Independent games developers - 28th October 2022

These days, video games are getting more complicated and more costly to create. It can take hundreds of developers and a few studios working together to create a game. However, some game creators want to do it alone, they're convinced they'll achieve success and fame.

So far, a few have managed to do that. Stardew Valley was created by Eric Barone and made more than $20 million. Geraud Zucchini's the creator of Larceny Lazer.

Géraud Zucchini: "Yes, you can make money. It's very difficult, and the majority of people who go into indie games, with their first game anyway, generally they're going to make very little or no money at all."

Dan Beckerton's Canadian, he developed the game Spirittea. He used crowdfunding to fund the project.

Dan Beckerton:"I think my goal is, like, if I could pay back all my funding, and then maybe make, like, $100,000 on top of that, which would give me a runway to work on my next game. That would be, I mean that's, that's an infinitely larger goal than my, my first game which made, like, 2,000 bucks total."

If you work alone, you miss out on the financial support and sociable nature of working for a large studio. Independent creators think the challenge encourages them to be more creative. Mike Rose, who founded No More Robots, and Dan Beckerton believe it could be a positive change.

Mike Rose: "Whenever you move into relying on other people, it can go very different ways. And so yes, there's definitely that personal touch when you've got just a single developer making a game."

Dan Beckerton: "I don't have to like, OK that with anyone. I can just go ahead with any kind of creative idea I have."

Independent creators are racing to create the next big game. Meanwhile, the vice president of Indie Game Nation, Alizee Veauvy Guilliams Janin, thinks we need to look at the success of independent developers differently.

Alizee Veauvy Guilliams Janin: "All in all, we have to differentiate between success stories and indie games, which are very good and profitable for the creators. Indeed, when they manage to reach their target, to be inspiring, or simply fun for their public, and to be profitable, I think that's just brilliant."