Comment by TheGRS
19 days ago
Every now and then I stumble on video game developers who have been chugging along for many years, even decades with a handful of dedicated fans. They make obscure niche games that play so well into that niche that they can sustain themselves. Honestly this is something I'd aspire to get to eventually, building a niche product that I love and that just enough people love that I could live sustainably on it, not trying to please anyone but a little collective of people who all agree on what the product should be.
Creeper World, am I right?
This is a far bigger small world than some might expect. The number of devs and games he's referring to numbers well into the thousands. A quick search [1] shows more than 4 games are released per day on Steam which will go on to earn more than $50k in revenue, so about 1500 per year.
It's wild - I'm a big gamer but I strongly doubt I could even list 1500 games across all systems and time. And that many games make $50k+ each year.
[1] - https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/10/06/steam-stats-41k-gam...
It's crazy! I don't think anyone in my sphere is some hardcore fan of a niche game. But then I stumble on them in the marketplace or watching some GDC talk and it's like, wow this solo dev has been making this obscure series of games for 20 years and they live comfortably (but not extravagantly) with their family. Good on them!
I'm really just describing the long tail at this point. Gives me hope that maybe I can find that product before getting to retirement age.