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We game developers appear to be a pretty big community. But how big is that community exactly?

How many developers, professional as well as amateur, are working on games all around the world? Do sources to get that number even exist?

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Around the same as the number of amateur/professional moviemakers, which is less than the number of amateur/professional writers, and definitely less than the number of amateur/professional musicians. In other words, there's really no way to estimate this. – Philip Aug 7 '12 at 13:56
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An lets not forget about the unknown number of intelligent lifeforms in the universe that might be developers... This question does not fit the format of this site, only speculation can be done until someone forms a mandatory census. – Daniel Carlsson Aug 7 '12 at 13:59
@Philip: Except there are ways to know how many amateur musician there are. There are even whole companies dedicated to market studies that create these kind of figures. If you don't know something and don't know how to find it (and I don't know either, which is why I ask), does not mean the answer does not exist. And my question was precisely: does such figure exist? – Falanwe Aug 7 '12 at 14:01
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I don't see why exactly this question should be downvoted. Maybe we won't have precise results, but I doubt that Falanwe is looking for answers like "6553503 game developers worldwide". Market & demographic research is an interesting topic. – Eilistraee Aug 7 '12 at 14:42
Agreed that this is interesting. It may be impossible to reply with an exact answer but there are certainly enough citable sources to be able to come up with reasonable estimates. – Kylotan Aug 7 '12 at 15:29
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closed as not a real question by Jonathan Hobbs, Josh Petrie, Byte56, bummzack, Gajoo Aug 8 '12 at 3:43

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

3 Answers

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Best figure i found is here I not sure how accurate it is tho but certainly looks cool.

enter image description here

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Nice resource. Not exactly what I'm looking for, but very nice to have. Thanks! – Falanwe Aug 7 '12 at 14:40
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At time of writing: 15,118. (Source)

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+1 this is really the most reliable answer. – Byte56 Aug 8 '12 at 2:20
Reliable but totally irrevlevant – Falanwe Aug 8 '12 at 6:25
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pot, kettle. :) – Trevor Powell Aug 8 '12 at 6:37
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I think that is not posible to determinate how much people are developing games as a hobby or for a living, beacose not every one publishes he's creation or tells about it. I have developed like 3 games so far and only one of them is published.

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Good point: knowing the number of publishing game developpers should be easier. And this information would be valuable too. – Falanwe Aug 7 '12 at 14:03

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