Slay The Spire & Darkest Dungeons Studio Heads Talk Indie Funding, Clarify Earlier Remarks

epic, Gamepass, Indies, PC, xbox

After talking to a few indie developers last Thursday & Friday, I felt comfortable enough putting out my article on this whole “game pass gold mine is over” talk that stemmed from an interview with Slay The Spire’s Studio co-founder Casey Yano and Darkest Dungeon director Chris Bourassa on Thursday. While I had reached out to both I hadn’t heard back (they are quite busy!) and I wasn’t sure I ever would so I ran it.

Well over the weekend I had a chance to speak with both Casey & Chris and get some more perspective on what exactly was said.

“I thought it (the article) was going to be about lack of funding in general to be honest” Yano said when asked.

“The money is just harder to get, the big platforms aren’t being as speedy and the size of deals have come down. It’s not that there is NO money, or that funding is an impossibility, but publishers and platform holders are being much more conservative.”

When asked specifically about the “gold rush is over” comments when it came to Game Pass they clarified.

“My gold rush comment was meant as an overall appraisal of the indie funding situation – as I said, deals are more difficult to line up, their average size has diminished, and many companies are facing layoffs.” says Bourassa.

“There were some VERY good deals at the onset of Epic Games, which is what I was pointing to, not Game Pass” says Yano

So it was Epic that was specifically being mentioned?

“Yeah, those deals have dropped in value. Game Pass deals are a bit more nebulous as there’s little data out there, a lot more hush hush. I know of two studios who locked great deals though (last year).”

While the industry is shifting, and opportunities for indies are dwindling, that is the real concern for both right now and is what they want the message to be.

“It’s not meant to be a game pass specific comment. Investment in games is down by a lot in the last 12 months, if not clearly evidenced by the shuttering of several small studios. A lot of publishers have backed out of deals, gutting large teams. That’s just facts”. Says Yano

“A lot of the folks I spoke to this year at GDC are definitely pursuing funds from different sources this year. To me (an independent game developer), it looks like these smaller teams are struggling to find funding but we do see some good news sometimes. I also heard from 2 larger studios that several projects lost funding. Whether this was game pass or not is unknown of course.”

“I think higher interest rates, and a post-covid compression of profits for the big boys have definitely created a change in the air.” Says Bourassa.

Indeed, with a massive shift in the industry lately when it comes to funding, the smaller teams are definitely feeling the squeeze from the platform holders and publishers. Indie developers bring a lot of passion and creativity to the table so we hope as they industry adjusts, they continue to support these developers.

As part of that support, both Mega Crit and Redhook Games have teamed with Dead Cells developer Evil Empire to create the Triple-I Initiative showcase, set for April 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST.

You can watch it on YouTube or Twitch. Here is a list of developers and publishers that will be present in the show: