In early 2025, veteran developers Justin Fischer and Brock Feldman found themselves suddenly unemployed when Warner Bros. shut down Player First Games, the studio behind the free‑to‑play fighter Multiversus. Multiversus had entered beta in 2022, gone offline for a brief polishing period, and relaunched in May 2024. Warner acquired the studio shortly after the 1.0 launch, only to pull the plug seven months later, citing the same problem that now haunts many free‑to‑play titles: soaring user‑acquisition costs.
“There’s no secret,” Fischer told GamesIndustry.biz. “User‑acquisition is getting harder for everyone. Free‑to‑play is under pressure, and the whole industry economics are shifting.” Fischer’s explanation mirrors a broader, bleak trend.
Since 2022, more than 58,000 jobs have been cut across the gaming sector, with North America bearing the brunt. The AAA segment, once a bastion of stability, has been hit especially hard. Amir Satvat of 1UP Ventures likened the current climate to the 1983 crash, calling it “ground zero for destruction” for developers in traditional AAA studios.
Faced with shrinking opportunities, many AAA professionals—including Fischer and Feldman—have turned to indie development. The transition is rarely painless: salaries drop dramatically and the market is saturated, making failure a real possibility. Yet for those with few alternatives, the creative freedom that indie work offers can outweigh the financial risk.
Last year, Fischer and Feldman founded Airlock Games and began work on a sci‑fi horror management simulation titled *What the Stars Forgot*. Rather than chase a massive multiplayer project that would require tens of millions of dollars in funding, they opted for a smaller, passion‑driven concept that could be built quickly and realistically given today’s economic constraints.
“User‑acquisition costs are through the roof,” Fischer explained. “It made more sense to start small and be able to fail fast, instead of trying to raise $30 million for a huge competitive game.” The shift has also reignited their enthusiasm for game‑making. Fischer says it’s the most enjoyable period of his career, noting that senior roles in AAA often pigeonhole talent into narrow specialties. After years of being confined to producer duties, he now gets to experiment with audio, dialogue, and other facets of development, which he finds “really satisfying, engaging, and fun.” Airlock Games deliberately keeps the scope of *What the Stars Forgot* modest.
Fischer praises Feldman’s ability to gauge ambition: “When I suggest an idea, he instantly knows if it’s a game‑six level of complexity or something we can actually finish.” Their goal is to avoid the “rabbit‑hole of content” that can stall projects indefinitely. Funding remains a challenge. Most investors have pivoted to AI or other post‑COVID trends, leaving indie studios with few options. Consequently, Airlock plans to launch *What the Stars Forgot* without external capital, relying on a modest $25,000 Kickstarter campaign and their Warner Bros.
severance packages. “We have authority issues, so we’d rather bootstrap than sell equity,” Fischer says. “We can’t control the investment climate or publisher landscape, but we can control what we make, how we ship it, and how we talk to our audience.” While they remain open to “interesting partners,” the duo appreciates the freedom of focusing solely on creation without corporate oversight.
The bootstrap approach, though “scrappy,” lets them concentrate on the game itself rather than fundraising or answering to a hierarchy. Success, for Fischer and Feldman, isn’t measured in millions.
Their first goal is simply to keep making games; the second is to grow sustainably; wealth is a distant, optional third. A similar story unfolds with Murray Pannell, a former marketing executive at EA, Xbox, PlayStation, Ubisoft, and later 2K.
After leaving 2K in 2021, he held chief marketing roles at Build A Rocket Boy, PlayFusion, and Everreach Labs, where he met designer Phil O’Connor. When Everreach’s studio was shut down, the two decided to launch their own venture rather than linger on LinkedIn. In early 2026 they co‑founded Big Dumb Games, releasing the co‑op space‑survival title *Starship Bloopers*.
The transition from AAA publishing to indie development was dramatic: “We went from massive corporate support to building everything ourselves and using every trick we know,” Pannell notes. Both founders have felt the instability of the industry firsthand—sudden restructurings, project cancellations, and endless relocations. O’Connor’s wife, also a developer, finally said, “We’re not moving any more.” The job market has become a “brick wall,” with recruiters even advising seasoned candidates to downplay their experience. Faced with limited options, they concluded that steering their own ship was less risky than depending on an unreliable industry.
The trade‑off is a reduced salary. Big Dumb Games operates on a shoestring budget, funded by the founders’ savings, occasional grants, and seed investments. Pannell, who recently took a publishing role at Steel City Interactive, hopes that position will keep financial pressures at bay. To stretch the thin runway, new hires receive profit‑share percentages rather than salaries.
“There are many talented people out there who are unemployed,” Pannell explains. “If we can give them a stake in future profits, they’ll join us now and hopefully share in the success later.” Talent availability varies: programmers are still in demand, while many artists are currently out of work and eager to contribute for equity.
Despite the financial strain, both Pannell and O’Connor find the work deeply rewarding. “It’s probably the most fulfilling year of my life, even if it’s not the most lucrative,” says Pannell. O’Connor echoes the sentiment, emphasizing the creative agency indie work provides. “In AAA you have a steady salary and big projects, but you lose agency.
Here, I get to decide what the project is,” he says. He believes the market is hungry for fresh experiences, noting that large publishers often recycle similar formulas, while players are flocking to boutique titles.
The indie landscape is crowded—over 700 games launched on Steam in a single week—but O’Connor remains undeterred. Even if *Starship Bloopers* doesn’t break through, he plans to keep making games because “no one else will hire me, and I don’t want to work for anyone else anymore.” Both stories illustrate a growing reality: as AAA studios contract and layoffs rise, seasoned developers are embracing indie entrepreneurship, accepting lower immediate pay for greater creative control and the chance to shape their own destinies.