GDC has released its 2021 “State of the Games Industry” report, a collection of statistics resulting from over 3,000 game developers which represents the current industry. The report goes over topics such as how the COVID-19 pandemic affected productivity, hardware preferences (there’s a strong interest in the PlayStation 5, for example), unionization, duration of their workweeks to the platforms they focus on and much more. 

Like everyone else, the game industry has also been coloured by the pandemic, and 44% of all game developers surveyed had the feeling that the game they worked on was delayed because of it. 49% thought it was not late, and the rest answered that they are not working on any game at the moment. In 2020, 33% answered that COVID-19 had delayed their work, which means an increase of 11 percentage points.

However, it should be pointed out that this only indicates the number of developers who have worked on overdue projects, and it does not take into account whether the participants are working, for instance, on the same project. However, 2021 has enough delay to fill its long lists, and it has influenced headlines like Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo Infinite.

According to the 2021 State of the Game Industry report, participants encountered difficulties working remotely in terms of collaboration and communication, which was a contributing factor to the delayed headlines. Despite this, the majority of developers say that working from home did not affect their creativity or productivity, while 35% saw working at home as an improvement.