Back in February, we instantly fell in love with the demo for "simultaneous turn-based" tactics game Arco. The full game finally launched on Steam and Nintendo Switch on August 15 to rave reviews – 98% positive on Steam, a 9/10 in Edge Magazine, and high praise from a suite of other critics. But in an illustration of the volatile indie games market, its creators say the game has "sold badly" – so badly that developer Franek laments that "making under minimum wage is embarrassing. Even if it means you get to make games."
In a post on Twitter, McPixel creator Sos Sosowksi argued that "it feels like indies are making the same three genres, and AAA are just remastering the same three games over and over" and advised devs to "make new stuff." The conversation began with a post from Antichamber creator Alexander Bruce, who shared a brief rap which essentially speedruns years of commentary on trends and talking points in indie development, from "what the market wants" to the value of "ideas you've never seen." Sharing Sosowski's input, Franek reasons that making new stuff sounds like "fun advice until you have to sell your game without a target audience and you got rent to pay."
