2,500 attendees reveal industry trends to new platforms and the rise of indies
Developers are increasingly snubbing console development for smartphones and tablets, a new survey from the Game Developers Conference claims.
Gathering responses from 2,500 GDC attendees past and present, the survey found that 55 per cent of developers were creating their current games for mobile and tablet.
Displaying the increasing trend toward these platforms over recent years, a lesser 38 per cent of developers said they had released their last game for smartphones and tablets, while 58 per cent were considering launching their next game for the devices.
PC and Mac proved to be the second most popular platforms, with almost 50 per cent of those who answered the survey stating their ambitions to publish their next games on the systems.
Console meanwhile lagged behind somewhat, with 13 per cent of developers creating titles for Xbox 360 and another 13 per cent developing for PS3.
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The survey showed Nintendo continuing to struggle for third-party support for the Wii U, with just 6.4 per cent of developers making their next game for the console.
Attendees were also surveyed on levels of interest in various platforms, with tablets coming out on top with 58 per cent of developers interested, followed shortly by smartphones at 56 per cent.
Valve’s upcoming Steam Box meanwhile generated the interest of 45 per cent of developers, with Android consoles including Ouya and GameStick at 37 per cent.
Consoles again lagged behind in last place, with 29 per cent and 27 per cent of developers interested in developing for the next Xbox and PS4.
It should be noted however that apparently lack of interest in developing for next generation consoles could be down to the dearth of available information to many developers on the platforms and the uncertainty surrounding the openness of Microsoft’s and Sony’s new systems.
The survey also found that 53 per cent of respondents identified themselves as indie developers, with 46 per cent saying they worked with companies of ten people or less.
As well as this, just 24 per cent of those surveyed worked with a publisher on their last game, with only 20 per cent doing so on their current projects.
GDC said these figures represented a rise in the number of indie and small development teams “like never before”.
The number of independent developers attending GDC compared to triple-A developers could also be another reason for the lower interest in next-gen consoles, given the controversial approval processes, licensing and update costs currently employed on PSN and XBLA and the much larger userbases on offer with Android and iOS devices.
Despite a number of games taking to crowdfunding during the last year, with a number of games making millions from sites such as Kickstarter, just eight per cent of developers attending GDC have worked on a crowdfunded project.
Existing company capital proved the most popular approach to funding new games, with 37 per cent of developers stating their projects had been funded in this way.
35 per cent said their games had been funded by individuals, while just nine per cent were VC funded, and ten per cent publisher-funded.
Despite a small percentage having worked on a crowdfunded game, 44 per cent of developers surveyed said they planned to take to crowdfunding in future.
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GDC 2013 will take place between March 25th and 29th at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco.
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For more information on GDC 2013, visit the official website.
Stats can prove anything.
You say: "Devs snubbing console for mobile, claims GDC survey"
Reading the article, I see no good evidence of that, especially as you later state: "53 per cent of respondents identified themselves as indie developers, with 46 per cent saying they worked with companies of ten people or less"
What this indicates to me is that GDC is attracting more small Indies, which is purely because their are so many small Indies around now. It's pretty obvious that these small Indies will target mobile rather than console due to the costs involved.
These figures in no way indicate that anyone is snubbing consoles or that they are losing favour with anyone. All they show is that their is now a higher percentage of small devs going to GDC that are making mobile games.
As an example of how percentages are rubbish at this sort of thing, if GDC attendance has doubled this year compared to last, the percentage of people interested in consoles could have halved, but that would have still meant the same number of people are interested in them.
As you say and as I state in the article, the number of indies could be a contributing factor to the stats given the high costs of console development.
But we shouldn't just say 'oh indies will go to mobile because its cheaper' as if that should be the default reaction. That's Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo's fault for not offering a better service for smaller developers. Be interesting to see how they bring these indies who are leaving or are disinterested back for next-gen consoles.
