It's kind of funny to look back on all the times PC gaming has been declared dead, a claim that—to borrow a phrase—was an exaggeration. Lest there be any doubt, GDC's 2025 State of the Game Industry report says development on the platform has "skyrocketed," with 80% of the more than 3,000 developers who responded to the survey saying they're currently making games for PC.
That's a big jump from the 2024 report, when 66% of respondents said they were developing for PC, which was sufficient for GDC to call it "the dominant platform." It's also more than double the percentage of developers working on the second-most popular platform, the PlayStation 5, which claimed 38% of respondents, and the Xbox Series X/S, which came in a close third at 34%
The percentage of developers making games for PC has been tracking upward for years. 56% of developers said they were making games for PC in 2020, a figure that rose to 58% in 2021, 63% in 2022, and 65% in 2023. Interest in developing for PC is also way up, reaching 74% of respondents to the survey, a big jump from 62% last year.
"The exact reason for this jump is unclear, but it could be connected to the rising popularity of Valve's Steam Deck," the GDC report says. "This year's survey didn't single out Steam (or Valve's handheld gaming computer) as its own platform, because it's a hub for PC and Mac games. But it appears some developers do view it as a unique platform. For instance, when asked to name other platforms that interest them, almost half (44%) wrote in Steam Deck."
I think that's a very reasonable guess, and I'd add to it that the simple fact of accessibility may also play a very large role in the popularity of PC as a development platform. Making games is hard, but doing it on PC is about as easy as it's going to get: Learn your programming language of choice, give Valve 100 bucks, and bang, you're selling your stuff on Steam. Nearly 19,000 new games launched on Steam in 2024 alone, so it's no wonder PC rates so highly as the platform of choice. I wouldn't be surprised if the only developers who said they're not working on PC right now are from Rockstar. (No, we still don't have a Grand Theft Auto 6 PC announcement, not that I'm annoyed about it or anything.)
It's also worth noting that the GDC State of the Game Industry survey skews heavily toward Western developers. 58% of survey respondents are from the US, for instance, while the UK, Canada, and Australia make up another 16%. China, a massive market where mobile gaming is far more popular, doesn't rank among the list of countries with the most respondents—and even without taking that into account, the popularity of mobile gaming worldwide makes mobile game development feel underrepresented in the report. Japanese developers are also effectively absent. All of that is obviously going to bias the results to some extent.
Despite that limitation, it's great to see PC not just holding its own but actually growing as the dominant development platform for games. I just wish it was happening in an environment that wasn't quite so grim: The GDC survey also found that 1 in 10 respondents had been laid off in 2024, and 4% said their studios had been closed completely.
How a Microsoft exec managed to pitch Microsoft Word through the genius tactic of being able to actually use it in a 'type-off' demanded by clients: 'I was the only one who'd actually been a secretary'
Former Valve exec says the company struggled to sell Half-Life until coming up with the ultimate 'one simple trick' of marketing manoeuvres: slapping a 'Game of the Year' sticker on the box
