Why do indie games fail?
Five factors that make great games fall short
The indie game scene is bigger than it’s ever been. 2024 was weak for A-tier companies, which gave small developers a real opening. On PC alone, small developers are poised to generate over $2 billion in revenue, a record sum.
But it’s easy to get distracted by outlier success stories and forget that the typical developer’s experience can be very different. Most successes are modest ones, and failure is still the norm. With the median Steam game only selling a few hundred copies, a lot of people were disappointed this year.
So why do indies fail? There are plenty of great games that don’t sell well, and often that failure can be pinned down to a few key factors. Here are five common elements that many less successful indies have in common.
Customers can’t figure out what the game is about.
The modern video game market is rich with choices, which can make people a little impatient — if one game isn’t to your liking, there are a hundred more behind it that might be better. Quickly capturing a potential customer’s attention is more important that ever, which also means that person needs to understand the game at a glance. If the gameplay is confusing, people are more likely to move on than to try and put the pieces together.
The game is underfunded.
There are those who say that production values don’t matter — all you need is a good idea. But in a crowded market with high customer expectations, first impressions count for a lot. People might not demand A-tier graphics (though they are getting used to seeing that from small developers), but they also no longer have a tolerance for bugs, missing mechanics, or a rough presentation.
It didn’t get adequate promotion.
“Marketing” is almost a profanity among developers, but promotion is an aspect of the process that just keeps getting more important. Any developer without a plan for promotion is gambling on their game getting noticed and going viral on its own, which is always a long shot. Great games slip between the cracks all the time, but it happens more often when the people behind those games don’t put in an effort to help them get discovered.
It came out at the wrong time.
Sometimes, a game can be the victim of simple bad timing. A little indie darling that comes out the same week as a major, highly-anticipated release — or worse, several such games — can easily have its meager promotional efforts crushed by hype. This is a relatively uncommon problem for small developers, but it’s a major risk for anyone developing games in AAA-dominated genres.
The price was wrong.
Rising costs never hit small developers as much as the A-tier companies, but that doesn’t mean that price doesn’t matter. Price a game too high and you’ll find few takers willing to take the risk on an unknown developer; price it too low and you won’t make back enough money to make up for the time and expense. Figuring out the best price has become something of an art, and many developers still haven’t mastered it.
Want to know more about the current indie scene? Check out the State of Indie 2024 article and video:
