Game developers shared their thoughts about the current state of the gaming industry in a new survey ahead of the event happening in March. The 12th annual State of the Game Industry survey was conducted from October 11-29, 2023, and topics ranged from the impacts of layoffs and generative AI to return to office policies, film and movie adaptations, preferred game engines, Nintendo’s next console, and more. GDC reports that over 3,000 developers participated in the survey whose results culminated in a 37-page report. GDC 2024 will be held from March 18-22 at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center.
Platform Rankings
Beginning with happier news it was shared that PC still dominates as the platform most are working on games for. PC currently ranks at 66% with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S holding near equal positions at 35% and 34% respectively. Android and iOS are also nearly equal at 24% and 23% respectively. The Nintendo Switch is tied with the Xbox One (One X) at 18% with the PlayStation 4 (inc. 4 Pro) tied with Mac at 16%.
An interesting item that popped up on this list is that 8% of developers have said they are already working on games for Nintendo’s next Switch console with over a third of survey participants expressing it is the platform that most interests them. Game development for mobile platforms saw a decrease of 16% from the previous year continuing a decline with just one-fifth saying they are working on either Android or iOS projects.
Preferred Game Engine(s)
Despite the many headlines about the many games using, or studios switching over to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine this survey revealed an interesting tie. Results show a tie between Unity and Unreal Engine with each at 33% with developers citing them as their toolset of choice. In-house proprietary engines are at less than half at just 14% with the open-source Godot at only 3%. Crytek’s CryEngine was just under 1%. Nearly a third responded that their company has considered switching to a different engine or has already done so with decisions often being based on the policies of the game engine’s parent company.
Layoffs and Generative AI
Stories about layoffs in the tech industry began growing at the end of December 2022 and continued throughout 2023. The gaming industry was no exception and over half of the participants shared some kind of concern of further layoffs in 2024.
Per GDC:
“One-third of developers (35%) said they’ve been impacted by layoffs—either by having some layoffs take place within their team or company or by being laid off themselves. Quality assurance developers appear to have been hit the hardest, with 22% of them saying they were laid off this year (compared to 7% of all developers). Business and finance professionals reported the least layoffs (2%).”
Generative AI:
AI was at the forfront for the recent SAG AFTRA and writers strikes which occured over the summer and only recently had come to an end but mainstream media has not managed to fully convey the risks of Generative AI to the gaming industry. This has led to 4 out of 5 participants being worried about its ethical use in the gaming industry.
Per GDC:
“Even though many developers seem to be uncertain about the industry impact of Generative AI, they are quite certain about the ethical impact. A large majority (84%) of developers indicated they were somewhat or very concerned about the ethics of using Generative AI, while only 12% stated they had no concerns.”
Return to Office (RTO):
AAA studios have put forth the greatest amount of RTOs, including hybrid policies with 40% of participants saying that mandatory RTO policies are now in place. Indie and AA developers accounted for 15% and 28% in having their own RTO policies.