70% Of Game Devs Working On PC Titles
Ha! Take that, doomsayers! Bang! Crash! Pow!
Ahem.
Game Developer Research and its 2008 State Of Game Development Survey of almost 2,000 game developers found the following:
Overall, 70% of those replying are making games on the PC or Mac, with 43% creating for console and 28% for web platforms - with just 16% making games for handheld platforms such as the DS or PSP.
and:
Of the surveyed console developers, which represent a notable cross-section of the entire industry, 73% are creating games for Xbox 360, 58% (including some of the same respondents) for the PlayStation 3, and 42% for the Wii - with 15% still creating games for the PlayStation 2. This implies that the greatest amount of Western console developers by sheer numbers are creating games for Microsoft's console - but due to team size differences, this doesn't necessarily imply that more games will appear on the Xbox 360 than other consoles.
So, hooray PC. The 360/PS3 numbers are about as expected, given the timing and expected overlap, and the numbers for the Wii are larger than I'd feared. The DS also gets an expected but still impressive note:
Again, of the largely North American and European developers surveyed, Nintendo DS had the largest amount of creators by numbers, with 75% of those handheld developers surveyed making games for it - and with 45% making games for the PSP.
The stand-out figure, to my PC gaming oriented brain, is of course the 70% of respondents who are slaving away to bring gaming greatness to a computer near you.
Bang-eth!
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 14 August 2008
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: 2008 state of game development survey, game developer research, pc gaming
Myth Busted!
So developers are making the games for PC, but I seem to recall reading that sales are tremendously higher for console games. Also, hasn't the issue of piracy soured many developers to the PC as a platform?
I'll be honest, I'm little surprised by these numbers because it certainly doesn't feel like handheld only makes up 16% of the industry. Were cel phone games included under handheld or web apps?
Also, $2,495 for the digital download of the survey results. Yikes!
I'm glad, but not surprised. About 90% of the games I currently play on my consoles are also available on PC and if I had the rig to run them, that's the version I'd be buying. Hell, if not for Dead Rising and some Live Arcade stuff I'd sell my 360, and if not for Ratchet and Clank and Metal Gear I'd sell my PS3...
Thankfully my MacBook Pro runs Team Fortress 2 like a champ, so I'm good for all my spy burning needs at least.