The talent that will make the future

To nourish an entire industrial sector, professionals of all kinds are needed: programmers, artists, animators, designers, producers, sound and quality assurance specialists, marketing…

The 2025 training needs report from the Directorate General for Innovation and Digital Culture of the Department of Culture of the Government of Catalonia shows a very broad training offer, with specialized degrees and master's degrees, including those from ENTI-UB and CITM-UPC, among many others. This factor explains much of Barcelona's power of attraction, an environment where there are various specialized training options.

As Francesc Xavier Blasco, communications manager at ENTI-UB, points out, a video game company also needs administration, finance, or legal advisory profiles. In small studios, however, he detects a particular lack of marketing and advertising. Blasco cites the figures from the DEV White Paper, the main report on the state of the video game development industry in Spain: "One of the studios' constant complaints when hiring new professionals is the poor training of candidates or their training being too generalist and not adapted to the reality of the sector (33% of cases)". He warns, however, that mastering tools like Unity, Unreal, or 3DS Max is not enough; it is also necessary to know the development process.

Oriol Uri Boira, video game designer, professor, popularizer and head of digital arts and video games at 3Cat, points out that "most Catalan universities offer a degree or a master's degree in video games", and that there are also specialized vocational training cycles. In his opinion, the more people who acquire these skills, "more diverse and quality proposals will emerge". Specialized educational centers are, therefore, obliged to constantly review their study plans so as not to offer training that quickly becomes obsolete.

Regarding this need, Blasco argues that "specific training is needed from centers that know the sector very well and that combine academic profiles with professional teachers from the sector, as is done at ENTI-UB. This teaching profile, which works and lives the day-to-day of the industry, is the one that will best convey to the students the reality of what and how work is done, and to the training center what tools and processes must be included in the study plans".

It is evident that local capacity is not enough: 9 out of the 13 companies interviewed by Cultura Digital explain that the lack of local senior profiles has pushed them to resort to international talent. Salary competition and supply make it difficult to find and retain specialized professionals. And a paradox occurs: Catalonia trains new professionals, but part of this talent is taken by the international market. As in other fields, the future is an unknown, but the hope is that this young talent that the country has trained, but which has had to be let go, can return one day with more experience and this will increase the power of our industry.

However, the landscape is turbulent, and it is advisable not to underestimate an international context of crisis in the sector. Since 2023, the global video game industry has been undergoing an adjustment process following the pandemic expansion, with staff reductions, studio closures, and project cancellations.

The GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 survey points out that 28% of respondents had suffered a layoff in the previous two years and half stated that their company had carried them out in the previous 12 months. The hiring boom during covid, the moderation of income, the increase in development costs, and restructuring explain part of the shock. Now, generative AI adds a new unknown: it can increase productivity, but also alter the workforce and creative processes. This year, 36% of the professionals surveyed by GDC explain that they already use it, while 52% believe that it will have a negative effect on the industry.

This transformation is already translating into new professional requirements. Blasco points out that more than half of the studios already use generative AI in some phase of the creation and production process, and anticipates that mastery of these tools will gain weight in recruitment and that new roles will appear in charge of integrating the work generated by AI into production flows.

AI is also changing what a professional needs to know how to do. The 2025 Catalan report already analyzes its impact, along with that of virtual and augmented reality: 60% of the students consulted claimed to have had to learn on their own issues related to these technologies. Blasco points out that more than half of the studios already use generative AI in some phase of production and predicts that its mastery will gain weight in hiring. He also highlights XR technologies –augmented, virtual and mixed reality–, which can open up opportunities in audiovisual, health, business or training.

The Catalan scene is no exception to this situation. In 2023, Lince Works closed after nine years and having developed the Aragami saga, after the funding for the project they were preparing was halted. In 2024, Novarama closed, after more than 20 years of activity and successes like Invizimals. And this year, Ubisoft Barcelona has announced a layoff plan affecting 51 people, approximately 28% of the staff.

Marc Angrill, director of the magazine Lúdica, celebrates the maturity and diversification of the Catalan ecosystem, but qualifies the big figures: "The labor market cannot absorb so many students and there continues to be a high mortality rate in emerging companies". Angrill also points out possible strategies to ensure the solidity of the sector: "The economic and cultural strategy of the country must bet on strengthening the Catalan ecosystem from the bottom up, with shared governance structures like the Video Game Board and other public-private initiatives, and be careful about celebrating the arrival of investments and large groups in Barcelona, or sinning by being smug with the turnover of the entire sector, because it is not always positive in the long term for the country or for the city".

Despite the disappearance of companies, the truth is that new studios have not stopped being created; according to the 2023-2024 Report on Communication in Catalonia, between these years 33 new Catalan studios were launched: 19 in 2023 and 14 in 2024. The circumstances are diverse. Perhaps a small studio is inherently fragile, but for a veteran studio, the transition of model can be an unattainable challenge when the landscape is not favorable, and having a multinational behind it does not guarantee the permanence of a local studio. 

Right now it is an unknown whether the sector's capacity to generate new projects will be sufficient to weather a cycle of readjustments that seems far from over; the hope is that the talent and drive will allow the Catalan video game industry to overcome a purge that has condemned some flagship vessels with a structure that was apparently solid and resilient.