Chinese gaming companies have started hiring artists less. In a comment to the Rest of the World portal, recruiter Leo Li said that over the past year the number of new vacancies for artists has decreased by 70%.
One of the main reasons for the decline is the hype around AI. According to Rest of World, now in China neural networks like DALL-E and Midjourney are used by both small studios and giants like Tencent and NetEase. Moreover, the latter are also working on their own AI technologies.
However, the situation may still be slightly adjusted. On April 11, the Cyberspace Administration of China proposed to regulate generative neural networks. The agency wants the content created to reflect the values of socialism, not to call for a split of the country, not to harm the national unity of China, and not to promote terrorism, violence and xenophobia. According to Bloomberg experts, such proposals may eventually lead to a ban on foreign neural networks in China.