It's easy to romanticize the idea that you could make one massively successful indie game and then put your feet up while Steam sales keep the dollars trickling in – and that absolutely does happen – but a big hit doesn't necessarily drive people to rockstar lifestyles or early retirement. You might be financially freed up to do whatever you want, but rather than bonding with the couch on a molecular level, "whatever you want" might just be making more games.
Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone said last year that his one big splurge after his farming sim lit the internet on fire was a proper PC that considerably improved on his old "hand-me-down" system. Jordan Morris, creator of the Metroidvania game Haiku, the Robot and the Stardew Valley-inspired idle farming sim Rusty's Retirement, describes a fairly similar experience after Rusty sold around 550,000 copies.
