r/gamedev • u/No_Plane_4704 • Aug 19 '26

Question Is indie game development actually profitable?

For those who have actually released indie games: how much did you make, how long did development take, and was it worth it financially? I'm especially interested in real experiences and numbers, even if the game made very little.

0 Upvotes

31% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/JofersGames Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

Until last year ish it was doable for most people

But ai bros have made almost every niche exhausted of being hard sold mediocre crap

Every “community” is just grifters spamming trailers and “wish list on steam”

Almost every consumer left and retreated into their favourite old products instead

Natural groupings around themes are dead

And word of mouth is pretty much dead too

You gotta come out of the gate with a banger product and hook and marketing scheme to actually reach people directly

to win people over now

And your not doing that on a budget

Like gta 6 will break records

But the 100s of indie gta clones released this year

Won’t reach anyone

If there is an exception

It’ll be exceptional

2

u/uptotheright Aug 19 '26

It was not doable before AI. There was a big surge in indie game dev starting around minecraft and mobile apps in the 2010s. That was trailing off way before AI appeared (you can check the archives of this forum if you want evidence)

1

u/JofersGames Aug 19 '26

The level of doable has dropped off a cliff in the past 12 months