Let's have a bit of Friday night positivity, shall we? Despite what's been a rough year-or-so for the gaming industry, the outlook seems a bit better for 2025 so far - and a new report backs that up, as a majority of game developers expect the industry to grow this year.
Of 150 senior Unity game devs surveyed in a new report from Metaplay, 77% of them expect industry growth in 2025. Brand-new game releases are expected to help drive that growth, with 90% of these developers planning to release new games this calendar year.
In another stroke of positivity for the industry, the survey also concluded that more than two thirds of these game makers expect "fewer layoffs and studio closures" this year - which, after what we've seen over the last 12 months, is jolly nice to hear as well.
As we highlighted in our GTA 6 story earlier today, ballooning development costs have also been an issue for the industry in recent years, but the majority of devs surveyed here think that will get better in 2025 as well. The exact number of positive responses for that question was 63%, but "the use of technology rooted in artificial intelligence" is expected to be a driver in reducing these game dev costs - something that's likely to be highly controversial for fans.
Finally, despite news of two high-profile Sony shutdowns proliferating earlier today, live service games are still expected to be big money makers in 2025. More than three quarters of this surveyed game dev selection expect live service titles to boost revenue through this year, which is hardly surprising all-told.
What are your thoughts on this new industry survey? Talk to us about these results down below.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 10
Hopefully those devs give us release dates soon then! The schedule still seems completely vague for what will land this year.
@somnambulance Agreed. I think a little old game called GTA 6 is preventing some devs from dropping release dates...
@Kezelpaso I genuinely feel we could have a situation where GTA6 announces a date, everyone avoids it / delays to next year and then GTA6 gets delayed. I hope that TakeTwo and Rockstar give us a date as soon as they are confident, and stick to it.
@somnambulance That's the very reason I stopped watching developer shows and Xbox showcases. Absolutely am tired of seeing a game trailer that grabs my complete interest only have end with, coming 2073.
Ummm, no thanks.
That far out sooooo much can happen. Game gets canceled, delayed until 2278, set into infinite delay world. And yes, we have seen ALL the above often now.
Developers REALLY need to start following the 6 Month Rule. Doing that just better for everyone involved.
@themightyant Exactly. Please see my above post.
One month til civ 7 not thinking about anything else.
There could be the familiar issue of big games being overlooked because there is so much else releasing as well.
I think that there are too many games coming out this year because we can have a year like 2023 and then 2024 won’t be as plentiful when it can be spread through more years
@BacklogBrad Yessss I can’t wait for Civ 7. Being Steamdeck verified pre release is just the icing on the already magnificent cake.
@GuyinPA75 Oh, I disagree. I want the dog and pony show. But I want it with release dates!
@Kezelpaso Truthfully, I understand that no one wants to compete with GTA, but honestly, for me, i want more games than just GTA this year… and I want to budget my gaming for Switch 2!
This upcoming year does look good for games loads on gamepass that are new releases a new GTA a new mafia a new Elden Ring (kinda) and a new Fable not to mention a new switch dropping and probably a load of Microsoft owned games launching on it as well this year is the most stacked for good games to play releasing than I can remember in a long while!
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