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The Developers Making Successful Games You’ve Never Heard Of — Transcript

by Game Oracle · 2,814 words · 437 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00What do all of these games have in
0:01common? I bet you've never heard of
0:03them, but they're all indie, they're all
0:05made by solo devs or small teams, and
0:07they've all made enough to pay the
0:09developers enough money to keep the
0:11dream alive. If I asked you to give me a
0:13list of successful indie games, you
0:15might rattle off names like Stardew
0:17Valley, Vampire Survivors, and Schedul
0:20One. But you probably wouldn't include
0:22The Auraborous King, 3D Sen, Execute, or
0:25Master of Chess, even though they each
0:28earned their developers over $160,000 in
0:31gross revenue. You might be shocked to
0:33hear that there are more ways to become
0:35a successful indie dev than having a
0:37viral game. This idea that you have to
0:39be an overnight millionaire with
0:41everyone talking about your game
0:43is the quickest way to having a
0:45disappointing game dev career. The
0:47problem is that only games that make the
0:49headlines are the instant successes that
0:51made millions or the total flops that
0:54made nothing or players hated. It makes
0:57us all feel like these are the only two
0:59options when you launch a game. You're
1:01either set for life or back to the
1:03drawing board with your tail between
1:04your legs. But really, making millions
1:07and making zero are just opposite ends
1:10of a really big spectrum. So, who makes
1:13up the middle of this spectrum? Well,
1:16there's a group of indie game developers
1:18who are quietly making a comfortable
1:20living. This isn't just an assumption
1:22based on anecdotal evidence. I got our
1:24data scientist and my husband, Ross, to
1:27crunch the numbers, and he found over
1:29300 games that have made roughly
1:31$160,000
1:32to $890,000
1:34in gross revenue. When you take off
1:36Steam fees, taxes, expenses, and
1:38everything else it takes to release a
1:40game, that amounts to an average salary
1:42in the US. This group, the silent middle
1:45class of indie developers, are showing
1:47us that there are more ways to approach
1:49game development than this go big or go
1:51broke mentality [music] that's being
1:53glamorized in the media. I've got four
1:55examples to share with you, and the hope
1:57is that you come away from this video
1:59feeling a bit optimistic that even if
2:01your game doesn't pop off, you're in
2:03with a chance of making more than $0.
2:06These four developers are all very
2:08different, but they're linked by a love
2:10of game development and a determination
2:12to make it work for them. I'll introduce
2:15you to Ariel Cost Games, a data
2:17scientist turned game dev, Geode
2:19Studios, who spent over 10 years on one
2:22game, Payne Robinson, an English teacher
2:24who taught himself game dev from
2:26scratch, and finally Brain, who
2:28moonlighted as a game developer for over
2:3010 years while working a regular 9-to-5
2:33job. Transitioning from a high-paying
2:35tech job to indie game development
2:37sounds terrifying, but it doesn't take a
2:40lottery ticket type of success to be
2:42possible. Ariel Cost is a great example
2:45of this because, as I said before, Ross
2:47is a data scientist and his dream of
2:49being a game developer is the whole
2:50reason we started our indie game studio
2:52in the first place. Back to Ariel Cost.
2:55He made his first game, The Auroboros
2:57King, while working a full-time data
2:59scientist job. He must have been
3:01exhausted.
3:03Using his 8 years of coding experience,
3:05[music] his aim was to do with chess
3:07what Slay the Spire had done with card
3:09games and use similar gameplay patterns.
3:12Above everything, he knew it would be
3:13easy to code and would require little to
3:16no art skills. Working full-time as a
3:18data scientist and having a child under
3:20five meant that time wasn't exactly a
3:22commodity, but he committed to working
3:25on it part-time 3 to 4 hours a day, 5
3:27days a week. He released a prototype on
3:30itch in June 2022 before working on a
3:33demo to release on Steam, committing
3:36quite early on to release the full game
3:38in February 2023.
3:40Later, he used vacation time to make
3:42faster progress and counted on the extra
3:44time he would get from his daughter
3:46starting kindergarten.
