The Current State of Independent Game Development in 2024

The video game industry is experiencing significant upheaval, with numerous indie studios, such as Black Flag and Studio Thunderhorse, shutting down due to various obstacles. Over the past few months, several indie developers have spoken out about the major issues affecting their sector, including the struggle to secure funding. Aurélien Condomines, co-founder of Humble Reeds, notes that the competitive market and tendency for developers to underprice their games exacerbate this problem. "The market's offerings and pricing are problematic, and when combined with financing issues, it creates a squeezing effect that ultimately leads to studio closures and developers being unable to make a living from game development," he explains. Finji CEO Rebekah Saltsman agrees, adding that long development cycles, team size, and "astronomical" budgets also contribute to the challenges. "The amount of money we need to generate from our projects, and finding external funding or a marketing partner, often feels impossible, even for our studio, which has a good track record," she says. Another issue for Finji and other indie developers is the use of third-party engines like Unity, which can be challenging to keep up-to-date with technological advancements during prolonged development cycles. "There's often a moving target with these engines, where you think you have everything set, but because games take too long, the engine is shifting underneath you slightly," Saltsman notes. The creative process itself is also a significant challenge for studios. Every game has a story to tell, and it has to start somewhere. For Don't Nod Montréal's studio executive producer Luc Baghadoust, this process can be a major hurdle. "You can't assume that the first design will be the right one; iteration is key, and technology is always changing. The hard part is ensuring we leave room for creativity without delaying things or going over budget," he says. Having a solid creative vision is crucial, but getting the game out there and seen is no easy feat. Discoverability and visibility are concerns for all developers. Humble Reeds co-founder Mélanie Christin expresses the difficulty in standing out among "so many good games" on digital distribution services or at events like Gamescom. "It's really hard to stand out and show your game to the right people; there are many good games, and it's difficult to know how to reach your audience, even with marketing," she says. Condomines adds, "The audience has a lot of choice, and even as a gamer, you have so many choices that you don't know what to choose, so you keep playing the same old stuff." Christin echoes this sentiment, particularly when deciding between a new game and an old favorite. "With old games, you're set for a lifetime; half of gamer time is taken up by games-as-services or old games, making it hard for new games to stand out and be shown to people who would enjoy them," she says. New games get lost in a sea of contemporaries and popular classics, especially on platforms like Steam, which has thousands of games to choose from, as mentioned by Only By Midnight CEO Alison Czarnietzki. "When you look at Steam, you have millions of people logging in and playing the same 16 games like Call of Duty; if you remove that and look at people who play indies, it's very small, and all those indies are struggling for visibility," she notes. As for what the games industry can do to support indies, Czarnietzki highlights the importance of events like Gamescom and its Indie Arena Booth in getting eyes on games that may not otherwise get attention. "Everything here is a labor of love; there's real artistry on display – I'd say more innovation than you'll see in the AAA areas. But we're all struggling to get eyeballs, so when I see events celebrating indie projects, the industry needs to put a spotlight on these neat ideas," she says. Condomines has a similar sentiment, adding that attention needs to be placed on indie games at launch. "We're all fighting to get our games out there; games may have a long lifespan, but the real traction you get is around the launch, and then, because there are so many good games, they disappear," he says. Aside from visibility, the industry can support indie development by taking care of the next generation of developers. For Finji's Saltsman, this comes in the form of mentorship and guidance. "Anyone holding back support needs a stern talking to; if you have the space to reach down behind you, it's the only way our industry will grow, get better, and make cooler stuff. We should be pulled by the people coming behind us to make introductions, provide mentorship and feedback, and throw our weight behind projects that have funding with teams that definitely ship but may just need mentorship to understand what that means," she says. Saltsman clarifies that this has been the way for indie developers for some time, but it needs to stay that way and extend across the industry – not just within the indie scene. "Indies have historically done this quite well, but it's an open invitation to everybody, in local and online communities, to provide mentorship if you have the time; it's not telling people what to do, but to walk alongside a person and be there for unbiased feedback and support. Most games, if you put some support behind them from a much louder megaphone like a storefront or a publishing partner, that game can make a profit if you put some assistance behind it; that's not all of them, but they can, and it might be modest, but modest profits are still profits. And that's the space we've been operating in forever; let's keep making games because as long as we make modest profits, we can keep our studios open; we can keep doing this because that's what we are and what we have to do," she concludes.