"In the spirit of the season, one thing I'm thankful for is indie studios being able to make the games they want despite external pressures. We've seen both extremes of that in recent months. This week, the team at Santa Ragione said it respects players enough to release its latest game, Horses, as intended. However, Valve has blocked the horror title from Steam in what seems to be quite a messy case. As a result of not being able to sell Horses on the biggest PC games storefront, Santa Ragione said it's at risk of closure."
"On the other end of the scale, Team Cherry was able to take all the time in the world to make Hollow Knight: Silksong because of the success of its previous game, which has sold more than 15 million copies. Although Hollow Knight fans spent years clamoring for updates on Silksong, the small team had the financial freedom to spend as long as it wanted crafting and polishing the sequel. The devs were able to just keep their heads down and do that until Team Cherry announced a release date just two weeks in advance."
A truncated holiday week still produced notable indie game news and new releases, with more showcases coming soon including The Game Awards and Day of the Devs. Indie studios continue to ship projects under varying pressures: Santa Ragione reported Valve blocked its horror title Horses from Steam, putting the studio at risk of closure because the game cannot be sold on the largest PC storefront. Conversely, Team Cherry leveraged the commercial success of Hollow Knight, which sold over 15 million copies, to afford extended development time for Silksong and announce a release date with minimal fanfare.
Read at Engadget
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]