Game Developers Aren't Sold on the Metaverse
As commonplace as it's become to see big, bold speculations about a futuristic metaverse in games industry discussions, game developers themselves don't seem too hot on the concept.
The 2023 State of the Game Industry survey has just been published, canvassing over 2,300 game developers for their situations and opinions on topics such as platform development, working conditions, and interest in technology. One of its more interesting questions this year was specifically about the metaverse:
"Which of these companies/platforms do you think is best placed to deliver on the promise of the metaverse concept?"
The platform that ultimately got the most votes was Epic Games' Fornite with 14%, followed by Meta (Horizon Worlds) at 7% and Microsoft (Minecraft) also at 7%. Five percent of developers said Roblox, and even fewer brought up options like Google, Apple, Second Life, Sony, Tencent, Amazon, and VR Chat.
But nothing got anywhere near as many votes as an answer that isn't a platform at all: "None - The metaverse concept will never deliver on its promise," which took away 45% of the vote, up from 33% last year. So almost half of all game developers surveyed don't think the metaverse promise is worth much at all.
Why?
While IGN doesn't have access to all the survey answers, GDC and Game Developer did publish a handful of comments submitted by respondents that can help shed some light. In particular, the question "What does the metaverse need to become sustainable?" included a lengthy response from one survey taker that, per GDC, "seemed to represent the voices of a significant majority of respondents." The response focused on the metaverse as a VR experience, noting that VR environments were currently missing levels of
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