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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Indie developer calls the indie boom "unsustainable"

kitler53 on 22 May 2014
pokoko said:
He's right but so what? This happens with every industry when there is a boom. The situation with the gaming industry is just that there are too many people who want to be a part of it, too many people trying to break in for them all to succeed.

We're already seeing the filtering take place. Successful "indie" developers are transforming into the new middle. Their studios will still be small but they will have made a name for themselves that gamers will recognize. Transistor is an example of the new second tier.

It seems like a better model that we saw at the start of last gen, where top games cost $60 and mid-level games cost--that's right--$60.

Our new middle is downloadable games from small, established studios. I'm perfectly fine with that. It's a refining process that will take time but I'm optimistic about it. I also think that why a lot of big name developers are leaving their massive studios to create smaller studios.


spot on,.. the indie is the new middle and we need them.  some of the really good ones are expanding and getting even better.  i for one am more excited for transistor, the witness, rime, everyone goes to rapture, axiom verge, or below than i am for really any AAA game except for destiny. 



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kitler53 on 22 May 2014
superchunk said:
Hasn't Nintendo / Iwata been saying this for a while now? Its obvious. You collectively devalue your product to the point of oblivion. Its primal why Nintendo needs to keep its software to sell its hardware.

between nintendo and mobile,...  who's getting a flood of developer and consumer interest and who is posting losses and is massively down gen over gen?



superchunk on 22 May 2014
kitler53 said:
superchunk said:
Hasn't Nintendo / Iwata been saying this for a while now? Its obvious. You collectively devalue your product to the point of oblivion. Its primal why Nintendo needs to keep its software to sell its hardware.

between nintendo and mobile,...  who's getting a flood of developer and consumer interest and who is posting losses and is massively down gen over gen?

You're can't lump all mobile as one and compare like that. Unless you wanted to say between dedicated consoles and mobile.

Fact is Nintendo is in a FAR better position than any mobile/indie developer.

Point is that OP is exactly right. Mobile/Indie is not healthy. Sure you have the rare smash hit, but it takes 100's of other games to fail massively before one Angry Birds flies out the roof. That is a very high risk market with far more failure than most anyone realizes as they only recognize the successes.

You say mobile is getting flood of dev / consumer interest, yet most of those devs coming in die off quickly with heavy losses as all their cheap attempts crash.

You say mobile is getting flood of consumer interest, but that comes in flashes as most games are crap. So it really only does anything with that one rare game out of 100s that is a good game and basically goes viral.

There is a reason Sony pulled out and sold off its mobile dev companies. Its the same reason Nintendo keeps saying no.



sales2099 on 22 May 2014

Um isn't indie games from low budget start-up developers? In which case there's always going to be someone up-and-coming. So it in theory will never end.



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