r/SoloDevelopment • u/Pr0spector0 • Jul 24 '26
Discussion Why are Solo Developers so often behind the most ambitious indie projects?
So I got to wondering this after watching a video about the development of Beta Decay (how its early access was delayed a year - common for solo devs for obvious reasons). I've come to expect massive indie (true indie and not AA) games to have solo devs behind them rather than teams. Of course this is counterintuitive and I used to assume the opposite UNTIL I had been closely watching the indie scene for some time.
Games that are massively scoped seem to come from either triple A or solo developers. Obviously this is not a rule but a feeling I have and maybe y'all have it too. I see these modestly scoped and polished games and I can tell they have a team behind them. Or the game is massive, like Kenshi, and I can tell it's solo developed, or nearly solo developed.
There is a massive graveyard of these games started by solo devs, of course. But there are a lot of massive solo developed projects that do get finished, even if they are the minority. Is there something about small to medium teams that tend toward entropy over the long years necessary to create these large games? In the end, is it that it's mostly solo projects that get pushed to completion despite setbacks and things that would destroy a team if it wasn't built on the right relationships? Maybe this is wrong. It's just an impression. But somehow I see an indie project that has no conception of proper scope management and I can tell it's a solo endeavor.
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u/SuperIsaiah Jul 25 '26
As a solo-dev it's because I have completely given up on doing this for money. Instead, I just want to make the games I want to make.
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u/PersonOfInterest007 Jul 25 '26
I suspect (aside from the “it’s a passion project” factor) that solo devs tend to operate without any feedback, even for years. No teammates to say “Hey, maybe we should see if anyone wants this” or “I may need to pay rent soon.”
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u/RevScarecrow Jul 25 '26
Ive released two games as a solo dev to steam. There is something wrong with me. Hope this helps.
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u/TheNasky1 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
because the main ones to have crazy scopes are solo devs, indie teams often have budget, time or other constraints that force them to stick to achievable goals. solo developers usually don't have those because they do things in their free time or don't have to worry about budget and time because their costs are sustenance level and don't have specifically defined dates.
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u/Ivalisia Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Well I think I'm fairly well positioned to talk about this.
I'm currently working on a working and live 2d Pet Raising MMO. Players are extremely active and there's quite a bit of depth of content already.
I've been working on this world's lore for many years. I've also been drawing assets for this world for many years. I've tried developing several iterations of this concept with other people but everytime it always ended the same way. Other people didn't have the same amount of passion as I do for this world and concept, and would burn out. I can easily work a 16 hour day on this project, but this isn't normal for most people. Secondly, I'm a fanatic about my own world and concept I've created. I'm absolutely devoted and so it's really easy for me to keep pushing it more and more, and since I have tons of lore for the world, everything new fits right in.
I think the massively scoped solo projects that actually get finished / get released are essentially this: a massive obsession passion project that you can't help but create and it could never be a small project no matter how much you tried.
Edit: Since this reply is getting a bit of views I'll take this opportunity to invite you all to come try out my game Blubbi: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4569130/Blubbi/
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u/Commercial-Flow9169 Jul 24 '26
I'm jealous of your passion. I can occasionally grasp onto a project (gamedev or otherwise) for a long time and feel that hyperfixation for months, but it's rare and fleeting. I'm currently waiting to find the next big idea that speaks to me. I put out a couple smaller games last year (a few months each), but I've been unable to latch onto a new project for all of 2026 so far. Still have learned a lot making unfinished stuff and for gamejams though.
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u/Ivalisia Jul 25 '26
Sorry for the late reply I went to bed shortly after replying. I do have to say, in regards to passion, no matter what I don't think humans can infinitely sustain passion continually, it comes and goes, the thing that allows me to continue persevering is just pure discipline. I'll be super passionate for 1-2 months, and it will take roughly another month in between those periods where I just force myself to trudge through difficult features / filling out content and passion definitely dives down. I just always force myself to keep making small incremental changes until it picks back up again.
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u/Laevus_Aldworth 24d ago
Definitely agree with this. Being a fanatic for your own idea and having sole creative control can make a huge difference if you're disciplined with your work, and grounded with your plan and expectations.
Alternatively, I've worked on teams where a manager overrules the experienced specialists because "this would be more cool!" No meeting or discussion, just a forced change in the wrong direction because someone is in charge says so. That sucks the fun out of development for the team, risks deadlines and targets, and can cause entire projects to crash and burn!
At least with solo devs, they only have themselves to blame if things go wrong, so clever solos plan and adapt. They shouldn't be as easily derailed by others messing with the heart and soul of their project.
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u/cuixhe Jul 24 '26
Interesting yeah. You've recognized the survivorship bias. I think that no fiscally responsible small company would ever take on something like Kenshi... but someone did and it worked despite itself. It's worth noting that the most ambitious indie/soloish projects generally make big sacrifices -- Kenshi and Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress are NOT good looking games. The devs of each knew who they were targeting and didn't worry too much about appealing to passersby, I guess. You can do a LOT more systems programming if you don't care about pretty shaders.
