As criticism of game development grows and the labor practices of some developers are called into question, the topic of labor unions is increasingly being discussed, as evidenced by the results of the GDC's 2020 State of the Game Industry Survey, in which 54% of the nearly 4,000 respondents said that "workers in the game industry should form a labor union," and support for labor unions is growing.

Thirty percent of developers said they "don't know" and 16 percent said they "disagree"; the GDC first began asking this question last year, when 47 percent expressed support. Unfortunately, few are convinced that it will actually happen. Only 23 percent said they think a union will be formed, while 22 percent think a union will not be formed. Most respondents said they did not know.

Crunch and other topics are being discussed more openly, and more developers are advertising themselves as crunch-free, but the issue remains pervasive: developers of Cyberpunk 2077 are being asked to crunch, developers of Doom Eternal are crunched "pretty hard" throughout 2019. It is still taken for granted.

The survey also found that almost half of game developers work more than 40 hours per week. Twenty percent of respondents said they work 41-45 hours per week, and 12% said they work 46-50 hours. More developers said they work more than 60 hours per week, 4 percent than 56-60 hours.

In other surveys, developers seemed a bit more enthusiastic about VR than last year; AR is still dominant, with 32 percent of developers believing it will be something to watch in the next five years, but a quarter now think it will be VR. The new Oculus Quest appears to be the most popular headset, with the most developers planning to release games on it.

The popularity of loot boxes has thankfully declined, with only 8% of developers saying they are working on a game with a loot box mechanic. This year, the GDC added a new response to the business model portion of the survey to take into account games released through subscription services. 8 percent said they are working on a game that will be released through one of these services.

Developers are not sure what to think about subscriptions: 27% are concerned that Xbox Game Pass and Apple Arcade will reduce the value of individual games, while 26% are not. The largest response was "maybe."

The PC is the most popular platform, and this has been true ever since the GDC began the survey eight years ago. Fifty percent of developers said the PC was the platform they were most interested in, followed by the PlayStation 5 at 38%, with the Switch just below. Only 25% were interested in the next Xbox.

GDC 2020 will open on March 16.