33% of Devs Claim Their Games Were Delayed by COVID-19

In a survey done by the Game Developers Conference, 33 percent of developers claim that their games have been delayed thanks to COVID-19, and 70 percent of developers have started working from home in response to it. And even among those developers who haven’t been delayed, 46 percent report that the impacts of the virus have been harshly felt.

The details of this report are pretty interesting. Some have claimed that they were able to transition to a work-from-home format fairly easily, but since game development is a collaborative effort, partner companies who struggle are often the cause of the delays. A finger was pointed fairly decisively at Nintendo, who’s certification system can’t keep up with all the extra pressure put on it by the virus.

But in an industry mired in secrecy, certification systems are only the first of many problems. With a new console generation almost here, most developers need access to console development kits, which have rather intense security around them that make them functionally impossible to take home and work on. For voice actors, having a proper studio to record in is important, yet oftentimes dangerous or impossible to procure thanks to the rising in infection numbers.

Perhaps most damningly, however, is simply the stress of the situation. Game development is already a stressful gig with long hours and oftentimes brutal working conditions: add the extra pressure and anxiety caused by a pandemic, and you’ve got a little something called “ambient stress”, which reduces productivity, makes people feel isolated and alone, and oftentimes impacts the quality of the work.

All things considered, I’m surprised it’s only 33 percent of games that have been delayed. Feels like it should be more.

If there’s one plus side to this, it’s that a lot of developers have learned they enjoy working from home, and 12 percent of those polled said they’d rather keep working from home for the foreseeable future.