Disclaimer Ive seen a little bit the game, I dont know the extent of its success.
1) most likely, just look at his success rate in terms of how many of his games did succeed.
2) now the definition of success. if he took 5 years to develop the game, he has to net a very (very) minimum of 20 millions to start becoming successful. Remember, you can't just pay one salary developing software, you have to cover: salaries (top engineers and top artists) + (the most important) investment for the next games + bad years + grow you company (that's the point of a company) + hardware + R&D to stay at the top of your game + retirement money because you cant do this after 38. 20 millions net is a very optimistic number, I wouldn't be happy with that, I would be happy with netting 50.
Did he net 50 millions? If yes, then yes he was starting to become successful. If he did this 3 games in a row, now he wasnt lucky.
Now dont get me wrong, this game is a wondeful piece of art, but it's likely not a succesful company.
> most likely, just look at his success rate in terms of how many of his games did succeed.
I don't think you ca boil it to some formula like success rate. Journey got funding partly from the big critical success of some of those earlier ones.
> grow you company (that's the point of a company)
OMG... No. The point of the company is to provide satisfactory profits to the owners. In case of many smaller companies, the point is not even that, but instead "to provide a place of work for owners where they can work on their own stuff and on their own terms".
Plenty of people don't care about infinite growth. People are not bacteria.
1) most likely, just look at his success rate in terms of how many of his games did succeed.
2) now the definition of success. if he took 5 years to develop the game, he has to net a very (very) minimum of 20 millions to start becoming successful. Remember, you can't just pay one salary developing software, you have to cover: salaries (top engineers and top artists) + (the most important) investment for the next games + bad years + grow you company (that's the point of a company) + hardware + R&D to stay at the top of your game + retirement money because you cant do this after 38. 20 millions net is a very optimistic number, I wouldn't be happy with that, I would be happy with netting 50.
Did he net 50 millions? If yes, then yes he was starting to become successful. If he did this 3 games in a row, now he wasnt lucky.
Now dont get me wrong, this game is a wondeful piece of art, but it's likely not a succesful company.