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The PC is the most complete platform to play. While a console binds us to pre -installed hardware, a PC admits the constant update of the components, allows us to access more gross power, all kinds of settings in the games and well, it allows us to do many other things that are not playing. The PC, ultimately, is important and is increasinglysomething that is demonstrated in the State of the Industry Report 2025 That the game developers conference has just published.
The data. According to the report, 80% of the more than 3,000 developers who have completed the survey sent by the GDC are developing PC games. The figure contrasts with the consoles. Only 38% of developers are working on games for PlayStation 5 And something less, 34%, work in games for Xbox Series x|S.
GDC survey results | Image: GDC
Brutal growth. The percentage of developers making games for PC has not stopped increasing. In 2020 it was 56%. In 2021 it went to 58%. In 2022 the figure grew to 22%. In 2023 it was 65% and last year, 66%. The jump has been huge for a year so far and is proof that PC gaming is more alive than ever. Only last year 19,000 games were published only in Steamwhich says a lot. Another thing is that all those games end, indeed, playing.
Spoiler: No. 80% barely played.
The reason? From the GDC they are not clear, but they believe that it could be related to “the growing popularity of the Steam Deck De Valve “. According to the report,” this year’s survey has not highlighted Steam (or Valve’s laptop) as its own platform, because it is a PC and Mac game center. But it seems that some developers do They consider it a unique platform. For example, when they were asked to name other platforms that interest them, almost half (44%) wrote Steam Deck. “
If something has taught us Nintendo with his Nintendo Switch is that the portable format works and likes. Valve has done it greatly with the Steam Deck and the alternatives are increasingly complete and powerful. It is normal for developers to look at this format with interest, to the point that Microsoft works on their own console. As a curious fact, only 20% of the devs work in games for Nintendo Switch and only 12% for Linux, which is the basis of We are.
On the other hand, it is no secret that publishing games on PC is much simpler than publishing them on consoles, so it makes sense that the PC is the first great option.
Image | Unspash
The bias. The GDC survey is quite revealing, but it has a problem. 58% of respondents are from the United States and 16% are from the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The rest of the world has a rather reduced presence and that means one thing: that the interest of one of the most important markets in the world is not reflected. We speak, of course, about China, a country in which mobile gaming is religion.
Although the GDC survey shows that 28-29% of developers work in mobile games, the truth is that, if there is a greater presence of Chinese, Japanese and Korean respondents, the photo would be very different. The mobile would probably be one of the big platforms for two reasons: scope and income.
The Middle Gaming PC. According to Steam datathe average PC player has a Windows 11, 16 GB of RAM, a processor between 2.3 and 2.69 GHz, a GeForce RTX 3060 NVIDIA, a FullHD monitor and a storage tea installed.
Cover image | Unspash
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