Several indie game developers have expressed concern about the lack of support from Game Pass and Epic Game Store exclusive deals that many rely on to be able to bring unique titles into the industry.
During the Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco last week, developers of Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon talked about the current state of the industry. The co-founder of Slay the Spire studio Mega Crit, Casey Yano, said that he had talked with five small teams during GDC.
Indie Game Developers' Future
(Photo : Microsoft, Xbox / Screenshot taken from official website)
He noted that they all talked about cuts, canceled funding, and canceled discussions. Yano added that they were very privileged to be able to self-fund. Slay the Spire had launched to slow sales in Steam during its early access but eventually became a deckbuilding titan.
Likewise, Darkest Dungeon launched early access on Steam and has since taken on great success among players. Both titles are currently available on PC Game Pass but the director of Darkest Dungeon, Chris Bourassa, said that Microsoft's deals for getting games on Game Pass have "come down in scope" since the start of the subscription service, according to PCGamer.
Bourassa added that the same thing was happening with Epic, noting that "The Gold Rush is over." He argued that the situation could be another paradigm shift and said that the scale of the deals that he had been hearing has significantly diminished from the good old days. He said that they were able to get their Epic deal at the right time.
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Red Hook Studios, the developer of Darkest Dungeon, made the somewhat controversial decision to launch the sequel in early access as an Epic exclusive. While games that are launched as such have not been popular with players, they have allowed some indie developers to "break-even" on their titles even before release.
This was considered to be a safety net that was too hard to pass up when a game's success can make or break a small studio. Red Hook Studios and Mega Crit banded together with Dead Cells DLC studio Evil Empire to put on a "Triple-I" showcase on Apr. 10. They will be joined by other developers, including Re-Logic, poncle, and many others.
Situation in the Gaming Industry
The situation comes as Microsoft has partnered with hundreds of game developers and publishers of various sizes over the past few years. This was an attempt to increase the number of Game Pass subscribers that the company has, said Game World Observer.
There were some titles that were added to the service at launch and the tech giant spent millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, on the deals. This was also true for Epic Games, which spent a lot of money on exclusive deals with game developers.
Many consider industry-wide challengers to be responsible for the downward trend as various game companies have contributed to a historic wave of layoffs. This meant that further cost-cutting measures were expected to come as well.
Microsoft's subscription service has not been able to acquire new paying customers as quickly as the company had initially hoped. On the other hand, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that the console market as a whole has not experienced significant growth in the last couple of years, according to TechSpot.
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