I am trying to find out the size of the game development industry in
terms of # of people, not by revenues. So I'm seeking the number of
game developers (or companies) in the US and/or world. Please include
source/reference.

the objective is to understand the market potential of the gaming
industry vertical for a software vendor. So I'd also enjoy any
information on game design software (like Maya) in terms of market
share.

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Request for Question Clarification by thx1138-ga on 13 Dec 2005 10:46 PST

Hello mantramaker and thank you for your question.

Hard facts about the number of developers and companies involved with
game design are not available.

But, I have found two sources that estimate the number of developers
worldwide and the number of game development companies worldwide.  I
also have an estimate from the "International Game Developers
Association" that fairly accurately confirms those numbers.

Would this information answer your question sufficiently?

Best regards

THX1138

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Clarification of Question by mantramaker-ga on 19 Dec 2005 08:18 PST

Yes, that would certainly answer my question! At this point we're just
looking for overall size of market, and it doesn't have to be exact. I
actually approached the IGDA for this info and they said they didn't
have it. (?) Perhaps I didn't ask the right person. If you could
provide both estimates, great.

thanks!

Hello mantramaker-ga thank you for your question and subsequent clarification.

My apologies for not having answered your question sooner, but I have
had some technical problems at my end.

Having carried out extensive research on your question I can tell you
there are approximately 100,000 individual game developers, and
approximately 1,000 game development companies.  As I mentioned
before, there are no hard statistics and this was confirmed by the
International Game Developers Association.  However,  they confirmed
that those estimates were approximately correct.

Details:

"Game Developers. A successful computer game can make millions for its
developers. As a result there are over 90,000 game developers
world-wide working to create the next hit."
http://www.eutist-ami.org/final_report/emotions.pdf
 
"Other than the publishers, there are probably 1,000 or so video game
development companies today. Many are tiny 1- or 2-person operations
creating Flash games for the web, or games for cell phones. Others are
large companies with multiple locations, such as Foundation 9
Entertainment, formed by a merger in March 2005, which says it has
over 300 employees. As a rule, developers are privately held
companies; only a very few non-publishing developers have ever been
publicly traded companies."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer
 

Individual Developers - < 100,000
 
Development Companies < 1,000
 
Game Publishers - > 200
http://www.igda.org/contact.php
 

 
"Game developers in North America, Europe and Asia are all
experiencing the power and flexibility of Maya. According to
independent research firm Acacia Research, 46% of North American games
studios recently surveyed said they use Maya software in their
pipeline. Asia Pacific is on the cutting edge of new markets such as
mobile gaming, as well as the driving force of the console gaming
industry. Maya now makes up more than 50% of the 3D tool licenses
within the top eight game companies in Japan. The European games
market is a hot bed of growth as game developers lead the industry
both in terms of development for next generation platforms such as the
PSP? and in the convergence of assets between games and film and
broadcast properties."
http://www.3dcad.it/script/news/news/news_item_uk.asp?NewsID=629

Thank you for your question, and if you need any clarification of my
answer, do not hesitate to ask before rating my answer.

Very best regards,

THX1138

Search strategy included:
"game developers" thousand market
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=+%22game+developers%22+thousand+market

and personal contact with the IGDA
http://www.igda.org/contact.php

I searched for hours for the answer to my question before submitting
to Google Answers. This was a difficult category to research, and I
got a great and well-substantiated answer. I'll be using this service
a lot!

Hello again mantramaker,

Just a note to say thank you for the five stars and very generous tip.

You are correct, it was a very tricky question, in fact one of star
researchers bobbie7-ga also spent quite some time searching for the
answer, so I would just like to thank her as well for her input.

Very best regards

THX1138