80% of Developers in 2024 Worked on Games for PC, 37% on PS5, and 33% on Xbox Series X|S - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 22 January 2025 / 2,919 Views
The Game Developers Conference has released its State of Games Industry survey for 2024 revealing some interesting information.
80 percent of video game developers surveyed stated they worked on making games for PC in 2024, which is up from 66 percent in 2023. This is well above consoles with 37 percent of developers working on games for the PlayStation 5 and 33 percent on the Xbox Series X|S.
"Last year, 66% of developers reported that they were working on games for PC; this year, that number climbed up to 80%," reads the report. "While the reason for this is unclear, it could be at least partially attributed to the rising popularity of Valve’s Steam Deck. While the Steam Deck wasn’t specifically listed as an option for developers to list as a platform they’re developing games for, of the respondents who chose the ‘Other’ option, 44% of them wrote in Steam Deck as a platform they’re interested in."
In bad news for the gaming industry, 41 percent of developers were impacted in some way by layoffs in 2024, which is up from 35 percent in 2023.
"According to this year’s survey, 11% of developers reported being laid off in the past year," reads the report. "Roles in the Narrative field saw the most impact, with 19% of respondents. Business and Finance saw the least reported layoffs, impacting only 6% of respondents.
"41% have reported feeling the impact of these layoffs, with 29% observing their direct colleagues being let go and 18% witnessing developers on other teams being let go. 4% reported being laid off due to their studios being closed down.
"When asked about what reason developers were given for these layoffs, 22% were told it was due to restructuring, 18% cited declining revenues and 15% were due to market or industry shifts. Interestingly, 19% were not given a reason for the layoffs they observed."
13 percent of developers are focusing on games that are coming to Xbox Game Pass, while it is nine percent for PlayStation Plus.
One-third of AAA developers are working on live service games, while 41 percent have no interest at all in that type of game.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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"Last year, 66% of developers reported that they were working on games for PC; this year, that number climbed up to 80%, reads the report. While the reason for this is unclear"
Maybe because GDC and GDC related stuff is flooded with indie developers and it's easy to self publish on pc contrary to needing a publisher to release on console unless you already have a big name in the industry? lol.
There is no big mystery. Every year there are more and more indie developers and most don't have the kind of project a publisher would be interested to publish on consoles for free (there are publisher who can publish your game for a payment and there are publishers who like a share of sales, in most cases games with potential take the second option from big publisher because of the marketing and opportunities the game can get) so they just focus on pc knowing selling your game isn't easy but not impossible.
That without counting the fact that porting your game to consoles and mobile also means more time/money you need to invest. GODOT as an engine is very popular these days but it doesn't have free porting options integrated to the engine, you need to either get a good publisher who can port for you or pay for the services of a third party company who has developed the tool needed for porting and their payment isn't a one time only payment, it's a service, you have to pay them every year as long as you want to keep their tech support for your game.
Lack of Switch in this article?
I like how we've gone from "more devs making games on PC" to "they only make it on PC cus it's cheap, consoles would still be better selling/superior" (seriously, that's the mentality some of you in the comments are giving off, times change and so do devs and other people, markets as well).
If the cost has become a higher barrier to entry on consoles, then maybe that's a negative issue the consoles created themselves and not PC?.
Again, I thought this site would at least try that little bit on changing the mindset towards the open platform, but no, that's me asking for the moon at this point. Also the slant against indie devs is just getting snobby and infantile to see at this point, c'mon guys, grow up.
lol... this doesn't tell the whole story
GDC is disproportionately filled with indie dev... most of which build games for PC because its 10x easier and cheaper to publish on PC
Many indie devs would love to publish everywhere but are locked out due cost
one day there will be no consoles
It shows how streamlined development is getting when PS5 is outselling Xbox Series by a lot and yet a lot of devs are still making games for Xbox Series.
Essay Pro