I do not recall much of the 2000 movie ‘Gladiator’, but I did like this bit:
[As the barbarian calls out his cry, his mangy band of barbarians emerge from the forest, shaking and waving their spears and shields, ready to fight.]
QUINTUS: People should know when they’re conquered.
MAXIMUS: Would you, Quintus? Would I?
And I think its pretty insightful. Here is another segment from a movie. In this case ‘Other People’s money’
You know, at one time, there must have been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I’ll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw.
My point? That people are very very bad at working out when the industry they are in, whether its staying independent from the Roman Empire, or making ‘Buggy Whips’ is about to become unviable. The trouble with being in the games industry, is that the overwhelming majority of people doing it REALLY love video games. And if you have decided to risk everything by creating your OWN video game company with your own money, then that means you probably REALLY REALLY love video games, or at least the process of making them. And sadly, that means you probably lack the required perspective to evaluate how viable it is as a business.
But to outsiders, its often obvious. When a new cafe or restaurant is clearly doomed, and is in the wrong place, or has the misfortune to witness the opening of a starbucks next door, pretty much everyone walking past the place can go ‘yeah thats not going to last’, but the owners? its amazing how much hopium you can generate if the alternative is to see your dreams completely crushed.
Is indie video gaming in that situation now? Maybe. Its not clear. But it does not look good. True, there are an endless parade of indie games that make a bazillion dollars and become super huge. I’m sure the vampire survivors and balatro devs have a very healthy bank balance. But the percentage of indie game developers actually making a living? There is no real data on it, but anecdotally it looks pretty bad. And although its very common for EVERY indie dev to think that they are the chosen ones in that one percent that will be balatro, not an also-ran, its worth knowing the odds. I have always maintained that knowing how bad the odds are is not defeatism, its much needed data when you decide IF to attempt something, and how much effort will be required.
I recently saw mention of a game about running a medieval style tavern. It caught my interest because I have played that game. Its called Tavern Master. I played it a lot, and really enjoyed it. It was a good idea and well executed. But no, this was not that game. It was another game about running a tavern. Already that is bad news, because that means the market for tavern master is already split in half. Can the devs really get enough sales with TWO games about a medieval tavern? Behold…
958 results. This is, surely, absolutely insanely unviable. I do not recall tavern master even being a big indie hit. It did ok, sure, but not enough to explain so many competing games on steam. All of these games are commercial attempts, on steam, paying the $100 fee in hopes of taking some of Tavern Master’s audience. How many of them will be financially viable? 2? 3? surely not more than 10% of them. Surely not.
And note that 99% of this titles were shipped BEFORE AI art generation became a thing. How difficult is it to make a game about running a medieval tavern? Well when I started making games in 1997, it was very very hard. But then came Unity, and everything got way easier. Then comes the Unity Asset store and its easier still. Now we have AI art generation for 2D and 3D art, and its becoming almost laughably easy.
But Lo! You are true artiste, and capable of incredible game design feats of awesomeness, and the general public will SEE that, and they will chose your *one true quality tavern sim* over all the other tavern sims that are clearly low quality shovelware, or if you want to be trendy ‘slop’. So everything will be ok, and you will be drinking champagne in your sports car before Christmas, right?
No. Its incredibly, incredibly hard to get noticed in the entertainment industry. Its incredibly hard to get noticed in any industry, anywhere. The reason ‘When I leave school I’m going to be an influencer’ is such a rim-shot comedy line, is that we all know that discoverability is practically impossible without amazing luck, a huge PR budget or some magical X factor.
Oh and BTW, ‘tavern simulation game’ is pretty niche. Take a look at how many ‘roguelike deckbuilders’ are available. Its insane.
At this point, blogposts by me normally pivot into what I hope is some sort of insightful and helpful comment about how you can still make it work by doing X or just working REALLY hard. But I think its worth noting that this might no longer be the case. We might be looking at the end game here. We might be relegating indie game dev to the same zone as ‘fiction writer’, as a career which absolutely everyone knows is financial suicide.
Now sure, there are a lot of books written each year, and a LOT of writers, so clearly it works out ok in the end right? NO. The overwhelming majority (I’m guessing over 99%) of people who are writing fiction are either doing it in their spare time, or are financially supported by someone else. The REALLY scary stuff is that even published authors, with books in stores, are often in the same position. Competition is so intense, and the supply of writers so high, that even people with ‘successful’ books probably cannot make a proper living from it.
It gives me zero pleasure to point this out. Its awful. Why do lawyers and accountants earn a fortune for doing *so little work* (in my experience), whereas creative people work like crazy for fuck-all? I have no solution. But I also think its well worth reminding people to check the financial reality. Even if it means you should NOT ‘quit your job to go indie’ and accept that its perhaps too hard now to justify that risk. Maybe.
Lastly a reminder: I am NOT an example of some plucky dreamer who quit his job and took a bank loan to start a games company and strike it rich. I made games at the weekends and evenings, and quit my job once to do it, FAILED, had to go get a job in AAA studios for 5 years, and only quit a second time when my part time indie earnings matched my day-time salary. And at the time, my wife was working and we had no kids. I was very very conservative. Do not fall for the Hollywood dream stories!