Gamedev.js Survey 2022

[end3r]

We're conducting the second edition of the Gamedev.js Survey:

Please fill this form so we can learn about the current state of Web Game Development in 2022 - your feedback is crucial for it to succeed, thank you!

Ps. There are prizes: 10 × $50 ($500 total) to be given away to random participants.

[b10b]

@end3r Thank you for sharing and seeking to discover the current state of Web Game Development in 2022 ... some feedback if you don't mind ...

I saw no mention of Haxe or Animate anywhere on the survey questions.  Barely any reference to GameMaker, Construct3, Unity either.  Does this survey mostly ask questions that reinforce the authors' preferred approaches (the Javascript centric approach of Js + Npm + Webpack etc)?

Who uses this data and what conclusions will they draw from it?  For example, what is the benefit of knowing that ~50% of developers use LocalStorage (or more likely, are aware that they use it)?  Instead why not ask web-game specific questions like "Are you writing realtime multiplayer?  Do you consider dual input paradigms?  Do you use cloud game saves?  Do you use Canvas fallback?  What payload size is your goal?  Do you syndicate with multiple publishers?  Do you do just client side?  Do you use continuous integration?" ... etc, i.e. pragmatic questions that reveal developer maturity and unique audience reach.  By contrast, although I'm not a big fan of NFT I did appreciate those questions as it reveals somewhat unique web-game direction.

What's my point, why am I criticising your survey?  Well, I note that 58% of last year's respondants made <$1k.  This either reveals that the majority of surveys were completed by hobbyists (who perhaps misunderstood question #4?), or that the "majority answers" were "bad" choices (from a sustainable or commercial perspective).  So my point is well intentioned - this data is unlikely representative of the current state of Web game development in terms of player experience, or in terms of developer sustainability, so may unintentionally reinforce inferior approaches.

 

[end3r]

@b10b Thanks for the feedback! I was updating the list of options based on the answers in 2021 as there's always an input for "other", and many of those ended up in 2022 - Unity and Construct got many answers anyway, and GameMaker was on the list originally as well, so I'm not sure what more questions could have them involved. The survey started as a JavaScript based one, but all answers are optional and many questions have the option for a non-coder to take it. It is my first attempt at gathering such data and I'm sure it could be improved over time from feedback like yours.

Anyone can use the data, and for example the question about how much devs earn was the one that sparked the discussion about improving ways devs can be compensated for their work. Those web gamedev questions you listed sound very good, and I'd be totally in for adding them to the 2023 edition. I'm worried it would make the survey even longer, but some questions like the LocalStorage one could indeed be removed.

Reaching a many communities and ecosystems is another story - of course I'd like to get as many answers as possible, but the survey started in places I'm active, because it was just easier. We got ~400 answers, but I can imagine the actual numbers of devs working on web games can be counted in thousands, the problem is how do the survey reach them. Again, I totally agree with your points, just keep in mind it started by single individual who don't have much experience with surveys, but wanted to get some answers, and the intent is to evolve and grow this with the help from the community, so it gets better every single year. Much like js13kGames evolved in the past decade.

[b10b]

@end3r thanks mate, totally understand, good points and I appreciate the goal.  Perhaps the results can be made more useful if the underlying data is made available?  Then each question isn't an island, but dimensions can be applied.  For example, remove all tech stacks where income <$1k, or multiply choices by dollars, or cross reference happiness to team size, or whatever the analyzer wishes.  Then as the questions expan the usefulness can rise with it.  Again, I only mention all this because I've been in commercial situations where tech adoption has been decided based purely on perceived "uptake" rather than on underlying advantages.  Yep sad but true.

[end3r]

@b10b The data is in the Google Spreadsheet, but I'd have to cut out the email addresses to share it first. Of course it would be more useful if all the details were published in some form, even better if it was presented nicely as an interactive graph or something, but we had to start somewhere and this approach was the easiest to do. It's all stored somewhere though, so we could do something with it in the future, we just focused on publishing the answers to specific questions first as this gave a lot of interesting conclusions already.