[SAI_Peregrinus]

> You basically need a massive marketing machine to break a new IP.

Of course there are some exceptions. Like Balatro selling 5 million copies (1 developer + 1 composer), the Touhou Project series (solo dev), Slay the Spire (two devs, ), and Terraria (11-person studio, 9'th best selling game of all time with 60,700,000 copies sold as of November 2024).

The big studios seem to like spending a ton of money on games, but there continue to be new IPs created without a massive budget or marketing campaign.

[jayd16]

Yes, as I said, its perfectly possible to make a good game with a small team. But to prop up a few games like you have is just survivor bias. There are thousands of failed games at that scale. When I say it takes a good game and massive marketing budgets to launch an IP, I mean to do so with mediocre or better odds of success. The rare gems you've mentioned are just that. Rare.

[johnnyanmac]

sure. But I hope no one thinks of taking a gamble and trying to make their own rougelite deck builder because Slay the Spire made millions. You'd be lucky to make doordash money with that time investment, let alone anything liveable.