Today I'm excited to share my interview with figyberries, solo developer of Pokemon Echo.I reached out during the demo launch last week to talk about what drives hundreds of unpaid development hours, legal risks and how modern tools are reshaping indie creation. Lets dig in! Pokemon Echo Main Menu Page, Source: Figgyberries Nintendo now owns the legal right to summon creatures in video games—despite this mechanic existing since the 1980s. Yet thousands of Pokemon fans continue building...
10 months ago • 6 min read
I don't know about you, but I've played every official Pokemon release since Red. Nostalgia factor aside, my most memorable experiences still comes from fan-created games Games like Pokemon Uranium, Reborn, and Insurgence consistently outperform official releases—with zero budget or marketing. While innovating the design of the franchise a 200+ person team at Gamefreak keeps making worse. Apparently these bedroom coders understand something the official studio has lost. Here's the brutal...
10 months ago • 3 min read
The indie game industry has confused marketing theatre with marketing results. I've watched talented studios chase the wrong numbers for all the wrong reasons. They celebrate hitting 10K Twitter followers while their Steam page converts at less than 1%. They announce press coverage milestones while their email list shrinks. Meanwhile, the metrics that actually predict sales remain unmeasured and ignored. This performance-over-substance approach is quietly killing games before they launch....
10 months ago • 3 min read
Today we are talking about 5 Bundle Marketing Mistakes That Cannibalise Your Game's Brand Identity Bundle marketing destroys more indie game brands than developers realise. The median revenue after Steam's cut was $799 USD for indie games in 2023, while over 540 releases hit $250k+ in 30 days during 2024. This creates a feast-or-famine economics where collaboration means survival. Industry estimates suggest about 20% of games make any profit, while data indicates around 80% failed to reach...
11 months ago • 5 min read
Today we are talking about the 3 Critical Brand Identity Mistakes That Kill Indie Game Success. 62% of indie games make a loss, according to a 2023 developer survey. Most devs blame discoverability algorithms or market saturation as the reason why their game fails. The real problem starts earlier: brand identity mistakes that make games invisible before players even consider downloading them. Over 50% of indie games never make more than $4,000 in lifetime earnings. The reason? Most developers...
11 months ago • 4 min read
5 Game Trailers Mistakes That Kill Wish-lists, Waste Budgets, and Destroy Engagement Ever wonder why some game trailers get millions of views while others barely crack 10,000? Players make critical viewing decisions within the first 15 seconds of any game trailer. Most studios pour budgets into visual spectacle while missing what actually converts viewers into players. The result? Expensive trailers that get skipped and forgotten. Today I'm breaking down 5 critical mistakes using real...
11 months ago • 3 min read
7 reasons why the music for the hit indie game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is set to be one of the year's biggest scores (and what you can learn from it) The indie game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has captivated players with its rich narrative and immersive gameplay—but one element stands apart as a defining feature of its success: the soundtrack. Composed by Lorien Testard, the music is rapidly gaining recognition as one of the most remarkable game scores of the year. Below are seven key...
11 months ago • 3 min read
The uns3xy truth about indie game success 7 design shifts that separate surviving studios from failing ones The game industry is having its come-to-Jesus moment. And it's not pretty. In 2023 alone, an estimated 11,250 video game employees lost their jobs. Microsoft laid off 1,900 Xbox staff in January 2024, followed by hundreds more in July 2025. Even top-performing games retain only 40% of players after day one, dropping to just 6.5% by day 28. Production pipelines are bloated, budgets are...
12 months ago • 1 min read
Why 73% of NSW Game Devs Are Planning Their Exit The $150K survey data that's shocking the Australian indie scene Key Findings from State of Play NSW 2025 The NSW Independent Developer Survey just dropped the most brutal numbers I've seen in years: NSW indie studios need on average $150,000 to complete a game. Most are working thousands of unpaid hours to fund their dreams. And 73.7% are planning to leave the state. This isn't just a funding crisis—it's a creative exodus. But here's what the...
12 months ago • 1 min read