The Indie Game Development Survival Guide: Four Principles for Sustainable Success

Tom Francis, veteran indie game developer behind titles like Gunpoint and Heat Signature, has distilled 15 years of experience into four critical pieces of advice for aspiring game creators. His insights come at a time when the games industry faces significant challenges, with many developers considering striking out on their own.

The Foundation: Sustainability Over Scale

Francis's core philosophy centers on defining success not by total sales or accolades, but by the ability to continue making games at a comfortable pace. His studio, Suspicious Developments, has maintained a remarkable track record: all three of their games sold more than twice their development costs, and they've never been closer than two years to running out of funds.

The fundamental math he presents is sobering: doubling your team size doubles your financial needs, but as budgets increase, the number of games that can recoup those costs drops dramatically. "Success is making more money than you spent," Francis explains, "but as the numbers go up, vanishingly fewer games make that much money."

This isn't just about reducing risk—it's about creating breathing room for creativity. Heat Signature, their second major release, took 3.5 years to develop. "If we'd had less than 3.5 years of runway to test and iterate, we would have just had to release it in a bad state," Francis notes. The lower burn rate becomes a "superpower," dramatically increasing chances of success.

Principle 1: Stay as Small as You Can

The first and perhaps most controversial piece of advice is to resist the urge to scale up. While this might seem counterintuitive in an industry where layoffs are common, Francis argues that sustainable growth creates more stable jobs in the long run.

"Staffing up doesn't really create jobs if it leads to layoffs or closure," he writes. The brutal reality is that larger teams need to sell exponentially more copies to break even, making success statistically less likely. By staying small—Suspicious Developments averages about three full-time salaries—they maintain flexibility to pivot when ideas don't work out.

Principle 2: Pick Something Prototypable

Before committing years to development, Francis emphasizes the importance of creating a playable prototype quickly. "By 'prototype' I mean a playable build that meaningfully shows what's good about your game—a proof of concept."

This approach serves multiple purposes: it reveals whether an idea works before investing heavily, provides clarity for the entire team, and creates motivation by making the game tangible early. The key is choosing projects that can be prototyped with existing team members in a reasonable timeframe.

Francis admits this principle led them to abandon an idea six years before it would have launched—a painful but valuable discovery that saved years of wasted effort.

Principle 3: Testing is the Magic Bullet

Perhaps the most emphatic advice Francis offers is the transformative power of player testing. "How did we make Wizards good? We asked players which bits were bad, then fixed them."

He frames game development as taking an expensive exam where the answers are freely available from players. The games-playing public already knows what works and what doesn't—developers just need to ask.

The timing matters enormously. Starting testing early means discovering problems when they're cheap to fix. Scaling up testing as development progresses provides increasingly refined feedback. Francis contrasts in-person testing with remote testing, acknowledging each has its place depending on the development stage.

Principle 4: Price is a Solved Problem

In a refreshing departure from common anxieties about pricing, Francis declares this aspect "solved." His studio simply asks players what they think the game should cost, then charges that amount. "Every time we've gone with the price most people chose, and every time they've sold great and reviewed great."

This approach eliminates endless debates about pricing strategy. Rather than worrying about race-to-the-bottom scenarios or working "long and hard" on pricing decisions, they trust player feedback to find the sweet spot.

The Visual Reality

To illustrate these principles, Francis created a timeline showing how team size affects development breathing room. The visualization makes clear that doubling headcount doesn't just increase costs—it dramatically reduces the margin for error in both quality and financial stability.

What This Isn't

Importantly, Francis clarifies what his advice isn't: "This is not a guide to selling the most copies. It's a guide to making whatever funds, talent and good fortune you have go as far as possible."

The goal isn't maximizing short-term profits but creating sustainable independence. "Making a good game doesn't guarantee a hit," he acknowledges, "but at the indie scale, making a bad one sure prevents it."

The Luck Factor

Francis remains honest about the role of luck in their success. Their first game, Gunpoint, launched in 2013 at an ideal moment when indie games were gaining traction on Steam but before the market became saturated. This perfect timing—combined with making their first game in spare time with no budget—is what ultimately allowed them to remain independent without publisher funding.

For developers just starting out, this acknowledgment is crucial: these principles won't guarantee success, but they maximize the chances that whatever success you achieve will be sustainable. In an industry where many promising studios flame out quickly, that sustainability might be the most valuable form of success of all.