People often ask me what it takes be a successful indie games developer. Ok, so that is a blatant lie. I don’t think anyone has ever asked me this—most likely because I am not a successful indie games developer. Well not yet anyway. Regardless, I know there are many people out there who are pondering this daunting question. Having now published a few games of my own, I feel I’m at least somewhat qualified to provide a little insight on the subject. Hopefully you’ll be able to learn something from my experiences, mistakes and my occasional breakthroughs.
So where to start? If you want to make games—especially if you want to make them on your own or in a small team—there are 2 essential skills that you’ll need to possess. You are probably expecting me to tell you that you need to be a programming whizz or an exceptionally talented artist. I won’t. These are highly desirable skills no doubt, but I believe the 2 most essential qualities are ‘versatility’ and ‘determination’.
Indie Game Developer – The Ultimate Renaissance Man:
When I decided—rather late in life—to walk down the path of the indie developer, I had a very naive view of what that would entail. “Hey! I love games and have some art skills!” I thought, “If I learn programming too, I’ll be a rich and famous game legend in no time!“. Hindsight is a beautiful thing. I now understand that it takes much more than ‘art and programming’ to produce a fun, successful game. This is where versatility becomes an absolutely vital skill of the solo-developer or small team.
The term ‘Renaissance Man’ refers to a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. There is perhaps no person more suited to this title than the indie developer. In the past year I’ve had to leave my ‘artist/designer’ comfort zone, adding all sorts of new roles to my repertoire. These include animator, programmer (of sorts), web designer, writer, marketing guru, video producer, social media butterfly and countless others.
I had mostly zero experience in these areas and am still far from being an ‘expert’ in most of them, but the important thing is to jump in and have a go. Be versatile, try new things and don’t be afraid to fail. Also don’t be afraid to ask for help! If you can master being versatile then the other skills you need will come in time.
Determination – Picking Yourself Up When You Fall:
I mentioned that a good indie dev shouldn’t be afraid to fail. This is crucial because you certainly will fail. The chances of creating a big hit on your first attempt are slim to none. Don’t let that get you down. Treat everything as a learning experience, a stepping-stone to reaching your ultimate goal. I strongly believe that with enough passion and determination anyone can become a successful game developer. Maybe I’m wrong, but I suppose it takes a bit of a dreamer to make it in this industry anyway. I’m certainly not what you would call ‘a success’ just yet, but it’s encouraging every time I get a little bit closer.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
I've been working towards a ‘Renaissance Man’ style, but I'm not sure it'll work out. I'm a crappy 2D artist and sometimes programming makes me want to take a hammer to my head. But I want to develop solo, so I'm not giving up yet....I just hope I don't walk away not being marketably great in ANY area if I have to suck it up and go contract.
Well any skill takes time to master, so if you keep at it you should be able to develop your art and programming skills to a reasonable level. For me I guess I had the advantage of already having decent art skills so I only really needed to focus on programming side.
Don't forget that if you are really struggling in a certain area you could always look for a like-minded person whose skills compliment yours. Teaming up might be the way to go in this case. Owning half of a good game is better than owning all of a bad one :)
I myself am a programmer and have made a few demo projects like an A* pathfinding system, a small multiplayer fps and more but my main problem is sticking to a project long enough to polish it into a decent product. Glad to see more people in this community who also develop games, would be interesting to talk to you.