Layoffline
A real-time tracker and career-transition companion for laid-off game-industry professionals, with AI-matched openings, portfolio reviews, and a peer-support network.
Game developers, artists, QA, and producers who have just been laid off (or fear they will be) from studios like Microsoft, Sony, or EA
- Studio layoff feed: aggregates public layoff news from Reddit, LinkedIn, and trade press with company, role, and severance tags
- AI portfolio translator: takes your shipped game credits and rewrites them as a resume for non-game roles (XR, simulation, defense tech, enterprise 3D)
- Warm-intro matcher: connects you with hiring managers at studios that are still hiring, using mutual connections from your shipped-game credits
- Severance and benefits navigator: state-by-state guides to unemployment, COBRA, and visa status changes
The Microsoft/id Tech firing is the latest in a wave of 2024-2026 game-industry layoffs, and displaced devs have no purpose-built tool to find each other and pivot fast.
GDC survey of 3000+ devs shows widespread layoff impact; tracking site records all-time peak of ~14.9k layoffs in 2024 with the wave continuing into 2026; Reddit threads show senior devs struggling to find work.2026 Games Industry Layoffs | Video Game Layoffs ↗For Science: GDC's annual gamedev survey reflects anger with layoffs disdain for gen AI ↗
Multiple existing players cover adjacent needs: gaminglayoffs.com (tracker), Game Industry Layoff Support Network, x2XP/Game Dev Discords, IGDA, LinkedIn Gaming Jobs — none bundle AI-matched openings + portfolio review + peer support, but a competitor or acquirer could.2026 Games Industry Layoffs | Video Game Layoffs ↗How our Discord community helped devs after layoffs ↗
Newly laid-off devs are cash-strapped; the dominant offerings in this space (gaminglayoffs.com, Discord war rooms, IGDA, Reddit threads) are free, and the audience has historically resisted paid career tools unless employer-subsidized.2026 Games Industry Layoffs | Video Game Layoffs ↗To those that got laid off and changed industry, where did you go? - Reddit ↗
Layoffs are episodic — demand spikes with each wave and decays between, so product is cyclical not permanent
All building blocks are off-the-shelf: job-board/LinkedIn aggregation, LLM-based matching, portfolio review with vision models, and Discord-style community — no moat or hard infra required.