I didn't know what to expect from GDC this year. But here's what it felt like, being there in Yerba Buena:

This guy is right. Games ARE good.

And MAKING games is good, too. It is nonstop creative problem-solving -- and that is total catnip for a certain kind of person - the kind of person who says "Yes, I DO want to figure out our branching dialogue system. And our casting choices. And our map problem. And our testing issues." It's one thing after another, all day long. And in the end, if it works, you have built something incredibly fun together.

Being at GDC, walking the show floor, and seeing the demos was such a reminder that oh, RIGHT - this is the point - we're doing all this so that a person can get inside a man-sized hamster ball and become a real-life katamari. Whee!!

Naming The Noise

The last couple of years have been hard for all of us. The layoffs are real; the contraction is real. And the question is not “is this really happening?” but “what are we going to do about it?”

“Posting through it” is really tempting. But in the long term, who does that help? The doom narrative has become its own kind of gravity. The algorithm is not anybody’s friend (except for the guys who own the social media platforms, and they are not on our side).

Yes, one in four game developers were laid off in the past two years. But that means three in four are still out there, still doing the work. And game devs - game WRITERS - are getting hired, getting promoted, building the careers they’ve always dreamed of. Even in 2026.

The people who are doing the work - TND alumni, my old teammates, the writers I love and admire - are not the ones posting through it. They are heads down, figuring things out. Even the hard things. Especially the hard things.

Games Are Supposed To Be Hard

The irony is that we’ve all chosen a career in games - which are ALL ABOUT overcoming challenges. We love figuring out how to manage resources, how to get across a map, how to defeat the big boss. We play games because they’re hard. The challenge is the point. And yet, when real life gets hard, somehow that’s the end of the story? No way.

Game developers are creative problem solvers. That’s the job, all day long. And real-life challenges are also problems. The industry contraction is a design problem. AI is a design problem. Career navigation in a tough market is a design problem. These are hard problems, to be sure, but you have lots of experience in dealing with hard problems. "Hard" is not the same as "impossible." Hard things do require effort, strategic thinking, and commitment. And that's OK.

The only thing that could really kill the games industry dead is if people just stopped playing games.

Guess what? People are still playing games like absolute fiends. And they’re playing INCREDIBLE games - games that were built by people just like you, people who love games and stories just like you do.

It’s like Mike Bithell said a couple of weeks ago: Stay on the path. Make good things. People are still out there waiting for what you're going to build.

Some of what's out there right now. Built by people just like you.

Also, Joy

There are lots of ways to describe the work game developers do, but at the end of the day, what we do is create happiness. Game designers call it “finding the fun,” and that is a beautiful way to put it.

And maybe it’s because we make fun for a living, but most people in this industry are GOOD PEOPLE. They’re creative, smart, and generous. They care about the work and each other.

And yes, the work is hard. The team is full of different personalities, deadlines are real, and on any given day, things are on fire seven different ways. There are days when it just feels like “how in the world are we going to pull this one off?” Somehow it works in the end, and it’s magic. That’s game dev. We get it done because we do it together.

GDC itself is proof of concept of the most important part of our industry: people still want to be together. People still want to make things together. That hasn’t changed, and it’s not going to.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the game studio filter isn't keeping the right people out. It's actively looking for them.

"Perfect times" don't exist. There are just decision points in life. Do or do not, as Yoda once said. (I vote Do.)

At GDC, I was in the rooms — the roundtables, the hallways, the dinners — and I have a lot to tell you. On March 17th, I'm hosting a free live debrief for game writers: what I heard, what studios are actually looking for right now, and what it means for you.

It's free. It's live. And I'd love to see you there.

Susan O'Connor is an award-winning, best-selling game writer with credits on over 25 titles. Her projects have sold over 30 million copies and generated more than $500 million in sales. She founded The Narrative Department to help writers learn the ins and outs of writing for games - skills that everyone (including your lead!) assumes you somehow already know.