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I had a nice conversation about the state of indie games with Chris Charla, head of ID@Xbox at Microsoft, during a demo of games at Microsoft’s headquarters — in a break from PAX West — in Redmond, Washington. It reminded me of the stories I’ve heard about solo indie game devs in recent years and their issues with creative freedom vs partnering.
At the recent SLICE conference ahead of PAX West in Seattle, I watched Eric Barone, the solo creator of Stardew Valley, talk about his dilemma as an indie game creator. He built his game over 4.5 years and saw it gain a huge audience — more than 41 million copies sold as of 2024.
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