3:48Long story short, he stuck to to word
3:50and released The Auroboros King on the
3:5227th of February 2023. The best thing is
3:56that his low expectations for sales were
3:58blown out of the water. In an early blog
4:01update, he expressed that he only
4:03expected to make just over a thousand
4:04dollars when it actually sold over 5,000
4:07copies in its first month. A year after
4:10this launch, he wrote on his blog that
4:12he made around 87,000 dollars profit
4:14after all the costs were deducted,
4:17including his time, which meant that for
4:19him quitting his data scientist job and
4:21going full-time indie was a no-brainer.
4:24While his second game, Gods Versus
4:26Horrors, didn't do as well as his first,
4:27[music] he didn't give up. He wrote
4:30about the lessons he learned and moved
4:31on. He's now working on his third and
4:34fourth release. The first thing that
4:36I've personally learned from researching
4:38Oriel is how he accounted for his time,
4:41and this is something that we all
4:43forget. We can work on our games for
4:45free for a while, but we can't work for
4:47free forever. Our time is worth money.
4:51The second thing is his logical approach
4:54to deciding what games to develop. He
4:56took the mechanics of popular games that
4:58he was interested in and combined them
4:59to form something [music] new. It makes
5:01sense because those familiar mechanics
5:03would, in theory, mean that players of
5:06games like Slay the Spire and
5:07Hearthstone Battlegrounds would be able
5:09to pick up his games with ease. The
5:12third and final thing is his continuous
5:15learning from each release. On his blog,
5:17he does a detailed postmortem of his
5:19first two games using his background in
5:22data science to meticulously [music]
5:23weigh up the impact that different
5:25marketing and development tactics had on
5:27his success.
5:28He's a perfect example of what we've
5:30talked about in a previous video of how
5:32to survive in indie game development.
5:34Keep making games that you enjoy
5:36developing and are proud to release, and
5:38keep learning from every release to make
5:40sure your experience keeps [music]
5:42compounding. The next approach to game
5:44development couldn't be more different.
5:47Oriel Corpse focused on short projects,
5:49but Geod Studios spent 10 years creating
5:52a 3D NES emulator,
5:55and it paid off. What he thought would
5:57take a year as a hobby project actually
5:59took 10 to get to version 1.0. Launching
6:03the VR version into early access in 2019
6:06with 46 supported games, and the PC
6:08version launched in 2020 with 70
6:11supported games. All painstakingly built
6:14by Geod himself. The final build
6:16launched with over 100 games, all built
6:19by him, too. This is really a story of
6:22compromisation, perseverance, and
6:24infectious dedication. When Geod first
6:27started the project in 2015, he was
6:30determined that each game would be
6:31converted automatically by an algorithm.
6:34In his mind, there was no room for
6:36manual work. Unfortunately, his
6:38algorithm had other plans, and only
6:41worked about 50% of the time. He finally
6:44developed a four-step pipeline that
6:46combined automatic and manual processes,
6:48which meant [music] that simpler games
6:49like Donkey Kong took him a few days to
6:52build, but more complicated games like
6:54The Legend of Zelda could take months.
6:57Letting go of having a fully automatic
7:00process was a necessary compromise. It
7:03meant that he didn't have to give up on
7:04the project altogether, and he could
7:06still complete his dream of experiencing
7:08his favorite childhood video games in
7:103D. He kept working through game after
7:14game for 10 years, intriguing game
7:16journalists with his early access
7:18launches, and slowly building an
7:20audience that were keen to keep track of
7:22his progress.
7:23It turns out that he wasn't the only
7:25person who wanted to play NES games in
7:273D. 3DNES PC alone has sold around
7:3027,000 copies since it launched in 2025,
7:35and he now has a small but dedicated
7:37community of people using his 3DNES
7:39Maker, and uploading their own 3D
7:41versions of NES games. One community
7:44member has uploaded over a dozen
7:46completed games. In total, both versions
7:49of 3DN
7:50have grossed around $600,000,
7:53which over 10 years and after all the
7:55deductions works out as a pretty good
7:57payout.
