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The word ‘indiepocalypse’ has been thrown around a lot in recent months, but ID@Xbox boss Agostino Simonetta doesn’t believe the situation is as dire as it might sound.
In an interview with MCV, he instead argues that the term has emerged from a number of companies expecting but failing to achieve success, perhaps companies that believed the current opportunities for indies mean that everyone would become rich from their low-budget titles.
“Ultimately, it’s a creative endeavour, same as music, same as writing books,” he said. “And in every other industry, not everyone will be successful. That’s where the indie apocalypse is coming from. There is an element of that. We should be careful how we measure success.
“I was with a studio recently whose definition of success was the ability to be creative. They don’t need an enormous number of downloads to be successful as far as they’re concerned. We need to be much more mature and look at what’s happening in a very positive way. Sure, in any other business not everyone can be a winner. But saying there’s an apocalypse is looking at the wrong angle.
“I’m a glass half full kind of guy. It excites me that my daughter at six-and-a-half years old is able to use Game Maker or one of those tools to create her first game. It’s much faster and less frustrating, with less of a learning curve than I went through.
“Not everybody will make millions of dollars. I don’t think anyone ever promised that. Going into this business thinking you’ll do a game and know you are going to be rich – that doesn’t happen anywhere.”
