General Gaming 'The gold rush is over:' Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon devs say that big Game Pass and Epic exclusive deals have dried up for indie devs (PC Gamer)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

'The gold rush is over:' Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon devs say that big Game Pass and Epic exclusive deals have dried up for indie devs | PC Gamer

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It's not easy to get funding for a new game right now.

 

Quote

 

In an interview at last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the developers behind indie sensations Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon said that the deal some small developers have come to rely on for funding in recent years—like Epic Game Store exclusives and Xbox Game Pass—are no longer what they once were.

 

"I talked to at least five small teams, like 35 [members] and under, during GDC, and they're like: Cuts, cuts, cuts, funding canceled, talks that were going on for a year, canceled," said Casey Yano, the co-founder of Slay the Spire studio Mega Crit. "It sounds like it's shit. We're definitely very privileged to be able to self-fund. [Otherwise] I'd be very, very, very scared right now."

 

Slay the Spire launched to slow sales in Steam early access before eventually becoming a deckbuilding juggernaut. Darkest Dungeon was likewise a Steam early access success; both games are available on PC Game Pass, though DD director Chris Bourassa said that Microsoft's deals for getting games on Game Pass have "come down in scope" since the subscription service began.

 

"Way down," Yano added.

 

"So has Epic," Bourassa said. "The Gold Rush is over. I come from the Northwest Territories. The town I'm from was built on gold, and then they found diamonds further north. Maybe another paradigm shift is waiting for us, but I definitely think the scale of the deals I'm hearing about is significantly dimishese from the big swinging days. Certainly we got our Epic [deal] at the right time."

 

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Well Epic is bleeding money and all that cash they pumped into EGS exclusives didn’t move the needle. And MS has one of the largest stable of AAA franchises in the industry they can now load GamePass with, after spending nearly $80B in 3 years. An Indy title would have to be something pretty special and/or coming at just the right time to fill a void MS needs filling. 
 

so not surprising. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Game Pass is putting the money to wooing Japanese developers now.

[SuperSpreader]

Free to play games and free to play subscription services like GamePass are killing the game industry. Soon Microsoft or Sony will win and you'll have nothing but COD to play. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Just now, SuperSpreader said:

Free to play games and free to play subscription services like GamePass are killing the game industry.

 

You have to pay for Game Pass though. It's like SEGA Channel.

[SuperSpreader]

2 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

You have to pay for Game Pass though. It's like SEGA Channel.

 

So developers make less to put their games out for free on GamePass or don't sell well because they're competing with GamePass. 

[crispy4000]

Indie devs have been saying this for a while now.  Microsoft and Sony must be both be testing their lower limits.
 

Can’t imagine that anyone pays lower than Amazon though.

[Ghost_MH]

12 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

Well Epic is bleeding money and all that cash they pumped into EGS exclusives didn’t move the needle.

 

Might be better to say it didn't move the needle as well as their free games did. Exclusives might have helped smaller studios, but it also pissed off a bunch of gamers who don't like splitting their PC game collection across multiple launchers. Compare that to their free games that are fairly inexpensive to acquire, seem to have a good track record for pulling in customers, and are enjoyed even by the most curmudgeon of gamers.