The Galactic center is one of the most important regions to search for a gamma-ray signal from a possible annihilation of dark matter due to its proximity and high dark matter density. In the past years, several groups have reported an excess of gamma rays in the Fermi Large Area Telescope data with an approximately spherical morphology around the Galactic center. In this contribution, we will overview the current observational status of the excess and the difficulties in the gamma-ray analysis near the Galactic center.