Indie Game: The Movie highlighted the indie life. Will it become extinct?
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The DeanBeat: Will we see an indie boom or an indie apocalypse as mobile goes triple-A?

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Everybody wants to see indie game developers succeed. The rags-to-riches fairy tale of the lone developer striking it rich is like a green light, a beacon that ignites the dreams of millions of aspiring game makers.

But the stagnation of the mobile game markets — where indies saw their best opportunities in the past few years — is creating a lot of angst about the future of indies. Game observer Anton Savchenko, predicted that there could be an “indiepocalypse” on Steam, the Valve-owned digital game distribution service, as the number of games being published accelerates to an unsustainable level. (I’ve added a poll for stating your own opinion at the bottom).

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.