7:59>> Funky punch.
8:00>> Now, this next developer has another
8:03great story and you may have actually
8:05heard of him if you're an avid consumer
8:07of game dev content on YouTube. Payne
8:09Robinson is a full-time English teacher
8:12who taught himself how to develop games
8:14in Godot.
8:15His original project, which he's still
8:17working on now, is a game called Grid
8:19Tweaker, but it's got a very large scope
8:21and his full-time job means that the
8:23learning curve is incredibly steep and
8:25progress is incredibly slow.
8:27Essentially, he burned himself out.
8:30Instead of ditching Grid Tweaker
8:31altogether, Payne decided to focus on a
8:34completely different game that he had
8:35floating around in his head. It was
8:37opportunity to take a break from Grid
8:39Tweaker and develop his skills on a
8:41small-scale game that I think took him
8:43around 6 to 9 months to complete. This
8:46is how Execute was born. He used the
8:49game to get excited about development
8:51again and to create systems and skills
8:53that would ultimately help him to
8:54complete Grid Tweaker, which is his
8:56dream game. Working on Execute meant
8:59that he could use the tiny amounts of
9:00time that he had at lunchtime and after
9:02work to make real progress on a game
9:04that he could ship sooner rather than in
9:0610 years time. And those tiny amounts of
9:09time earned him around $206,000
9:12gross revenue, enough to pay off his
9:14student loan. Payne isn't stopping there
9:17with the small projects though. In one
9:18of his YouTube videos, he talks about
9:20how he wants to build up a portfolio of
9:22commercial games that help him to
9:24eventually get to the point where he can
9:26work full-time on his dream game.
9:28>> You got a dream?
9:31You got to protect it.
9:32>> While Ariel Coz and Geoid already had
9:34development experience, Payne Robinson
9:37is proof that you can come from a
9:38completely different, unrelated industry
9:41and still do well in game development.
9:43It's something I really relate to.
9:45[music] When Ross floated the idea of
9:47developing games to me 2 years ago, I
9:49was a marketer in finance, not my dream
9:52job. And Ross was a data scientist in
9:54health tech. And we had nothing linking
9:57us to the game industry at all.
9:59>> She doesn't even go here.
10:02>> There is another thing that I love about
10:03Pain Robinson's story so far. He had
10:06that determination to teach himself
10:08something completely new and the
10:10maturity to pause his dream game to
10:12release smaller games that contribute to
10:15the dream.
10:16Realizing that game development is a
10:18long, long road full of compromises,
10:21rather than giving up after his big
10:23dream didn't go as planned, is something
10:25that we all need to learn from game
10:27developers like Pain Robinson. Plus, I
10:30love how he's using his skills as an
10:32English teacher to create really
10:33entertaining YouTube videos and bring us
10:36all along for the ride.
10:37>> Are we there yet?
10:38>> No.
10:40>> So far in this video, we've seen that
10:42supplementing your life with a daily
10:44dose of game development can lead to
10:45surprising results, even if you expect
10:48nothing. I wanted to end with a
10:50developer who combines all the traits of
10:52Auriel Cos Geode and Pain Robinson, but
10:56is approaching indie game dev in yet
10:58another different way.
11:00This developer is called Brain and he's
11:02been dipping his toe into game
11:03development for over 10 years while
11:05becoming increasingly dissatisfied with
11:07his day job as a software developer.
11:10He's effectively moonlighting as a game
11:11developer, but it all paid off with his
11:13first commercial release, Master of
11:15Chess, in September 2025.
11:18Like Auriel and Pain, Brain is shipping
11:21multiple titles to continuously learn
11:23from each release and improve his game
11:25development skills.
11:26But while Auriel and Pain have focused
11:28on releasing commercial titles to build
11:30up their experience, Brain's earlier
11:32approach was to release free-to-play
11:34titles instead.
11:36Since 2017, he's been releasing small
11:38scope titles on itch, including the
11:40iconically named I Have No Hands and I
11:43Must Hug.
