Why do you think I have an agenda? And what conferences did you want to talk about? GDC 2014 was in March. E3 was almost five weeks ago. GDC Europe and Gamescom are next month. We are in a dead period where very few things of note are being announced or talked about.
I thought the numbers sounded odd, that’s all. And I dug up the original reports just to doublecheck myself:
Look at the methodology. They didn’t ask a specific subset of developers, they asked anybody. The GDC poll polled attendees of the conference. Journalists can get into the conference, as you’ll notice from the 11% who replied “Not involved in development.” And yes, bedroom coders absolutely attend GDC and I would bet large sums of money that more than a few of them were included in this poll.
And the GDC Europe poll included 400 folks who are “readers of Gamasutra.com, have attended previous GDC events, or will be attending GDC Europe 2014.” My dog could get a Gamasutra account. We don’t know who these people are and what their job status is. The poll methodology itself points out they talked to “games industry professionals,” not “developers.”
It’s terrible poll design and so I’m stating, again, that I think the numbers don’t tell us much of anything. As elninost0rm said: “PC gaming is not dead. Console gaming is doing just fine. There. Can we move on now?”
“These percentages are higher than those pulled from respondents to the same question on this year’s GDC State of the Industry survey, which polls developers from across the North American game industry”
“The Game Developers Conference has polled more than 2,600 North American game developers who attended GDC 2013 to compose the second annual State of the Industry Survey, which provides a snapshot of the games industry and illustrates industry trends before the start of GDC 2014 in March.”
Emphasis mine.
And:
“Industry watchers, take note: the organizers of the Game Developers Conference Europe have released the results of the second annual European State of the Industry Survey, which reveals trends around regional development hubs, tax incentives and platform preferences, in advance of the August conference.”
Which implies they actually went out and polled DEVELOPERS, not attendees.
“In 2014 GDC’s developer survey pegged the number of developers releasing their games on PC at over 52% vs 20% for PS4 and 17% for Xbox One.”
It does not come across like you’re message is “Lot’s of games coming on PC! That’s sweet”. It comes across as “Look how many games are coming out on PC! So many more than consoles. I’m so glad I’m a PC gamer right now because it is being supported so much more than the crappy consoles”.
Why compare the PC numbers to the console numbers in your OP unless you were trying to measure dicks here?
Because it’s relevant? These ARE the main platforms discussed in these types of conventions.
It would be like starting a thread about a study that sees 52% of consumers watching shows on YouTube and NOT mentioning how traditional TV show viewership appears to be 30 percent lower than that. Kind of important contrast.
Or in other words, If I had omitted those numbers, the very first post on the thread would likely have been: “I wonder how the consoles compare.”
Hell, I didn’t mention tablets/mobile and I was accused of bias because of THAT!
This part is kind of confusing to me. You find it amazing that the PC is the platform with the most developer interest? Really? Up until you saw those polls you thought otherwise? Because I doubt even the staunchest console fanboy would try and claim that consoles receive more overall developer attention than the PC (though I guess Justin Bailey is coming close).
You say that you didn’t intend for this to come off as yet another salvo in the ridiculous console fanboy v PC fanboy ‘debate,’ and I’ll take you at face value there, but that’s absolutely how the post comes off.
I find it amazing, yes. I didn’t say it was surprising, or that I didn’t realize that was the case. I certainly suspect it, though it’s certainly nice to see it in black and white.
My point with that sentence wasn’t that I was stunned to have this revealed to me, but that I find it an amazing fact, given that in the mainstream no one talks about PC gaming, and as mentioned, both Sony and Microsoft are expending gazillions of dollars in order to BUY developer interest.
Heck, easily half of all the articles I found on this report never even mentioned the PC, nevermind that it’s garnering over 50% of the attention. Many were title thusly: “Ps4 garnering twice the attention of developers Vs Xbox One”, or some such console sniping click bait.
Literally anyone can become a PC developer. I could code some cheesy game in HTML right now using links and that’s technically a “PC game.” Pretending that this is anything other than the status quo in action is ridiculous.
I just don’t understand the purpose of this post at all unless it’s to pat yourself on the back for how awesome you are for choosing the PC. I really don’t get it.
I log more hours PC gaming than anything else and I still think this thread is pointless.
I buy games that I like. Sometimes those games are on PC (though they are pretty much never the ones made by the “two biggest game developers” that you tout). Sometimes those games are on consoles. What is the POINT of this thread?
I really don’t know where all this anger is coming from.
The point of my thread was to bring up a story I thought would be of interest to PC gamers.
Ok, you don’t find it interesting that a majority of game devs are looking to develop for PC…
Why are you here? What are you trying to accomplish, other than venting? If you don’t like soccer, do you go into the Brazil 2014 thread and start threadshitting there too?
Literally anyone can become a PC developer. I could code some cheesy game in HTML right now using links and that’s technically a “PC game.” Pretending that this is anything other than the status quo in action is ridiculous.
No, all console developers must first be vetted by the console manufacturers themselves. There is literally no barrier to entry to become a PC game developer and the definition of what a “PC game” is is extremely loose. AAA games like Diablo III, mid-level games like Bastion or Transistor, one-man games like Gone Home or Papers Please, browser games that run in Flash, and my stupid HTML Choose Your Own Adventure example all qualify.
So when you ask people at a conference for game developers, if they’re not certified to work on console games, they’re not going to say their current game is being released for one, nor is it likely that their next game would either.
That’s no longer the case. I’m surprised you aren’t aware of this. Both Sony and Xbox now have programs that pretty much allow anyone to develop for these platforms.
The id@xbox program, for example.
Yet another copy cap move by the consoles, seeing PC innovate in the market, they feel the need to catch up.
They’re much more lenient than the used to be, but it’s still not “anything goes” like the PC market. And you’re the one who doesn’t understand the ID@Xbox program. It’s for independent developers who want to self publish their games on Microsoft’s digital storefront. Before, they had to partner with an approved publisher. Now, Microsoft will approve them directly. But Microsoft still has to approve them first. Sony and Nintendo work much the same way, they just don’t have a fancy name for it.
But I’m a little confused how anybody is copying anybody else. Who’s doing the copying? What are they copying? I’m very confused.
I just can’t imagine you making the title of a thread “PC continues to DOMINATE developer attention in 2014/2015!” without being keenly aware that you’re baiting console fans into debating you about the exact thing that is rehashed in all of these threads.