No. It's not.

I too have only worked on two cancelled projects in sixteen years. But the majority of projects that are completed in this industry don't end up achieving much commercial or artistic success. The majority of start-up studios fail within a handful of years. And the large publishers routinely suffer large scale lay-offs.

That's life. And it has nothing to do with me.

...

Sounds like the industry in Japan is a lot more stable! From what I hear, there's also a lot more loyalty, in both directions, between employers and employees than what I'm used to.

Here in Australia, most console devs worked on IP they didn't own, and their existance proceeded at the whim of American publishers, who were less willing to risk money when the US economy started to collapse. I'd estimate 90% of our local console games industry has been wiped out this past decade. Many of the laid-off staff have formed small iPhone companies, etc, but they're even more risky.

Personally: I've lost count of the number of times that colleagues of mine have been made redundant due to studios downsizing - maybe about 6 culls... I've been made redundant twice, because of whole-studio closures, and have resigned twice due to working conditions. I've worked on 5 cancelled games but only 2 shipping games. Two of those four companies were consistently late with pay-cheques, but at least only one of them has demanded overtime.

Strange. None of the places where I have ever worked have gone out of business; all of them are alive and well today, usually even larger and more successful than when I was there.
And of the 30 or 40 projects I have done, only 2 have been cancelled, ever.

I think your story is a bit unusual. You seem to be kryptonite.

I disagree that this is unusual. It depends on the country, the length of time one's been in the industry, and the type of companies one works at.
If I count designs that have been written (with intent to develop, not only for pitching), I have a large number of projects that have been cancelled. And since I've been in the industry for 30 years, I've seen lots of companies come and go. One game company where I was employed no longer exists; two game companies where I was employed have gone through such huge changes in ownership that they effectively no longer exist.

I've personally been in one studio where cacelling projects was not just a habit, but a necessity. Because their resource allocation pipeline vs finances could not account for downtime, they literally had to over-pitch every single project they could, more than often starting something never to finish on it. During the year I was there, they've canceled more than they've done. Of the projects I've personally worked on, at least 3 clients went bankrupt before the end and a few just didn't care to pay past a certain milestone going into the he-said-she-said bull**** you tend to get as a servicing developer.

I've also worked at a publisher, and the idea was very different. Canceling a game wasn't generally made by lack of funds or faulty payments from the client's side, but rather by lack of faith in the project's ability to score high numbers ($$$).

But yeah, canceled projects and startup-death is generally common around here too.