<div>Hi everyone. I need some help.

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<div>I was unemployed for 8 months in 2023 when an offer I had accepted (and left a job for) was rescinded; after finally finding a job again, I was laid off in August of last year. It has now been almost six months since I lost that job.

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<div>I’ve been working in the game industry for almost 20 years. I’m not sure the job market has ever been so grim. There have been tens of thousands of layoffs in games since the start of 2023, and despite the industry making 3x as much as movies and music combined, companies are still laying people off every financial quarter for Shareholder Value. There are fewer open positions and more newly laid-off competition for open roles every day. Recruiters are ghosting, requirements are more specific and arcane, places that ARE currently hiring often require relocation to other countries... So a job hunt that, in years past, for me would last a month or two now has the potential to last a year or more. As a writer and narrative designer, I’ve written games like Lily’s Garden, which grossed a half billion dollars, and for that work I’m left with no backend for it, struggling to pay my rent.

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<div>I am currently on unemployment benefits in New York. They will explore the first week of February. I have not been able to pay my rent since August, as the unemployment benefits would cover rent…and that’s it. I have applied for help from the city for my back rent, and I’m hoping it will be approved. But even that potential help will only apply through January.

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<div>I am hopeful I’ll find a job doing what I do in the next few months. Hiring tends to ramp back up in January. Switching careers, as others have suggested, at this point feels unlikely: places far outside of my discipline won’t hire me because they figure I’ll leave when I find something in my discipline (and they’re right), and jobs adjacent to my discipline have specific requirements of their own—certifications, degrees, expertise—that I simply don’t meet. Additionally, I’m locked out of doing most frequent physical labor because of chronic conditions and back injury. But even if I could, the problem remains: I need money to live, and to pay my rent. I already live pretty frugally. I tend to cook at home. My idea of a splurge is getting more than one Narragansett at free karaoke once or twice a month. This isn’t a matter of mismanaged funds. It’s a matter of no funds. I cannot get more roommates, as my lease does not allow it, and I cannot move, since that requires much more money than simply paying my current rent, and I’d…still need money to pay my new rent.

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<div>So here’s what I’m asking for:

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<div>$1600 for February rent.

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<div>$400 for utilities (phone, internet, power).

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<div>$400 for medical needs (appointments, OTC medicine and prescription meds, and stuff my state insurance doesn’t cover, like edibles for sleep)

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<div>And the rest for food and other general needs for me and my little dog. 

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<div>My initial goal is for one month of continued job hunting. If I surpass it, I will simply use the extra for the same thing in March, and so on.

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<div>I don’t want to be doing this. I am extremely uncomfortable with it. As anyone who knows me can attest, I love what I do and I’d rather just be fucking *working*. It is simply an incredibly difficult time and I don’t have many options for how to keep going.

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<div>Thanks for reading, sharing, and supporting if you can.

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<div>-Stella

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Robert Leinheiser

Aramis Velazquez

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