblox and Fortnite – using in-game tools to create levels and experiences to share with others.<\/p>\n
For those willing to put the hours in, it can be lucrative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Sonny Tranter, 23, started making maps in Minecraft before moving over to Fortnite, where his creations caught on and found an audience.<\/p>\n
This led to partnerships with well-known brands, and Sonny, better known as Driz, has recently set up his own studio dedicated to building Fortnite content.<\/p>\n
Epic Games, which makes the multiplayer hit, says 40% of its net revenue is shared among creators according to the level of engagement they generate.<\/p>\n
If an “island” – as the creations are known – attracts new players, brings back lapsed fans or gets regular return visits, it will generate more money for its makers.<\/p>\n
Sonny says Fortnite uses an algorithm based on these metrics, similar to YouTube, to decide which ones to promote to users.<\/p>\n
He admits that can make it difficult for newcomers to make a mark and push more unique creations.<\/p>\n
“If you want to make a game that’s different, but still does well, I think the best strategy is probably build off what’s already popular and make it unique in your own way,” he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Driz<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n
Developers like Holly and Harvey face a similar problem of visibility.<\/p>\n
With thousands of new games released each year – getting yours seen is another huge challenge for independents.<\/p>\n
“We’ve tried as hard as we can without spending a lot of money,” says Harvey.<\/p>\n
“Because there’s one way to guarantee game sales – have a load of cash so you can just put marketing on the side of buses. <\/p>\n
“But we don’t have that.” <\/p>\n
Harvey says he and Holly have taken opportunities to showcase the game whenever they’ve arisen – even being flown out the USA.<\/p>\n
He says each appearance usually leads to a bump in wishlists – where potential players can register their interest on online stores – which have “built up slowly over time”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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UKIE, which represents the games industry, says there are “more routes than ever” into gaming careers but access to entry level jobs remains “challenging”.<\/p>\n
“We’re seeing the tools and knowledge needed to build a game become more accessible every year, which is helping to democratise entry into the industry,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
They said UKIE was in discussions with the government about ways apprenticeships and similar programmes can “provide pathways for new entrants and help upskill the current workforce”. <\/p>\n
Scott Alsworth, from the IWGB Union’s game workers’ branch, said the UK games industry faced “apocalyptic conditions” after years of mass layoffs, overspending “and AI-driven displacement”.<\/p>\n
He said workers at all levels of also struggled to find stable employment in the current climate, on top of the outlook for graduates or new entrants. <\/p>\n
“Aspiring working-class developers have it particularly bad,” he said, adding that the UK’s gaming workforce lagged behind industries such as film and TV in terms of representation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Despite this, both Holly and Harvey wouldn’t discourage those with a passion for games from following it.<\/p>\n
Holly says the games industry is “so friendly” and supportive and meeting others in the same situation has made the past two years “more manageable” for her.<\/p>\n
She expects more young developers to launch their own studios in the coming years.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite an interesting path to take rather than just being rejected over and over again,” she says.<\/p>\n
“But I think hopefully it’s quite inspiring and it shows people that actually there are different ways to make games rather than getting a publisher and finding money that way.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Published at Tue, 05 Aug 2025 08:21:03 +0000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jobs in video games dried up, so we made our own 23 minutes ago Studio Morgan When Holly Hudson enrolled on a university video game design course, she imagined a job at a studio would be waiting at the end of it. Her dream was to work as a 3D artist, but the reality has… Continue reading Jobs in video games dried up, so we made our own<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}