The newest survey of game developers conducted in connection with the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2020) reveals a sea change in VR developer interest.
In previous years HTC Vive dominated the survey results but Facebook’s Oculus Quest is dominating this year alongside Valve Index and Rift.
The key question on the survey — Which VR/AR platform(s) most interest you as a developer right now? (Choose all that apply) — sizes up interest among developers in making software for various VR and AR headsets. In the 2020 edition of the survey Oculus Quest dominates with 39 percent checking that option while Valve Index follows at 22 percent and Oculus Rift close behind at 21 percent. Windows Mixed Reality AR headsets like HoloLens are at 17 percent while Magic Leap One and HTC Vive tied at 16 percent.
The original Vive was hit in 2019 by the arrival of Vive Cosmos which garnered 7 percent interest (just slightly more than the now-defunct Gear VR platform at 5 percent) as well as Valve’s own Index VR headset. It is also notable separate entries on the survey were listed for Vive Pro, Vive Focus, Vive Focus Plus, and Vive Pro Eye while only one was given to Rift, which likely had the effect of grouping together all the responses for Oculus PC development interest under a single entry while dividing HTC’s between so many of its headsets.
Here are the survey results on that question in 2020 with the charts for the last several years included below:
2020
2019
2018
2017
Another notable question on the 2020 survey is more specific in asking “Which VR/AR platform(s) are you currently developing for? (Choose all that apply)” and that question narrows the gap between HTC Vive at 20 percent while Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest lead the pack at 25 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
Here’s the chart for that survey question from 2020:
You can check out the full survey for yourself by filling out the information on this page to download a copy and stay tuned for our continued coverage of GDC2020 over the coming months.
Ian Hamilton is a journalist based in Arkansas and managing editor at UploadVR. He's covered VR full-time since 2015 as well as Oculus VR since 2012. He is interested in the people creating VR and AR hardware and software, their motivations, and how that work affects the people who spend significant time in simulations. If you have information to pass along you can send him a direct message on Twitter, Facebook or via email.
