Not bad for a dead platform...

A GDC survey* now indicates that 80% of developers are now making
games for PC. That's twice the total working on PS5 or XBox games.
(no indications on how many are working on mobile, though). PC is now,
according to GDC, "the dominant platform"

Whether the survey is actually indicative of the actual state of game
development or not (I've no reason to doubt the numbers, but I'm not
sure of the conclusions), it does cast a favorable light on PC gaming.
Just ten years ago, many publishers, publications and gamers were
sneering at the PC. It was a dying platform, they said. It was buggy,
expensive, rampant with piracy and generally unable to provide games
what they wanted or needed. We were told it probably would soon go the
way of the Amiga. If a developer wanted to make a living, they needed
to abandon the PC and focus on consoles. It was, of course, a
ridiculous argument (so long as people need a PC for work, they're
going to also want to play games on the system) but that was a
commonly held belief.

Yet here we are; the 'dominant platform'. Pretty good for something on
its (reported) deathbed just a few years back. In fact, now it's the
XBox and other consoles which are on the backfoot. Their libraries are
increasingly dependent on the munificence of Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo,
and its debatable how long that can last (Microsoft increasingly is
backing away from that sort of funding). Maybe it's consoles that are
dying?

They aren't, of course, not anymore than the PC was. Nor should the
news of PC being on top be taken for granted. Today the PC is most
popular; tomorrow it might be something else.

But I get a smile at this turn-around. Suck it, Cliff Bleszinski;
we're still here! ;-)








* Don't you like links? I like links:
https://gdconf.com/news/gdc-2025-state-game-industry-devs-weigh-layoffs-ai-and-more