It's a misconception about indie, in indie game development there are literally 99 games that flop and die for 1 that succeeds, and you don't even hear about those that died having 100 players peak on release day.
Steam new releases at this point are like 50% pornography, 40% early access open world survival crafting games that will never leave early access, 9% actually trying to be unique but not really succeeding, and 1% games that may be worth playing.
1% of 19000 games released in a year is 190 games worth playing. Do you play 190 games in a year? Or even 19? I'd say that's fucking plenty of quality games even if there is a lot of trash. Steam lets anyone sell games so of course there is going to be a lot of trash. Doesn't mean we dont still get way more from indies worth playing than AAA.
No game is for every single person — save for maybe Stardew Valley. Games have a TA. Solo-deving a game for a couple of years and selling 20,000 copies at $10 a pop is a good time investment, even if you lose over a half of that to Steam's cut, taxes and eventual sales. And 20,000 copies really isn't that much compared to what major indie successes sell. So if you have a great idea, the patience and the know-how to make a good indie game, the audience is there, and it's worth doing.
Edit: Remember a few months ago someone posted a video on this sub of this German indie dev crying on camera when he opened his Steam sale stats after a week of releasing his game? It was a fantasy tower defense I'd never heard of before and a game I would never consider playing or making myself, but there he was, a few hundred thousand big ones richer a week after release. My point is, your own taste, monetary situation and amount of free time do not define what the indie video game market is like.
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u/AnotherGerolf 14h ago
It's a misconception about indie, in indie game development there are literally 99 games that flop and die for 1 that succeeds, and you don't even hear about those that died having 100 players peak on release day.