Why are none of the examples you mention remotely close to being indie games? Those are clearly not what a Long Tail business model looks like in video games. That Infinity Blade novella was written by Brandon Sanderson.
My goal was to illustrate the arc, from indie bootstrap to AAA success. I don’t recall Chair as a AAA studio in 2010. The development of PUBG, which began as a mod of another game, might be a better example.
I did messed up here by mixing concepts from “Free” in with the concepts from “Long Tail”. I went back and re-read the Long Tail article from WIRED and edited my patent comment above to correct that error.
I did messed up here by mixing concepts from “Free” in with the concepts from “Long Tail”. I went back and re-read the Long Tail article from WIRED and edited my patent comment above to correct that error.