I second that. A dev I spoke to basically said that the indie dev scene before (distribution-wise) was really tough because the only way to distribute games on a mass scale was through big box stores (with actual physical copies). A lot of these stores rarely, if ever, dealt with smaller studios (let alone one-man shops) so you would have to make deals with publishers (like EA) just to get your games on those shelves. Those publishers then took a large cut of all the revenue.
If your game was somehow a success, you had to keep making bigger games with a bigger team just so you can make that game 'relevant' to the big box stores. It's a never-ending cycle of needing to keep growing, expanding, and eventually that financial pressure swallows up indie studios. Nowadays, you have digital distribution channels like Steam or itch.io which make it significantly 'easier' to reach customers. Plus, there's less pressure to grow unless you want to. Like erik said though, there's definitely more competition nowadays.
I will say this though as someone who writes about games, a unique hook (ie in mechanics, story, tech, or maybe all of them) goes a long way in getting press to write about you. I suppose that's the way it is with other fields though.
As a writer, I love discovering and covering new indie games. I want to write about you but if you scroll through a lot of these games, it feels like stuff we've seen again and again. The one game that changes the formula even for a little or presents it in a novel way (ie Undertale or Her Story), you get people really interested and talking about it.
If your game was somehow a success, you had to keep making bigger games with a bigger team just so you can make that game 'relevant' to the big box stores. It's a never-ending cycle of needing to keep growing, expanding, and eventually that financial pressure swallows up indie studios. Nowadays, you have digital distribution channels like Steam or itch.io which make it significantly 'easier' to reach customers. Plus, there's less pressure to grow unless you want to. Like erik said though, there's definitely more competition nowadays.
I will say this though as someone who writes about games, a unique hook (ie in mechanics, story, tech, or maybe all of them) goes a long way in getting press to write about you. I suppose that's the way it is with other fields though.
As a writer, I love discovering and covering new indie games. I want to write about you but if you scroll through a lot of these games, it feels like stuff we've seen again and again. The one game that changes the formula even for a little or presents it in a novel way (ie Undertale or Her Story), you get people really interested and talking about it.