NC’s video game industry is faltering. For Wake Tech, it’s a ‘gut punch’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Wake Tech’s game development program turns 20 this year amid local industry layoffs.
- Red Storm laid off 105 employees and Epic Games cut about 1,000 jobs.
- Wake Tech added emphasis on photogrammetry, AI, indie and transferable skills.
Wake Technical Community College’s video game development program turns 20 this year — but this particular birthday is not the happiest. Waves of layoffs in the Triangle’s video game industry have left faculty and students in a state of shock.
First, Cary-based Red Storm Entertainment announced it would stop developing video games and laid off 105 employees in March. Just a week later, another Cary video game developer — Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite — laid off 1,000 employees, its second mass jobs cut in three years. Of those, 211 layoffs occurred at Epic’s Cary headquarters.
Much of the strength of Wake Tech’s game development program comes from its Research Triangle location and proximity to large video game companies like Epic and Red Storm. But with that industry in a moment of contraction, department head Ken Turner says anxiety is high.
For Turner, who got his start at Red Storm, the layoffs hit particularly hard: he describes the news as a “gut punch.” He’s seen Wake Tech alumni lose their jobs as a result. Wake Tech and Epic Games are official partners, the only such partnership Epic has with a community college.
“These companies have cultivated the image of a foundational force,” Turner said. “And then they get hit with these layoffs. It’s a little startling, to say the least. Students are worried. Parents are worried as well. You’re looking at foundational companies in the area. It’s something that I’ve had to talk to parents about. I’ve had to speak about it at open houses. I’ve had to speak about it at different college events. It’s something that’s serious and you really have to take into account.”
Irina Mishina, 20, came to Wake Tech from Canada specifically to enroll in the school’s game development program. But now, she’s pursuing a second degree in engineering, because she isn’t sure she’ll be able to land her dream job in games.
“Considering the industry and the layoffs and everything, I’m actually doing a second major,” Mishina told The N&O. “That was mainly brought to my horizons because this industry is not always stable, and having that as a backup is nice. I’m definitely stressed about it, because my dream job would be game development programming. And I still have hopes for it, honestly.”
Mishina wants to be a game mechanics programmer, responsible for the environment and variables a player interacts with during play. She says she has hope that her skills continue to be in demand. She’s more worried about her friends who want to be artists: game illustrators, animators and 3D modelers.
Turner says that as the industry changes, Wake Tech is focusing more on the indie game industry, simulation, and transferrable skills. Students may have to think beyond traditional game studio jobs and consider smaller, independent operations, or consider using the skills they’ve learned in the program for jobs in health care, manufacturing, or other forms of entertainment like film and television, Turner said.
The school relies on an advisory board of people from local companies and other colleges to track trends and help adjust the curriculum accordingly, Turner said. Wake Tech has added emphases on photogrammetry and artificial intelligence as a result.
“The games industry is not dying, even though there were some layoffs,” Turner said. “It’s still profitable. It’s still growing. Larger companies rescale every now and then, and this just happens to be one of the rescales — but it hit hard locally.”
Mishina believes this current rescale is a result of the explosion of interest in video games during the pandemic. Now, that pandemic high is petering out. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, in his memo to staff about the layoffs, cited “slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation’s; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment.”
According to Sweeney, the rise of artificial intelligence had no bearing on the decision to pursue layoffs. For Red Storm, the decision came as the stock value of its parent company, Ubisoft, developer of Assassin’s Creed, plunged.
For recent Wake Tech graduates in the Triangle, the layoffs will make job placement even more competitive.
“The games industry is still super, super, super competitive to get in, and now you’ve got all these industry veterans who are looking for jobs as well,” Turner said. “You don’t want to falsely lead [students] on and be like, ‘oh, yeah, you could be able to get a job right out of college.’ That might happen, but they have to work at it.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2026 at 11:11 AM with the headline "NC’s video game industry is faltering. For Wake Tech, it’s a ‘gut punch’."
