Last week the 2018 Game Developers Conference has released the results of the sixth annual State of the Industry Survey, revealing trends in the games industry ahead of GDC 2018 this March.

Most notably, the results (from a survey of nearly 4,000 game industry professionals) suggest game makers are very excited about the Nintendo Switch, and are embracing a variety of business models for their games — including "loot box" monetization schemes.

They also point to a diminished interest in publishers, as less than 1 in 4 respondents said they planned to work with a publisher on their next project.

Today we'd like to highlight another interesting result of this year's survey, one which suggests that HTC's Vive headset is winning the lion's share of favor among devs making (or interested in making) virtual reality games.

Download the 2018 State of the Industry Survey here

The State of the Industry Survey is the sixth entry in the ongoing series of yearly reports and serves as a snapshot of the games industry, illustrating industry trends ahead of GDC 2018. Organized by the UBM Game Network, GDC 2018 takes place March 19-23, alongside the 2017 Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC) March 19-20, both at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.

HTC Vive narrowly remains the most popular VR platform among devs

Last year the HTC Vive overtook the Oculus Rift as the most popular VR platform among devs, and that trend continued through to this year’s survey results.

When we polled respondents about which platform their last VR game was released on, 15 percent said Vive, 14 percent said Oculus Rift, and 7 percent said Gear VR. 67 percent said they weren’t currently involved in VR development at all. These numbers are roughly in line with the results of last year’s survey, though they all went up a bit, suggesting that more devs have had time to build and release VR games.

Similarly, 17 percent of respondents said they were currently working on a game that’s coming to the Vive, 16 percent said their current project is releasing on Rift, and 9 percent said PlayStation VR. 69 percent said their current project isn’t coming to VR at all.

Looking ahead, the split remains roughly the same; 19 percent of respondents believe their next project will release on the Vive, 17 percent believe it will release on the Rift, and 11 percent think it will come to the PlayStation VR. 66 percent said the question wasn’t applicable to them.

When we took the focus off of actual projects and simply asked respondents what VR platform(s) interested them most right now, as a developer, the most popular answer was HTC Vive with 33 percent of respondents. 26 percent ofrespondents said they were most interested in the Oculus Rift, and 20 percent said PlayStation VR.

Intriguingly, 18 percent said they were most interested in Microsoft’s HoloLens headset, and 10 percent were most focused on the upcoming, somewhat mysterious Magic Leap goggles. Meanwhile, 47 percent said they weren’t interested in VR development or the question wasn’t applicable to them.

If you'd like to learn more, a more detailed analysis of the survey can be had by downloading the full report yourself! 

For more information on GDC 2018, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas

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