Ustwo CEO Says Long Term Job Security Is Becoming Harder To Sustain As Monument Valley Studio Leans More On Contractors

Ustwo Games CEO Maria Sayans has triggered a wider industry debate after saying the Monument Valley studio needs to move away from treating long term job security as a default part of its structure. In an interview with Game Developer, Sayans said lowering development costs has become essential as the company pivots more seriously toward PC and console releases, and that future growth will likely come through contractors rather than a larger permanent staff base.

The quote drawing the strongest reaction is the one where Sayans said the studio had been “a little bit too romantic” about the idea of having employees and giving people long term job security. She tied that directly to Ustwo’s current production model, arguing that when Monument Valley 3 reached peak development, contractors still made up a relatively low percentage of the workforce and that this is something the studio now wants to change. She also said that going forward Ustwo expects to keep a core internal team while using contractors to handle growth, even though she personally “hates” that this is where the industry seems to be heading.

Sayans’ comments were made in the context of a broader business recalibration. According to the interview, Ustwo had been developing games with budgets between 7 million pounds and 10 million pounds, and she argued those costs are no longer sustainable if the studio wants to compete in a PC first environment where other developers are succeeding with much smaller budgets. She specifically pointed to the cost structure of operating in London, including pensions and other employee related obligations, as one reason the company cannot match leaner competitors without changing how it staffs projects.

This is not just a Ustwo story. The reason the remarks have hit so hard is that they speak directly to one of the biggest fault lines in the modern games business. Studios across the industry have spent the last few years cutting staff, restructuring, and looking for more flexible ways to manage production after the pandemic era investment surge collapsed. In that environment, Sayans is essentially saying out loud what many executives have likely been thinking privately: permanent headcount is now seen less as stability and more as risk.

That does not make the reaction any less intense. The industry is already wrestling with a major morale problem tied to layoffs and weak career security. A recent Skills Search report discussed by GamesIndustry said 44% of respondents had considered leaving the games business entirely, with job security among the biggest concerns driving that sentiment. That is why Sayans’ framing of long term employment as a “romantic” idea has landed so badly with many developers and observers.

To be fair, Sayans did not celebrate the change. She explicitly said she hates the contractor heavy direction and made clear that it reflects economic pressure rather than an ideal creative model. That nuance matters. Her argument is not that stable jobs are bad for developers. It is that stable jobs may now be harder for smaller or mid sized studios to justify if they want to keep budgets under control and survive in a more volatile market. That is an interpretation supported by her repeated emphasis on sustainability and cost reduction.

Even so, the long term concern is obvious. If more studios move toward a core staff plus contractors only model, it may solve some short term budget issues while making the industry even less attractive as a long term career. For a business already worried about burnout, layoffs, and talent flight, that tradeoff could become a much bigger structural problem than any single studio balance sheet. That concern is reinforced by the wider reporting around games industry brain drain and weakening morale.

For Ustwo, this may be a practical reset. For the industry, it feels more like a warning sign. The studio behind Monument Valley is not abandoning craftsmanship or small team identity, but its CEO is clearly signaling that the old promise of steady full time development jobs is getting harder to maintain. And that may be the part developers hear loudest.

Do you think more studios will follow Ustwo toward a contractor first model, or will the industry eventually have to rebuild around stronger long term job security to keep talent?