The 2017 GDC State of the Game Industry report shows that 39% of developers attending the annual GDC conference (starting Feb 27th in San Francisco) are developing titles for AR and VR headsets. The report gathered the data from 4,500 attendees at the annual GDC conference.
The report also shows which headsets are being targeted by the developers. The leaders are the HTC Vive (25% of respondents) and the Oculus Rift (24%) followed by the PlayStation VR (13%) and Samsung’s Gear VR (13%) in joint position. Last year was the year that major headsets were finally introduced and this probably accounts for the growth in the number of developers focusing on this technology.
The report also shows that interest in the HTC Vive is fast growing, with 40% of developers saying they will be moving to this as their next VR/AR project. The next project for others was the Rift (37%) and the PlayStation VR (26%).
Some 11% of developers said they were working on a single AR/VR game exclusive to a single platform. The split was Vive (33%), Rift (24%) and PlayStation VR (15%).
When the developers were asked which VR/AR headset was the most interesting to them, Vive came out top with the developers at 45%, Rift with 30%, PlayStation VR with 29%, Google’s Daydream with 17% and Gear VR with 13%.
Some 75% of the developers believed that AR/VR is a sustainable business and it will be a long-term success as a gaming platform.
