🕹 Indie Games: Million-Dollar Games, Getting Early Players, Indie Accelerators

In this Trends.vc Report, we talk about how to build indie games faster, piggybacking on popular games, building an engaged community, finding beta players and more.

🔍 Problem

We are tired of the same genres and game mechanics.

We crave new experiences.

💡 Solution

Indie games experiment with game mechanics, stories, genres and themes.

They take creative risks to offer unique game experiences.

🏁 Players

Indie Video Games

• Among Us • Complete tasks and fight impostors on a spaceship
• Minecraft • Build, explore and survive in a blocky world
• Stardew Valley • Cultivate land, raise animals and mine resources in a rural village
• Escape the Backrooms • Try to escape eerie rooms while avoiding hostile entities
• Terraria • Explore, build, fight and survive in a 2D world
• Undertale • Role-playing game where choices matter
• Into the Breach • Control powerful mechs from the future to defeat an alien threat

Indie Tabletop Games

• I Feel Attacked • Game about the people you love to hate
• Untamed: Feral Fractions • Control animal factions to take down the enemy stronghold
• Castles by the Sea • Build and populate a seaside kingdom
• Proxy War • Become dictators, rebels and politicians
• The Morrison Game Factory • Puzzle adventure that blends board games, escape rooms and interactive fiction
• The Old King's Crown • Claim an empty throne of a crumbling kingdom

🛠 How to Build Indie Games

• Use a starter kit to save time building and optimizing your game.

• Starter Kits by Kenney help you build platformers and first-person shooters in Godot.
• Creator Kit: RPG helps you build a simple RPG with characters, quests and dialogues in Unity.
• Interaction System Starter Pack helps you save time coding interactions in Unreal Engine.

• Take inspiration from popular games to stack the odds in your favor. If people enjoy them, chances are they will enjoy yours too.

• Paper Trail is a mix of Gorogoa and The Monument Valley.
• Eric Barone says Stardew Valley was inspired by Harvest Moon.

• Build a unique game by experimenting with genres and game mechanics.

• Pyre combines role-playing games and sports.
• Crypt of the Necrodancer combines roguelite and rhythm genres.
• Creature in the Well combines dungeon crawl and pinball games.

🌱 How to Grow Indie Games

• Build your own community to foster loyalty and get feedback.

• Pirate Software has a Discord channel where you can learn more about Heartbound.
• Last Epoch has an official subreddit and a Discord channel with updates, player discussions and more.
• Vampire Survivors has a Discord channel. You can talk to fellow fans, hear about updates, join challenges and more.

• Build in public to earn trust, feedback and early fans.

• LathanumStudios is building Soul Split in public.
• Henrik Djerf is building Project Beyonder in public.

• Add your game to cloud gaming services. Let your fans play your game from anywhere in the world.

• Celeste is available on Xbox Cloud Gaming.
• Home Behind 2 is available on GeForce NOW.
• Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is available on Gamestream.

💰 How to Monetize Indie Games

• Sell early access to get early funding and feedback.

• Last Epoch is releasing updates based on the early access feedback.
• Heartbound uses early access to get feedback and fix bugs on the road to launch.
• Inkbound offers early access to get feedback and add features suggested by players.

• Offer battle passes. They reward players with in-game items for playing the game and completing challenges. Players can buy battle passes to get access to content or battle pass levels to progress faster.

• Brawlhalla has battle passes with unique cosmetic rewards.
• DrainLive has a battle pass with character skins, coins and more.
• STALCRAFT has battle pass levels with weapons, themed skins and more.

• Sell digital goods such as soundtracks and artwork. Give players something they will enjoy outside of the game menu.

• Roots of Pacha sells a bundle with 28 soundtracks.
• DAVE THE DIVER sells Digital Extra with a digital art book and 54 soundtracks.

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see more million-dollar, one-person indie developers.

• Eric Barone built Stardew Valley which sold 20,000,000+ copies and made $30,000,000+.
• Markus Persson built Minecraft. It sold 4,000,000 copies before its official launch and became the best-selling video game ever.

• We’ll see accelerators for indie game developers. They will help with marketing and sales.

• Indielab Games helps to grow indie studios from the UK.
• Appodeal has an accelerator for mobile games and apps.
• GameFounders helps indie studios launch games and demos.

• Indie games will tap into other forms of media. Such as animations, movies and TV shows.

• Cuphead has a Cuphead Show.
• Minecraft will have its own movie.
• Among Us has an animated series in the works.

😠 Haters

“This is a hits-driven business with a low chance of success.”
Most indie developers make games out of passion. If you want to make games to get rich, this may not be the right business for you.

“Game concepts are copied a lot. It seems that there’s no strong moat.”
In games, execution is everything. They have more moving parts than software. Experiment with story, characters, visuals and game mechanics to make a unique game.

“You’re not indie if you’re working with a publisher.”
A lot of great indie developers work with publishers to market their games. While keeping full creative control. You can go alone or sacrifice a part of your revenue for better visibility. It’s a matter of priorities.

“Some of the indie game developers you shared have dozens of employees.”
Some studios started as a one-person or a small team. Some got funding and hired fast. Some got acquired right after they made a successful game.

🔗 Links

1. Let’s Talk About Indie Games • Thread for this report.
2. Building a Report on Indie Games • The Tweet behind this report.
3. Getting Started in Indie Game Development • How to pick the right game idea, engine and assets.
4. The Point of a First Level • How to give a great first impression with the first level.

📁 Related Reports

• Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Find your highest point of leverage.
• Startup Studios • Take a systemized approach to building companies.
• Self-Publishing • Publish “long-tail” books with more control and upside.

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