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Developers Weigh In On Their Plans For PC, Console, And Mobile Development
Over 2,600 developers that attended last year's annual Game Developers Conference have responded to a new survey on their platform plans. The data helps paint a picture of what the near future landscape will look like.
PC and mobile continue to be popular, with 53 percent of developers currently developing a game for home computers (PC and Mac) and 52 percent targeting mobile and tablet. On consoles, the PS4 has a head start on Xbox One, with 14 percent of developers planning their next game for the former against 12 percent for the latter. Of respondents, only 4 percent are currently working on a Wii U game.
Self-funding is growing despite the popularity of crowdfunding, which is up from 4 percent to 11 percent year-over-year. This year, 52 percent of those surveyed responded that they use their company’s own funds, and 46 percent use personal funds. This is up from 37 percent and 35 percent respectively in those categories last year. This is despite a relatively unchanged split between self-publishing and working with publishers.
[Source: Game Developers Conference]
Our Take
The two big takeaways here are the difference between PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and the relatively low in-progress titles for Wii U. On the former, I attribute the difference to independent developers. Microsoft is still behind on self-publishing, whereas Sony has had content on the PlayStation 4 from day one.
As for the Wii U development, it isn’t surprising, but it does put behavioral data up against some of the library concerns. This doesn’t change anything about the Wii U. It doesn’t mean that there are new concerns. We’ve instinctually known this, but now have the numbers to back it up. It just means that Nintendo has to fire on all cylinders with its first party library to move consoles to inch that number up for next year.
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