This year was comparable to the slate of highly-praised releases in 1992, 19. The number of highly-praised video games released in 2023 was considered unusually high compared to most years, with 25 games having a 90 out of 100 or better aggregate score on Metacritic by October 2023 this made it the best year by number of highly-praised games the largest since 2004. ^ a b c Some award presentations combine these categories.Top rated games Major awards Category / Organization Similar layoffs were seen at Unity, Amazon, ByteDance, Epic Games, Bungie, and Ubisoft, leading to over 9,000 jobs lost in the industry in 2023 and part of a larger trend of layoffs at technology companies in 2023. Embracer Group, which had been in an acquisition spree over the previous few years, had an estimated $2 billion deal fall through, causing many of the studios under Embracer to either lay off staff or close entirely. Microsoft, after having satisfied worldwide regulatory bodies, completed its US$69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, making them the third largest game publisher in the world.

In the video game industry, 2023 saw significant changes within larger publishers and developers.