Former EA producer - a $100 million game needs to sell about 6 million just to break even

[SvennoJ]

Ashadelo said:

Meanwhile....

Megabonk - ~3M (Steam est.) - Very low (solo dev)
Hollow Knight - sold 15M+ - cost to develop Very low (~$37k Kickstarter)
Hollow Knight: Silksong - ~5M - cost to develop Very low (small team)
Stardew Valley - sold41M+ - cost to develop Minimal (solo dev)
Palworld - sold 25M+ / 32M players - cost to develop $6.7M
Terraria - sold 64M+ - cost to develop Very low (small team)
Hotline Miami ~ sold 4.9M Steam - cost to develop Very low (2 devs)

The list goes on and on. These massive over bloated budgets are a developer/publisher issue. You don't need 100 million + to make a great game

The number of yearly indie game releases is in the thousands and has been steadily increasing, with over 13,000 on Steam in 2023 and an estimated 18,000 in 2024.

Most indie games fail to break even. You can just as well say it takes a thousand indie games for every major success. It's roughly one indie game released per 7,500 monthly active Steam players.