No. It is not over for indie developers. Far from it. Let me write a brief summary of why I am writing this blog post. In the last few weeks, there have been more and more articles saying that it is a bad time to be an indie developer, that indie developers will cease to exist due to lack of sales and exposure, that it is the índiepocalypse’. The reasons behind these articles are two-fold. The first reason is that it has never been easier to be an indie developer and create your own games. This is true. I wouldn’t have been able to create my own games if it wasn’t for all the tools that are available (Unity, GameMaker, etc.). The second reason is that because it is much easier to develop games, there are more and more games being released every day. This makes it harder to get exposure, especially for small one-man indie developers. Lack of exposure leads to lack of sales. This is also true. Just look at Steam this year compared to previous years. There are now dozens of games coming out nearly every day. But here are the reasons why I don’t think it is all over for indie developers.
Just look at the articles that are written. Most of the developers who wrote these articles are creating low-quality games (sorry if I offend anyone). They are expecting to get rich by releasing a game that is either a generic platformer or a clone. Even if these developers had their game on the front page of Steam, I still don’t think they will see many sales. If they do get many sales, at least 90% of the sales will be refunded.
These developers are the ones who would have not survived regardless if there was an indiepocalypse or not. There are definitely anomalies, such as experienced developers that release a high-quality game and end up going out of business due to lack of sales or a simple game (Flappy Bird) making thousands of dollars every day. Once these low-quality developers see a big game flopping, and their game flopping, they believe it is all over. They believe there is a correlation between their game and the bigger games. They believe it is the indiepocalypse.
The only truth is that some big games do fail and some small games do become overnight hits. There might be more games being released every day, but most of these are low-quality games. Medium and high quality games are still being released at the same rate as before.
Just think of it as in terms of music. There are millions of musicians who release songs every day. Most of the music created by these artists or bands is terrible. Some are good, and those artists eventually get signed to major labels or start their own labels. The point being is that they survive. There are also overnight created by unknown artists. These are usually one-hit wonders and within a year they are never heard of again. Major albums fail in music, just as AAA games sometimes fail. Sometimes nobody knows the reasons, other times the art just wasn’t good enough. The point is that small indie artists have been surviving for decades. They might never get a major hit or sell millions, but they are surviving. Just like indie developers are.
But take this blog post with a grain of salt. I am an indie developer who at the time of writing, still hasn’t put his game on Steam Greenlight, let alone sold one copy of any game. My goal by becoming an indie developer is not to become rich, but to survive and do what I love. So if I do fail, it won’t be because there is an indiepocalypse, it will be because my game was not good enough.