Can Independent Game Developers Survive?

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for their editorial asking whether independent videogame developers can make it in the increasingly cut-throat games business. The article comes after the recent closure of respected UK developers Mucky Foot ('Startopia'), the latest in a long line of recent developer failures, and the author asks: "What's going wrong? Some of these casualties have been victims of mismanagement or poor quality control, but many were properly managed, fiscally sensible and extremely talented companies." The editorial continues: "Companies like EA, Microsoft and Sony don't really need [smaller developers] any more, as large publishers increasingly focus on internal development and suck much of the best talent into themselves. Smaller publishers aren't in a position to take risks on the kind of innovative games that small developers do best." Is the situation really as bleak as this implies?

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small developers, big publishers

[PainKilleR-CE]

"Companies like EA, Microsoft and Sony don't really need [smaller developers] any more, as large publishers increasingly focus on internal development and suck much of the best talent into themselves. Smaller publishers aren't in a position to take risks on the kind of innovative games that small developers do best." Is the situation really as bleak as this implies?

This situation might be as bleak as implied, if not for the fact that it's just incorrect. Microsoft, for example, owns Zone.com, through which they run most of their PC multiplayer titles, and yet the majority of the content on that site comes from small developers who pump out shareware Java/Flash titles, many of which have become extremely popular (think PopCap Games).

Additionally, many small developers have come up through the mod communities in more complex game types, such as FPS games, where a handful of developers were picked up from various mod groups for Quake and Half-Life, either in new development houses or by companies like id and Valve (and Valve themselves formed a lot of the talent to develop Half-Life from mod developers).

It's a matter of knowing what a small team is capable of and finding practical methods of distributing and marketing your product. Many larger developers and publishers have tried many things to encourage and help this (again, Valve and id with their respective mod communities), while others pretty much strike off on their own (GarageGames).