Then Steam came (and to a lesser extent, Big Fish Games).
Things changed fast. So fast that in other industries it would have been seen as a cataclymically disruptive event. The upshot of it is, within 5 short years, the value of an independent game plummeted from about $20 to approximately $1, with very few exceptions. Steam is great! You can sell loads of games! But only if theyre less than $10. Technically Valve dont actually dictate the prices we charge. Actually, they do. Utterly. Its just not talked about. In fact technically, I dont think anyones allowed to talk about it.
Then came the Humble Bundle and all its little imitators.
It was another cataclysmically disruptive event, so soon on the heels of the last. Suddenly youve got a massive problem on your hands. Youve sold 40,000 games! But youve only made enough money to survive full-time for two weeks because youre selling them for 10 cents each. And several hundred new customers suddenly want their computers fixing for free. And when the dust from all the bundles has settled youre left with a market expectation of games now that means you can only sell them for a dollar. Thats how much we sell our games for. One dollar. Theyre meant to be $10, but nobody buys them at $10. They buy them when a 90% discount coupon lands in their Steam inventory. We survive only by the grace of 90% coupon drops, which are of course entirely under Valves control. It doesnt matter how much marketing we do now, because Valve control our drip feed.
Where does this lead us to?
You are worthless to us.
Where once you were worth $20, and then you might have become a fan and bought another 4 games off of us for $20, you were worth $100. We only had to fix your computer for you once, as well, so the next four games amortised the cost of the initial support. If we were lucky you were a gamer and already had drivers and liked our stuff and bought the lot. Sometimes youd tell your friends and maybe one of them would buy a game from us.
But now?
Now youre worth $1 to us. If you buy every one of our games, youre worth $5. After Valve and the tax man and the bank take their cuts, youre not even worth half a cup of coffee. So, while were obsequiously polite and helpful when you do contact us for support, even if its just the same old please install some actual video drivers response, you really should be aware that you are a dead loss. Even if you buy everything we ever make again. Even if all your friends buy everything we ever make again. You just cost us money. Not just fictitious, huge-piles-of-filthy-lucre indie-game-developer who made-it-big money. All our money. We barely scratch a living, like most indie game developers. You quite literally cost us lunch because the shop sold you a computer with broken software on it.
