Despite industry woes, XR development has largely stayed consistent, according to the annual Game Developer Conference (GDC) State of the Game Industry Survey, noting that 35% of developers who responded are building for XR.
The San Francisco-based conference is a veritable Mecca for game developers across the industry, as it not only gives studios a chance to show off their wares, but also connect with the community and gain bleeding edge insight from some of the most important platformer holder and game companies out there.
While annually held in March, GDC actually conducts its surveys online late in the year, meaning the figures published below are fairly up-to-date. And for the first time, this year’s State of the Industry Survey included a section specifically asking whether respondents were creating XR content, revealing some interesting stats.
As seen below, the top five most interesting platforms among developers were Meta Quest (63%), SteamVR (45%), Apple Vision Pro (26%), PlayStation VR/2 (25%), and Apple’s smartphone-based ARKit (12%). Click to enlarge the image below.
Granted, those aren’t the platforms studios are necessarily developing for, as conference organizers maintain developers have gravitated to creating games for Quest (59%), SteamVR (31%) and PSVR 2 (16%).
And while 26% of respondents may be interested in Vision Pro, only about 8% are actually building something for Apple’s mixed reality ‘spatial computer’, according to the survey.
GDC notes it can’t accurately compare these numbers to previous years, since it was the first year the question was entered into its annual survey, although conference organizers maintain that the number of XR developers “has stayed consistent, as have the platforms of choice,” ostensibly drawing from less formal polling methods.
This comes as the games industry has faced some difficult times lately, with studio closures and layoffs affecting both traditional and XR studios across the board since 2023.
Hearing XR development has remained consistent is encouraging news however, as the install base for XR games and experiences is notably much smaller than traditional platforms, which may have otherwise discouraged studios from continuing XR projects in pursuit of more ‘sure thing’ investments.
We’re looking forward to hearing more about those insights at this year’s GDC, which takes place March 17th – 22th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.
