#63 - Analyzing the 2026 GDC State Of The Industry Report ft. Chris Kerr & Nicole Carpenter

The Game Developer Podcast is back for 2026! We’re kicking it off this week with an analysis of the 2026 GDC Festival of Gaming State of the Industry Report. This annual report surveys several thousand developers to gather data on the video game marketplace, workplace overtime, layoffs, and other topics. 

This year marks a major transformation for the report, which includes more robust data and segmentation on demographics and other topics. GDC Festival of Gaming content marketing manager Beth Elderkin joins us for the first half of this episode to discuss the changes, and how they should provide a more accurate and in-depth look at the state of game development.

Then, Game Developer news editor Chris Kerr and news columnist Nicole Carpenter swing by to help us break down a number of key data points relating to layoffs, interest in unions, generative AI, and the impact of tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration.

Read the full survey: https://reg.gdconf.com/2026-SOTI

Follow Chris Kerr on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kerrblimey.bsky.social

Follow Nicole Carpenter on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nicolecarpenter.bsky.social

Learn more about GDC Festival of Gaming: http://www.gdconf.com

Game Developer, GDC Festival of Gaming, and Omdia are sibling organizations under Informa.

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The Game Developer podcast is a bi-weekly podcast chronicling game development triumphs, catastrophes, and everything in-between, as devs from all sides of the industry share lessons and strategies fellow game makers can use to hone their craft.

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Music by Mike Meehan
Edited by Pierre Landriau