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- I discovered a simply awesome indie game on Steam this week, Ultratron by Puppy Games. It is a retro shooter, an homage to the classic Robotron 2084, a visual lollipop of swirling color that leaves your eyes sparkling and pixelated for hours, and a game I can’t stay away from for more than a few minutes.
But it’s failing. It is selling “pitifully, pitifully poorly,” according to Cas, one of its developers.
Cas goes on to explain that none of Puppy’s recent games have been profitable except for Titan Attacks, which took seven years to break even. This despite brilliant visuals and—as far as I can see—delightful gameplay.
And yet Puppy’s struggles are hardly unusual. In this era when every unemployed software developer or Mom & Pop outfit with a half-baked game idea is making a casual game—the results usually having only a fraction of the beauty and brilliance of a game like Ultratron—skillful, dedicated game developers are struggling to get their creations noticed, paid for, and profitable.