Overview

On the eve of the new consoles, an ever expanding number of development, publishing and sales options, we wanted to paint a shape of the business as it looks right before GDC 2013. More than 2500 North American game industry professionals (GDC attendees either this year or last year), responded to detailed questions about platforms, money, team sizes and more. The following is a snapshot of todays industry.

The Rise Of The Indie

Small is big! 46% of those surveyed work within companies of ten people or less. The indie space is growing and cant be stopped! 53% self-identified as indie developers, and 51% of those creators have been indie for under two years. Its a DIY world! Developers are moving away from publishers. Overall, 24% of developers worked with a publisher on their last game, and only 20% are doing so on their current game. Not all new indies are transitioning from AAA around 23% of indies did formerly work at big studios, but 43% transitioned straight from student to developer, and the rest transitioned from other industries.

Smartphone & Tablet Domination

More of our surveyed developers are developing for smartphones and tablets than any other platform.

38% of our developers released their last game for smartphones and tablets collectively, but 55% are making their current games there A whopping 58% plan to release their next game on these platforms Of those who are making smartphone games, the large majority are making games for iOS (89.5%) and Android (75.3%) A small but respectable 15.6% of those are making games for Windows Phone. Other platforms, such as PlayStation Mobile, Blackberry RIM, and others, all have support of less than 5% of all smartphone game developers.

More Open/Mass-Market Platforms

The PC (and Mac) is next strongest: 34.6% of developers released their last games on PC/Mac, 48% are developing their current games for the platform, and 49% plan to release their next game on PC/Mac. Web browser-based platforms (whether that be Facebook, HTML5, or Flash) also continue to gain strength: 21.5% of respondents made their last game on those platforms, 30% are making their current game there, and around 31% think their next game will debut on web-based platforms.

The Big Three? Now

Microsoft 14.6% of our developers released their last game on the Xbox 360, and 13.2% are currently making a game for the console. Almost 14% plan to release their next game on the 360 Sony

13.2% of our respondents released their last game on the PlayStation 3; 13% are releasing their current game and 12.4% are making their next game there The newer PlayStation Vita is showing a slight uptrend in support, but from very low percentages. While less than 2% of our respondents made their last game for the console, 4.2% are making their current game for Vita, and just over 5% plan to release their next game there.

Nintendo In terms of the Wii U, only 4.6% of devs are currently making a Wii U game, and just 6.4% of our surveyed developers are making their next game for the console. The Wii has little support, with less than 1.5% of developers planning future games on Wii North American developers are unconvinced of the 3DS's potential. 2% are currently making a 3DS game, and only 2.8% of developers plan to release their next game on the 3DS.

Pla=orms$for$Next$Game$Development$
70.00%" 60.00%" 50.00%" 40.00%" 30.00%" 20.00%" 10.00%" 0.00%" 13.90%" 12.42%" 11.34%" 10.82%" 6.47%" 5.07%" 58.39%" 49.12%" 30.91%"

2.84%"

1.56%"

1.00%"

0.96%"

Source:$$GDC$2013$$PreFShow$Survey$

What Platforms Interest Devs?

When you ask today's game devs what they are excited or interested about developing for, you get quite a different result to their current/future platforms:
- - - - - Tablets and smartphones are still way out ahead in terms of interest, with 58% and 56% respectively interested in the platforms. 'Steam boxes', the generic phrase we used for PC-based TV consoles, have a very high 45% level of interest for developers. Android home consoles, such as the OUYA and GameStick, are also high up the interest curve at 37%. Interestingly, next-gen Microsoft and Sony consoles shoot up the relative graph ranking to 29% and 27% respectively. Nintendo platforms continue to lag in developer interest, with a relatively small 13% and 5% interest respectively for the Wii U and 3DS.

Most$InteresJng$New$Markets$for$Developers$
70.00%" 60.00%" 50.00%" 40.00%" 30.00%" 20.00%" 10.00%" 0.00%" 58.19%" 56.39%" 45.37%" 37.14%" 29.47%" 29.19%" 27.28%" 21.92%" 12.58%" 6.63%" 5.55%"

Source:$$GDC$2013$$PreFShow$Survey$

Other Notable Survey Findings

- Although VC gets discussed a lot with regard to games, only 9% of our survey respondents were primarily venture capital funded. - The vast majority of games are being funded from the company's existing war chest (37%) or an individual's personal funds (35%). - Elsewhere, 10% are still primarily publisher-funded, and 4% are actually primarily crowdfunded! - The industry is flourishing from many perspectives 39% of people said their company's profits were higher in 2012 than in 2011, compared with just 7% suggesting they were lower. 44% of companies expanded staff in 2012, and 11.7% contracted. - 8% of surveyed developers have worked on a project that was crowdfunded, and 44% plan to do so in the future!