Indie games are getting more expensive to produce, says publisher Tunic

Indie games are getting more expensive to produce, says publisher Tunic

© Finji

In recent years, indie games have become an integral part of the industry. In 2021 alone, several of them have been able to hold their own against the AAA.

Yet, if they are more democratized and popular than ever, it would be increasingly difficult to create an independent game.

The explosion of the indie game budget

Asked by IGN, the specialized publisher Finji, who has overseen projects like Chicory: A Colorful Tale or the Zelda-like Tunic, confided in the difficulties faced by these developers with fewer resources. Unsurprisingly, the biggest obstacle is the budget, especially since developing an independent game costs much more than before. 



“Our budgets are ridiculous now. Five years ago, you could make a game for a million dollars. And that was huge for the time. Now you can't even make one for less than four million. It's crazy, because it's a considerable sum, especially when you calculate the number of units it represents. [...] The number of indie games that pass the 100 copies sold mark is very, very, very small,” says Rebekah Saltsman, co-founder of Finji. 

Games hard to make profitable

According to her, the situation is aggravated by the unspoken maximum price that independent games cannot exceed. As a result, their price must be around 10 to 20 dollars, knowing that, depending on the tax taken by the sales platform and the ancillary charges, the developers will receive a maximum of 70% of these sales. “If developers spend millions on an indie game, it's very hard to monetize it and make a profit from it, even for the very successful and rare ones. »


As a result, unscrupulous publishers take advantage of this need for profitability of small developers to create contracts to their disadvantage. “In the world of indie game publishing, there are a lot of abusive contracts asking for license fees, a large percentage of revenue or, more generally, which piss off developers. The latter gladly accept these contracts if it is the only way to finance their game or to have a little visibility. »



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