An independent 2009 games sector census reveals marginal growth in U.S. games industry since 2008, while Canada explodes with new development studios and job opportunities.
"INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series connecting indie game fans all over the world, highlighted more than 150 games during its Saturday broadcast introducing world premieres, new trailers, and updates during its 10th-ever digital showcase." - INDIE Live Expo.
"Following a great event in November of last year, DevGAMM Lisbon is coming back to the beautiful and sunny Cascais region to catch up with old friends, connect with game developers from around the world, hear from seasoned professionals, and have a great time all around." - DevGAMM.
A look into the sad trajectory of indie games from high successful releases to complete irrelevancy in just a few weeks or months.
That's the thing with gaming there's always new experiences to have why spend months or years playing a single game when there's a new experience right around the corner.
Indie or AAA if your building your game expecting long term player counts you'll probably be disappointed as gamers often enjoy something for a few weeks and move on only to return if it's truely a classic.
Out of all the generations I've experienced there's games from 30 plus years ago I still dust off and play like super Mario bros, earthbound, vice city and san Andreas being games I treasure and revisit every few years but I'm not going back to play a game designed to keep me engaged for months on end because it's also designed to milk my wallet in most cases.
Build a great game that people love make it playable offline and ask does it matter if the concurrent player count is under 100 a year post launch more often that not it doesn't
The price of entry is too high to take chances like I used to. Was looking at V Rising and that ranges from $50-$130 CAD. That’s a lot for an indie imo. By the time it goes on sale, the player count might be dwindling. But that’s the trade-off, I guess.
"While the U.S. game industry has managed to hang on through 2009, the Canadian game development scene has exploded with a more than 30 percent increase (from an estimated 9,500 at the close of 2008 to more than 12,500 in 2009.)"
30% increase for Canada? I wouldn't have guessed that much.