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Comment by wincy | Hacker News Reader

As a counterpoint, there is Stardew Valley.

Stardew Valley came entirely out of left field, ConcernedApe released a pixel graphics farming sim of all things, made $35 million dollars because he’d literally done it all himself, even the game engine, and the niche (farming games) he was competing with, including games like Harvest Moon which has teams of developers pumping out absolute crap compared to what he made. Then again he wasn’t necessarily doing it to make money in the first place, it uses “timeless” pixel art, and he spent 6 or so years making the game with no actual time limit to when he could release it (as he had a day job and wasn’t going to run out of money).

And the game just has a soul that makes it feel great to play and be in. I just got around to playing it this year and absolutely love it.

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"After graduating from the University of Washington in Tacoma with a degree in computer science, Barone could not bring himself to pursue a job at Microsoft, Google or Amazon. Instead, he took a part-time job at a Seattle theater and spent the rest of his time building a video game. He was living in his parent’s basement. Some weeks, he’d spend as much as 60 hours working on the game.

Barone eventually moved in with his girlfriend, Amber Hageman, who paid most of the bills. Barone stuck with his plan. He learned to put on a mask of confidence for friends and family. He knew that if he game wasn’t a success, he’d squander the trust and hope his loved ones placed in his dream."[1]

So he relied on first his parents, and then his girlfriend, to heavily subsidize him for 4 years. It ended up paying off in this instance, of course, but most people don't have this luxury.

And it doesn't always pay off, either. I've seen firsthand many a game that seemed like it would be a success fail once it hit the market.

[1]: https://www.knkx.org/other-news/2017-03-25/this-man-committe...

Are there any other examples of successful games made by one person? I was going to say Fez, but two people created it. Successful single dev games are exceptionally rare

Depends on your definition of success. Personally, I think if the developer is making hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, that's a yes; but I've met people who think if the game isn't a household name, it's not really successful.

Anyway, most people have this mental model of the video game industry where there's a measurable, comprehensible number of games, but the actual volume of released games is insane.

Anecdotally, one of the most impressive devs I've ever talked with had a full time day job and did solo dev on mobile games on the side. He released 3-4 games within 2 years, 2016-2018 and they all earned around $200k+. But again, you never would have heard of any of these games, just like you don't hear about whatever current hypercasual game has 20 million players (unless you're an addict or monitor App Annie / Steamcharts / whatever else on a daily basis).

Minecraft, in the early days.

I think single-dev games start, similarly to startups, and gradually pick up small teams as they go. Minecraft fits that bill to a tee, I'm sure there are younger, more informed people here who could point to other examples.

The totality of direction that one solo person has over a project isn't actually all that important, in reality. Having one or two or three team members to rely on, delegate to, bounce ideas off, is way more effective towards getting things done, and especially on a schedule.

Yeah there are a bunch of 1 person (or more useful, less than 5 people) teams who find a good amount of success still.

I personally prefer “band-sized” teams (mid single-digit) over solo, I find it a lot easier to stay motivated and easier to achieve high productivity due to more chances for specializations while still being small enough to maintain an “indie feel”.

I believe supercell (hardly an indie) maintain game teams at around 8 during dev and increase up to 17 when live, which is also sorta similar to the size you see in indie teams(f2p/GaaS need a lot more manpower for liveops). They just have a lot of such teams.

Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, both by Lucas Pope.

How about Omno? https://store.steampowered.com/app/969760/Omno/

Way to the Woods is another example, and the solo dev built it as a teenager! https://junkee.com/way-to-the-woods-e3/210743

Ghost Knight also looks promising (still in progress): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374810/Ghost_Knight_A_Da...

I guess the obvious killer in this category would be Flappy Bird, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flappy_Bird made in two to three days.

Depends on how tightly you are applying that definition. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Games will pretty much always use something created by someone else.

For example: If I pay an artist to do most of the art for my game, did I still make it by myself? What if I pay for music? What about the engine?

Here's some highly successful games that one might argue were created by one person (to varying degrees):

- Minecraft

- Dwarf Fortress

- Kenshi

- Banished

On top of those there's probably an endless list of successful browser and flash games.

There is also the HUGE TouHou bullet hell franchise, more or less completely made by ZUN if I recall.

The fan culture around it is even bigger though.

"Axiom Verge" comes to mind.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_Verge

Undertale, Cave Story

Spiderweb Software

also I don't think Stardew Valley had any competition on PC when it was released (barring emulation of the Harvest Moon games), which would have helped making it a very good success

Same with the Playstation, Xbox, and Switch ports. The Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons series had both been releasing only handheld titles for a while at that point, and didn't move back to home consoles until after Stardew blew up.

I just got a Retropie and the description it has for the Harvest Moon 64 rom plot and gameplay could be written on the back of a Stardew Valley box and I wouldn’t notice. It’s basically the ultimate fan game, that also managed to surpass its inspiration.

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