GDC survey finds 80% of developers are making games for PC: as PC is the 'dominant platform'

PC development has skyrocketed this year according to GDC's new 2025 State of the Game Industry report, with more than 80% of the 3000 developers who responded to the survey saying they're making games for the PC right now.

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The report suggests that this is a rather big upgrade for game development on the PC over 2024, where GDC's survey saw 66% of respondents said they were developing for the PC, and now that number is at 80%. This is more than double the percentage of developers working on the second-most popular platform -- the PlayStation 5 -- with 38% of developers working on PS5 games, and 34% of developers working on Xbox Series X/S games.

These numbers have been slowly increasing over the years, with prior GDC surveys seeing 56% of developers working on PC games in 2020, rising to 58% in 2021, 63% in 2022, and 65% in 2023, before reaching a lofty 80% of developers working on PC games in the new 80%. Not just that, but interest in developing for the PC is also up massively, with 74% of respondents to the GDC survey interested in the PC, up from 62% in 2024.

The GDC report says: "The exact reason for this jump is unclear, but it could be connected to the rising popularity of Valve's Steam Deck. 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".

"Last year, 66% of developers reported that they were working on games for PC; this year, that number climbed up to 80%. While the reason for this is unclear, it could be at least partially attributed to the rising popularity of Valve's Steam Deck. While the Steam Deck wasn't specifically listed as an option for developers to list as a platform they're developing games for, of the respondents who chose the 'Other' option, 44% of them wrote in Steam Deck as a platform they're interested in".

"Interestingly, web browser games are also climbing in popularity, as 16% of developers noted that they're working on releases for web browsers (compared to 10% last year and 11% the year before). This marks the most interest game studios have in browser games across the past decade".