Rethinking My Indie Game Development Journey: Lessons Learned, Market Realities, and My Next Steps

When I sit down and think about the future of indie game development, well... I don’t feel confident, to say the least. I think I massively miscalculated both the state of the market and the potential for making a profit with indie games.

As always, I want to clarify what I mean by indie games. I’m not talking about AA titles backed by publishers that are essentially smaller AAA productions. I mean indie games made with little to no budget. If you check my itch.io page, you’ll see that I’ve already published a dozen visual novels and narrative-heavy games, with Spellbound Hearts being the only commercial release.

I think only a few of you know the story behind why I decided to make Spellbound Hearts a commercial game. The reason was simple: I enjoyed making it, and I felt it deserved a commercial release. But the most important reason was because I wanted to learn the process of publishing a commercial game on Steam so I’d be better prepared for my future projects. I did almost no marketing or advertising, and the game has sold around 300 copies. Since it’s so cheap, it barely made me $170 in profit. But still, it was a great experience that helped me understand the process for my next commercial games.

When I first got into indie game development, it was a hobby, and sometimes I feel like it should have stayed that way. There are several reasons why I don’t think this is a viable path for making a living.

The Reality of the Market

First, making a decent game requires a massive time investment. At the same time, you’re competing with countless other releases hitting the market daily. Unfortunately, the only viable marketplace for selling indie games is Steam, and we’re looking at 20–60 releases every single day.

I get that some might think most of those games are low-quality asset flips, but I’d argue that a significant percentage of them are high-quality projects. Many of these games have taken their developers 2–5 years to create. There's this misconception that gets repeated all the time: that most indie games are low effort, but reality tells a different story.

Back in 2019, around 9,000 games were released on Steam. In 2024, that number nearly doubled to 19,000 games. If that’s not an indication of oversaturation, I don’t know what is. And this doesn’t mean that each new year wipes the slate clean. Every new release is added on top of the massive backlog of already great games. That’s why Steam now has over 100,000 games, many of them high quality.

On top of that, most players primarily consume AAA content: Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty, LoL etc. The slice of the market available to indie games is already small, and with thousands of new indie games fighting for attention, the chances of success keep shrinking.

The Marketing Dilemma

Yes, marketing should start from the moment you conceive your game—before writing a single line of code. But if you start making your game now, and it takes 2–4 years to develop, by the time you release it, you’ll be competing with 40,000–80,000 more games in the same marketplace. Sure, there are exceptions: games that go viral and succeed, but luck plays a huge role, and you can’t just design indie game content with the expectation that it will go viral.

Comparing Indie Games to Indie Book Publishing

When I say I miscalculated the market, it’s because I initially thought indie game development would work similarly to self-publishing on Amazon. I was so wrong.

It’s funny because the book industry is way more saturated than the game industry, yet it’s still easier to make money from books. Here’s why:

1. Writing a book is far less complex than developing a game. A decent writer can finish a novel in a few months, publish it, and quickly move on to the next project without a huge financial investment.
2. If a book fails, you can start a new one without breaking the bank. You don’t even need to pay for a book cover (though I recommend it).
3. Books have quick iteration times, meaning you can release multiple books a year. Some will fail, but some will succeed, and the process is relatively fast.
4. Following trends is much easier in book publishing. If you start writing a trend-driven book today, you can release it within months (and I know of some people who write books within a month). In contrast, if you start a trend-based game today, by the time you finish in 2–4 years, that trend might be completely irrelevant.

My Plan Moving Forward

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I plan to release Cook or Be Cooked as a short game if I don’t secure a publisher and my Kickstarter campaign fails.

As for my next game, Parallel Pulse, I’m planning to take a break before resuming work. Indie game development is incredibly frustrating, especially when balancing it with daily life, especially if you have a kid and a job.

Right now, I’m also applying for Creative Europe funding, hoping to secure support for 60% of the game’s budget. Unfortunately, competition has become even steeper. Last year, many publishers stopped making deals, so a ton of studios turned to grants for funding.

The situation is similar to Steam’s 19,000-game flood. Just because all those games aren’t direct competitors doesn’t mean they don’t impact the ecosystem. Two years ago, if your Creative Europe proposal met the threshold score, you’d receive funding. Most of the times, Creative Europe applicants wouldn’t absorb the entire budget because a lot of proposals wouldn’t reach the 70% threshold. But last year, the number of applicants skyrocketed. Many proposals were low quality, but plenty of good ones exceeded the threshold for the first time. The bar has been raised, and what used to require a 70% score now needs at least 80%.

To put things into perspective, CD Projekt Red is one of the companies competing for the same funding. So… yeah. Good luck with that.

What’s Next for Me?

That being said, I’m not quitting game development. But I do want to approach it smarter, in a way that doesn’t drain me financially. After Parallel Pulse, I’m considering joining other teams, either as a programmer or writer, rather than managing and financing everything by myself. That being said, Parallel Pulse will take a couple of years to be completed, so this isn’t an immediate change of plans (despite my rant above).

At the same time, I’m thinking of taking a short break to write a couple of books after releasing Cook or Be Cooked. I think it was a mistake to abandon that revenue stream, especially since it’s something I enjoy as much as making video games.

I know this post might sound a bit depressing, but it’s better to see reality early rather than waste years on projects that don’t make sense.

One thing I’ve also started questioning is the idea that indie developers should release as many games as possible to increase their chances of success. Given how many games flood the market daily, this approach might be flawed. I’m starting to think that YouTubers who also make games might have the right idea. Long development cycles might actually be better because they allow more time to market the game while also producing YouTube content. Of course, this isn’t an ideal solution, since many YouTubers make part of their income from their channels, not their games. But for them, long development times mean more content for their audience, which in turn keeps interest in their game alive. That’s something I’m considering for Parallel Pulse.

That being said, if you’re just starting out, you should definitely release as many short games as possible to learn the process. I released a dozen free short to medium sized games before releasing my first commercial game, and I find it as an excellent strategy if you’re just starting out.