Rethinking My Indie Game Development Journey: Lessons Learned, Market Realities, and My Next Steps
When I sit down andthink about the future of indie game development, well... I don’t feelconfident, to say the least. I think I massively miscalculated both the stateof the market and the potential for making a profit with indie games.
As always, I want toclarify what I mean by indie games. I’m not talking about AA titlesbacked by publishers that are essentially smaller AAA productions. I mean indiegames made with little to no budget. If you check my itch.io page, you’ll see that I’ve already published a dozenvisual novels and narrative-heavy games, with Spellbound Hearts beingthe only commercial release.
I think only a few ofyou know the story behind why I decided to make Spellbound Hearts acommercial game. The reason was simple: I enjoyed making it, and I felt itdeserved a commercial release. But the most important reason was because Iwanted to learn the process of publishing a commercial game on Steam so I’d bebetter prepared for my future projects. I did almost no marketing oradvertising, and the game has sold around 300 copies. Since it’s so cheap, itbarely made me $170 in profit. But still, it was a great experience that helpedme understand the process for my next commercial games.
When I first got intoindie game development, it was a hobby, and sometimes I feel like it shouldhave stayed that way. There are several reasons why I don’t think this is aviable path for making a living.
The Reality of theMarket
First, making a decentgame requires a massive time investment. At the same time, you’re competingwith countless other releases hitting the market daily. Unfortunately, the onlyviable marketplace for selling indie games is Steam, and we’re looking at 20–60releases every single day.
I get that some mightthink most of those games are low-quality asset flips, but I’d argue that asignificant percentage of them are high-quality projects. Many of these gameshave taken their developers 2–5 years to create. There's this misconceptionthat gets repeated all the time: that most indie games are low effort, but realitytells a different story.
Back in 2019, around9,000 games were released on Steam. In 2024, that number nearly doubled to 19,000games. If that’s not an indication of oversaturation, I don’t know what is.And this doesn’t mean that each new year wipes the slate clean. Every newrelease is added on top of the massive backlog of already great games.That’s why Steam now has over 100,000 games, many of them high quality.
On top of that, mostplayers primarily consume AAA content: Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty, LoLetc. The slice of the market available to indie games is already small, andwith thousands of new indie games fighting for attention, the chances ofsuccess keep shrinking.
The MarketingDilemma
Yes, marketing shouldstart from the moment you conceive your game—before writing a single line ofcode. But if you start making your game now, and it takes 2–4 years to develop,by the time you release it, you’ll be competing with 40,000–80,000 moregames in the same marketplace. Sure, there are exceptions: games that go viraland succeed, but luck plays a huge role, and you can’t just design indiegame content with the expectation that it will go viral.
Comparing Indie Gamesto Indie Book Publishing
When I say Imiscalculated the market, it’s because I initially thought indie gamedevelopment would work similarly to self-publishing on Amazon. I was sowrong.
It’s funny because thebook industry is way more saturated than the game industry, yet it’sstill easier to make money from books. Here’s why:
Writing a book is far less complex than developing a game. A decent writer can finish a novel in a few months, publish it, and quickly move on to the next project without a huge financial investment. If a book fails, you can start a new one without breaking the bank. You don’t even need to pay for a book cover (though I recommend it). Books have quick iteration times, meaning you can release multiple books a year. Some will fail, but some will succeed, and the process is relatively fast. Following trends is much easier in book publishing. If you start writing a trend-driven book today, you can release it within months (and I know of some people who write books within a month). In contrast, if you start a trend-based game today, by the time you finish in 2–4 years, that trend might be completely irrelevant.My Plan MovingForward
As I mentioned in myprevious blog post, I plan to release Cook or Be Cooked as a short gameif I don’t secure a publisher and my Kickstarter campaign fails.
As for my next game, ParallelPulse, I’m planning to take a break before resuming work. Indie gamedevelopment is incredibly frustrating, especially when balancing it with dailylife, especially if you have a kid and a job.
Right now, I’m alsoapplying for Creative Europe funding, hoping to secure support for 60%of the game’s budget. Unfortunately, competition has become evensteeper. Last year, many publishers stopped making deals, so a ton of studiosturned to grants for funding.
The situation issimilar to Steam’s 19,000-game flood. Just because all those games aren’tdirect competitors doesn’t mean they don’t impact the ecosystem. Two years ago,if your Creative Europe proposal met the threshold score, you’d receivefunding. Most of the times, Creative Europe applicants wouldn’t absorb theentire budget because a lot of proposals wouldn’t reach the 70% threshold. Butlast year, the number of applicants skyrocketed. Many proposals were lowquality, but plenty of good ones exceeded the threshold for the firsttime. The bar has been raised, and what used to require a 70% score now needsat least 80%.
To put things intoperspective, CD Projekt Red is one of the companies competing for thesame funding. So… yeah. Good luck with that.
What’s Next for Me?
That being said, I’mnot quitting game development. But I do want to approach it smarter, ina way that doesn’t drain me financially. After Parallel Pulse, I’mconsidering joining other teams, either as a programmer or writer, rather than managingand financing everything by myself. That being said, Parallel Pulse will take acouple of years to be completed, so this isn’t an immediate change of plans(despite my rant above).
At the same time, I’mthinking of taking a short break to write a couple of books after releasing Cookor Be Cooked. I think it was a mistake to abandon that revenue stream, especiallysince it’s something I enjoy as much as making video games.
I know this post mightsound a bit depressing, but it’s better to see reality early rather than wasteyears on projects that don’t make sense.
One thing I’ve alsostarted questioning is the idea that indie developers should release as manygames as possible to increase their chances of success. Given how manygames flood the market daily, this approach might be flawed. I’m starting tothink that YouTubers who also make games might have the right idea. Longdevelopment cycles might actually be better because they allow more timeto market the game while also producing YouTube content. Of course, this isn’tan ideal solution, since many YouTubers make part of their income from theirchannels, not their games. But for them, long development times mean morecontent for their audience, which in turn keeps interest in their game alive. That’ssomething I’m considering for Parallel Pulse.
That being said, ifyou’re just starting out, you should definitely release as many short games aspossible to learn the process. I released a dozen free short to medium sizedgames before releasing my first commercial game, and I find it as an excellentstrategy if you’re just starting out.
