The Tides of the Video Game Industry (part 3)

You may have a gamer friend that you've tried to convince to get a game you like, and your friend responded with something like, “I've already got a huge backlog of games I bought that I haven't played yet.” I remember a few weeks ago there was a sale online and I bought 3 different games for a total of $11 for all three. These three games used to be priced at $60, $30, and $20. I haven't solved any of them, but I do put a little time in on one or the other once in a while at the end of a work day, if I'm in the mood. Two of these games were indie-games, and they were released less than a year ago, so seeing such a huge price drop made me think about indie-developers and how they survive. Like the big game companies, the indie companies rely heavily on the sales of the initial release week. Unlike the big game companies, though, they don't have huge marketing campaigns with tons of money to hype their game. Sometimes, they'll be lucky if they're even noticed among the 10 to 20 other indie games being released that same week, and they'd better hope they're not going up against a major game title put out by a large developer!