11:44Even his first Steam release before
11:45Master of Chess was free-to-play. Now, I
11:48will always be an advocate for
11:50developers who want to charge money for
11:51their games because I truly believe that
11:54every developer deserves to be paid for
11:56their work.
11:57But, releasing free-to-play games does
12:00remove any of those expectations of
12:03monetary gain from the equation. It
12:05means that you can make games for the
12:07pure enjoyment of it and focus on
12:09learning rather than being distracted by
12:11any promise of any revenue at the end of
12:13it. I don't know if this is exactly why
12:16Brain released free games, but his job
12:18as a software developer meant that he
12:20already had a stable income and he
12:22didn't need to make money from games, so
12:24he could do what he liked. Like I said
12:25before, I can imagine that practicing
12:27with free games probably removed the
12:29mental pressure when he did finally
12:31start developing Master of Chess to be
12:33released as a paid [music] game.
12:35The second thing is the dedication to a
12:37specific niche that we saw with Geode.
12:39In his blog, Brain admits that he didn't
12:41expect Master of Chess to do so well
12:43because it was so niche. But, from all
12:45the research I've ever done into unique
12:47games, I think it did well because it
12:50was so niche.
12:51A unique obsession with making the chess
12:53version of Football Manager carried him
12:55through and helped him to attract some
12:56mega fans along the way, building a
12:59Discord server with over 1,000 members.
13:02He perfectly communicated his obsession
13:04and commitment to the game by posting
13:06about his progress
13:07>> [music]
13:07>> every single day on his Discord, all
13:09while working full-time and becoming a
13:11father for the first time.
13:13After Master of Chess's success, making
13:15him around $290,000
13:18gross revenue on Steam, Brain released
13:20another commercial game called
13:22Confidential Killings with his designer
13:24friend Lorenzo.
13:26This game did even better, earning the
13:28pair around $270,000
13:30in gross revenue each. That's quite a
13:33tidy sum for a side hustle.
13:38The message I'm trying to get across
13:40here is not to make a chess game, quit
13:42your day job, spend 10 years making one
13:45project, or to release free games. It's
13:48that being successful at game
13:50development doesn't look the way you
13:52think it does. All of these developers
13:54have or had a normal job while also
13:57making games. None of them went
13:59full-time to make their first game. They
14:02either haven't gone full-time yet or
14:04waited until it was financially viable.
14:06All of these developers have some kind
14:08of online presence, but none of them are
14:10YouTubers. Even Payne Lindsey with his
14:1325,000 YouTube subscribers works as a
14:15teacher for the majority of his income.
14:18All of these developers created a niche
14:20community around their games either by
14:22accident or intentionally. None of these
14:25developers made even close to $1
14:28million,
14:29but they did make an average US salary.
14:32All of these developers started out with
14:34a niche game that they were passionate
14:35about, and they all made sacrifices and
14:37compromises to get their first release
14:40out. They didn't push through and stick
14:42to something that wasn't working for
14:43them. They got out of their own way.
14:46>> You should just go here and stare back
14:47at you. Yeah.
14:49That's your toughest opponent.
14:50>> All of these developers just keep going.
14:54They're finding ways of enjoying and
14:55finding meaning in developing games so
14:58they can keep developing them. That's
15:00the picture of successful indie game
15:02development that I got from researching
15:03these guys. Plus a lot of good book
15:06recommendations.
15:07>> What type of old people garbage
15:10is books?
15:11>> If you enjoyed this video and found
15:12anything I said useful, then you might
15:14want to check out Game Oracle. It's the
15:16platform we built to make analyzing
15:18niches on Steam and validating your game
15:21ideas accessible to any indie game
15:23developer, not just people who are into
15:25data and stats. You can explore Steam
15:28market trends, discover under-served
15:30niches, and find out where your game
15:32fits in the landscape of Steam without
15:35drowning in an entire data set of Steam
15:37data. The link is in the description.
15:39It's free to try, and if you do try it
15:41out, let me know in the comments how you
15:43got on. We're always trying to improve
15:45it. Thank you for watching, and I'll see
15:48you in the next video.

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