Are AI job losses hiding in jobs never offered? 35% of game founders skipped a hire because AI could do the work

In the tenth Big Games Industry Employment Survey, run by recruiter Values Value with the InGame Job platform across 1,800 respondents in 90 countries, 35% of game founders said they had decided not to hire someone because "AI tools could handle the work instead". Some 78% said AI changed how they worked this year. Median European pay moved in both directions over two years: programming and development fell from EUR 47,000 to EUR 33,700 and game design from EUR 34,500 to EUR 26,000, while mid-level art and design rose from EUR 25,000 to EUR 33,000. No employer in the survey attributes a job cut to AI, so this is not counted as an AI job loss. It measures the other channel instead - the vacancy that is never opened, which produces no layoff notice, no WARN filing and no number for anyone to count.