Indie Apocalypse – the later years

After all the buzz about the Inde Apocalypse, what have happened? Are we closer to the destruction of the games market as we know it?

The number of games released in the years prior to the GreenLight program made Steam the most popular store for PC indie gaming. Since GreenLight, a ton of games are being released every day. In 2018, Steam would surpass 8000 games released, most of them with no polish whatsoever. Some of are even still unfinished.

In 2017, Steam changed the GreenLight policy, but games are still being released in absurd record numbers every day. So, why is the indie scene still alive and making even better games in the face of an oversaturated market? Why are many devs still releasing games on Steam when other platforms like Itch.io are way more indie friendly?.

An Indie centered Market

Since the release of the Xbox 360, the indie section is common ground in all digital stores. For PCs, the indie market was always represented by Steam, GOG, and others. Around 2010, some indie-focused stores, like Desura and Itch.io became available, making it easier for indies to be found by their target audience. Not only because these stores are less popular than Steam, but because most the of indie developers, in general, don’t know how to promote their games, and that started another problem….

The “Crash” of indie games

A large number of indie games available on digital stores are made by these people, and they share the same market with other indie devs trying to make a living off of games. Let’s look at some numbers to see the problem. The total games released on Steam in 2015, the year of the Indie Apocalypse, was 2964.   Now let’s compare that with a known console game sales.

The Sony PlayStation has a library of 2606 games released in a timespan of 10 years. The average profit of games is lowering every year on that store. The payment system is worsening too. Some professional indie developers started to migrate to other stores or platforms, like Sony PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch.

Making games is not for the weak minded

In an era of easily-made games, with a plethora of tools to make games with a certain quality in a few weeks, it’s normal that more people are trying to join this market. The biggest share of games in Steam is made by indies, so this change only helps a few studios that make over US$10 million from their games.  new stores in the between have open as, Epic, and new platform are making their way into the market as google Stadia, which will apparently bring the games streaming into the mainstream. What will be the impact of these new elements in the viability of game developers? Only the time will tell and some further research and tracking will have to be done.

Indie Apocalypse – the later years

After this article was published a very interesting GDC’s 2019 talk was released analysing how the sales of games had been impacted by the indie apocalypes, you can find it below.