Brenda Romero and John Romero know the games industry better than almost anyone else. Brenda Romero has been a developer since she worked on many of the Wizardry games during the 1980s and 90s, especially as a lead designer on Wizardry 8, while her husband John Romero pioneered the first-person shooter and was the co-creator of Doom at id Software. They know what they’re talking about. So when the pair observed to GI.biz that they see the current state of the games industry as being in a worse position than the infamous crash of 1983, it’s worth listening.
“I feel like the industry’s in a really horrible place,” Brenda Romero told the site, reflecting on not just the broader scale of lay-offs and game failures of the last couple of years, but how this personally affected her own studio, Romero Games, when Xbox suddenly pulled funding from it at the same time as Microsoft let go of nearly 10,000 staff. “I mean,” the Jagged Alliance 2 writer continued, “we were there in the ’80s for the crash, and this is definitely crashier.”
Beginning in 1983, the video game industry experienced a two-year recession that saw sky-high video game revenue fall by an astonishing 97 percent. It was thought at the time that it could be the end of video games as a potential market, until things began to turn around with the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
While we’re certainly not seeing a 97-percent collapse, there’s no question that the current doldrums in which the industry finds itself have cost far more money, jobs, studios and games than were lost in the ’80s. And while there is no longer a meaningful split between consoles and home computers, the sheer cost of making games (estimated to have now crossed $300 million for a AAA project in 2026) makes it extraordinarily risky, with job losses often happening whether games succeed or fail.
“There are so few people that have not been affected,” says Brenda Romero of the current situation, “or their partners affected, or they’re worried about being affected. It’s a really difficult time right now.”
John Romero added the example of Battlefield 6, which despite being the best-selling game of 2025 still saw lay-offs across multiple studios that worked on the multiplayer shooter. “I don’t understand what that’s all about,” he mused.
So how does the industry dig itself out of this mess? “This is really one of those times where I don’t know,” said Brenda, who has spent much of the last couple of decades championing the works of experimental game designers and speaking as an advocate for women in the games industry. Romero Games went from 110 employees to just nine after Microsoft suddenly pulled its funding, and Brenda is taking a philosophical perspective about the future. “I know we’re going to be OK for the next little bit,” she says. “And if something falls over sideways, and 2027 is another ‘exciting’ year, we’ve both had a good run.”