Indie games developers - 28th October 2022

Video games are expensive and challenging to make. Sometimes it takes hundreds of creators to make one game. These days, more video game creators are trying to make games alone. If they are successful, they'll be rich and famous.

Eric Barone's game, Stardew Valley, is successful, he made over $20 million. Other game creators want to be like him. Geraud Zucchini created 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."

Spirittea was created by Dan Beckerton from Canada. He got financial help from people online.

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."

Working with big studios is good for financial support. It's also more sociable working with others. Game creators who work alone think working alone makes them more creative. Mike Rose and Dan Beckerton believe this creates something original.

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."

Every game creator wants to develop the next big game and sell millions. Alizee Veauvy Guilliams Janin thinks about independent creators' work in a different way.

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."