Game Design Secrets

The Rise of Indie Development Funds

“I expect to see a billion-dollar fund [for indie game developers] sometime this year,” says Billy Pidgeon.

“Many publishers and investors see huge talent potential in independent developers,” Pidgeon says. “Nearly every large publisher has publicly announced millions in funding regularly available for small developers.”

He notes that major publishers like Nexon are providing office space and other resources for indie folks, whereas “Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are first investing in independent developers with work for hire and then buying indies and giving them creative autonomy and accesses to resources [marketing, IT, and so on] to enable the rapid scale necessary to support a small game going big.” Add to this the rise of companies like Swiss-based Digital Capital with a new publishing model, “where investors pay an indie developer’s creative overhead for a game or a number of games and then share profits, but often allow the developers to maintain control over their intellectual property.”

To say it another way, as Pidgeon puts it (and this should be up in lights):

“Independent developers have more power now than ever, and this is a trend likely to become commonplace.”