About r/gamedev
In its own words:
The subreddit covers various game development aspects, including programming, design, writing, art, game jams, postmortems, and marketing. It serves as a hub for game creators to discuss and share their insights, experiences, and expertise in the industry.
Community guide
r/gamedev (#533, about 2.1 million) — The subreddit covers various game development aspects, including programming, design, writing, art, game jams, postmortems, and marketing. It serves as a hub for game creators to discuss and share their insights, experiences, and expertise in the industry. Collected rules highlight Be Respectful; Relevant Content; No Showcasing Projects, among 8 listed. Activity mix in sample: text:354, link:21, video:16. Bu.
What belongs here
r/gamedev is for on-topic fan discussion and media. Source framing: The subreddit covers various game development aspects, including programming, design, writing, art, game jams, postmortems, and marketing. It serves as a hub for game creators to discuss and share their insights, experie. Spoiler, civility, and off-topic rules on file: Be Respectful; Relevant Content; No Showcasing Projects; No Blatant Self Promotion - Context-Driven Link Sharing Only. Mark spoilers when required; keep purchases/support questions in whatever channels the rules allow.
How it differs
Distinctions here come from the public description and rule list rather than firsthand culture reporting. If a sibling subreddit is a tighter fit, prefer that.
Before you post
Common flairs in the sample: Discussion, Question, Postmortem, Announcement. Recent sample composition: text:354, link:21, video:16. Bu. Format-sensitive rules to read first: No Blatant Self Promotion - Context-Driven Link Sharing Only. Treat subscriber and posts-per-day figures as directory snapshots, not live Reddit counters.
SubMouse Editorial
The community was created on May 19, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 2,183 subscribers (+0.11%). Among the 20 communities on our programming list it is number 4 by size. It sits just behind r/hmmm (#532) and ahead of r/IWantOut (#534) in our ranking.
What sets r/gamedev apart
Compared with other large communities, r/gamedev leans heavily on text posts (91% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 35%). For its size it is unusually busy: about 34.1 new posts a day per million members, more than 85% of the Top 100. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 0.75% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 92% of the Top 100. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (16:00 UTC) sees about 6.4× as many posts as the quietest (02:00 UTC).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/gamedev grew from 2,064,094 to 2,079,546 subscribers (+15.5K, +0.75%). That is about 351 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
What r/gamedev talks about
Looking at the titles of 391 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 5), the words that come up most are “game”, “games”, “steam”, “dev” and “actually”. Other frequent themes are help, demo, mobile, indie, looking and making. Recurring phrases include “game dev”, “mobile game”, “video games” and “indie game”. By format, 91% are text posts, 5% are links and 4% are videos.
Popular post flairs: Discussion (231), Question (116), Postmortem (13), Announcement (10), Marketing (9), Industry News (8).
Activity and best time to post
r/gamedev gets about 71 new posts a day. The public archive holds 411,326 posts and 4,685,603 comments in total, about 11.4 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Thursday (69 posts) and the quietest was Saturday (40). Posting peaks around 16:00 UTC and is lowest around 02:00 UTC.
Rules of r/gamedev
The moderators of r/gamedev list 8 rules. In short:
- Be Respectful
- Relevant Content
- No Showcasing Projects
- No Blatant Self Promotion - Context-Driven Link Sharing Only
- No Soliciting Employment or Collaboration
- No Paid, Pirated or Unlicensed Assets/Content
- Use Reports Responsibly
- English-Only Communication
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/gamedev and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many subscribers does r/gamedev have?
r/gamedev has 2,079,546 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #533 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 15,452 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
How old is r/gamedev?
r/gamedev was created on May 19, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years. The oldest post in the public archive is from Oct 11, 2008.
How active is r/gamedev?
Very active: r/gamedev gets about 71 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 411,326 posts and 4,685,603 comments. In a sample of 391 recent posts we counted 352 different authors.
When is r/gamedev most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Thursday and the quietest Saturday, and most posts arrive around 16:00 UTC, with the fewest around 02:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/gamedev about?
The community describes itself as: “The subreddit covers various game development aspects, including programming, design, writing, art, game jams, postmortems, and marketing. It serves as a hub for game creators to discuss and share their insights, experi…” Recent post titles often mention game, games, steam, dev and actually. Most posts are text posts (91%).
Is r/gamedev safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/gamedev as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/gamedev?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/gamedev accepts both text and link posts. It has 8 posted rules, starting with: “Be Respectful”; “Relevant Content”; “No Showcasing Projects”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/gamedev?
Communities with similar topics include r/writing (3.4M), r/marketing (2M), r/learnprogramming (4.4M), r/law (2.3M) and r/Design (4.5M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/gamedev.