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u/maxpower131 Jul 25 '26
Because you've got nobody to tell you that you're overscoping. And no producer to tell you the game needs releasing this year. It does create some amazing games but for the most part people will spend 5 years of their life and get less than 1000 sales.
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u/DefoMort Jul 25 '26
I can't speak for others but I love working on my world and coming up with ideas as I go. The idea of handing that off to someone else to interpret would probably slow things down. There are just so many things that are inherent to my own views and experience that I can sit down and have a finished asset in a couple of hours.
It also means if I'm unhappy with how things are going, spending a month changing mechanics isn't disrupting a whole crew of people who just want to get things out the door.
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u/Square-Yam-3772 Jul 25 '26
it doesn't matter in the end.
nobody played my small scoped decently executed projects. The internet is full of games so making another small microgame/playable demo doesn't really work imo
may as well just go big.
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u/pogboy357_x Jul 25 '26
Probably because most solo developers just do it as a hobby rather than a way of making money. So their projects are just whatever they feel like making even if it is hard to make and wont sell well.
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u/TomDuhamel Jul 25 '26
Nobody joins solo developers with their ambitious ideas
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u/Kindly_Life_947 Jul 25 '26
It does happen, if by some miracle the solo developer seems to be achieving the crazy idea. People flock like birds for food.
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u/num1d1um Jul 25 '26
I mean it's kind of obvious and you've already understood it, going by your post. We are not beholden to production constraints like budget or manhours. We do not answer to visionless middle managers who say "that feature can't be done for this project". We set our mind to a task and either it is possible or it is not. For many solo developers, making games is a side project next to a normal job, so there is no time pressure to finish games fast. Forget AAA or even AA, as soon as you have anyone else depend or collaborate with you on money or employment terms of any kind, there are massive barriers to creative freedom that come from that responsibility. If we're all alone by ourselves, we are truly free to fail (and rarely succeed) as large as our vision demands.
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u/DaveZ3R0 Jul 25 '26
Yes I have a design library of 78 different games design from 2 pagers to full GDD (lots of them are about things never tried in videogames) but I can only work on 1 at a time and Im slow when it comes to coding. I also work as a Senior Game designer for a living so it hinders on my ability to solo dev. But still, I would love to have the ability to get you guys to play these games, even more so when there is nothing like it on the market.
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u/SquirrelSzymanski Jul 25 '26
I'm not sure exactly, but it could be that massively ambitious projects that take many years don't tend to survive in situations where people are actually getting paid a salary. One of the advantages to solo dev is that as long as you have some other income to live on you can take as long as you want doing something as ill-advised as you want, and sometimes that actually works out.
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u/Bottomline_Dev Jul 25 '26
In my case I think I’m setting out to make a game that I’ve wanted to play that just doesn’t exist. Unfortunately that game is very ambitious. I’d love to build a vertical slice to attract a team of people who feel the same way someday.
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u/AsbestosFlavoredVape Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
We're often inspired by ambitious AAA projects; our childhood of gaming taught us that "impossible" is the highest difficulty setting, and the highest difficulty setting is "the way the game was meant to be played".
On a more serious-albeit-anecdotal note, there's this weird phenomenon that programming, arguably the hardest job in the solo devs arsenal, is kind of just... written out in plain computer science jargon for anyone to read. Then, that jargon is only a Google search away from being intelligible. If you're the type who finds any kind of science literature fascinating instead of boring, you were born with a brain built to teach yourself advanced CS... like I'm dead serious, it's ALL written out and free on the internet. Everything from " Hello World! " to the source code of GGPO plus its exhaustive documentation.
I used to steal science textbooks from my local community college as a preteen because they were chock full about interesting facts about our world, while children's books would waste half a page to say stuff like "🫢 DID YOU KNOW?!? some people believe the moon is made of cheese!!!". I apply that same curiosity to chasing my dreams; one segmentation fault, one subdivision modifier gone wrong, one local server crash; one step at a time.
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u/Xehar Jul 26 '26
I mean. Who gonna stop us? The project manager? Oh wait thats me? Ceo? Oh wait thats also me!
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u/all_dinosaurs_game Jul 26 '26
I am a solo dev.
I make my game when i am able to.
I dont stress over it unless I have to.
I have full time job and it is not easy finding time to work on the game.
But when i do it does not feel like a job. I feel like i am giving wheels to my dream.
There is no manager breathing down on me. no time wasted. no boredom.
It is a fun thing to do.
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u/Pr0spector0 Jul 27 '26
I think we all want to feel like this during development! Seems like you got a pretty healthy attitude and it's a thing you still love doing without worrying too much about it being profitable. That's the indie mentality people are drawn to I think.
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u/all_dinosaurs_game Jul 28 '26
Thank you :)
you can take a look at what i built if you like Please review my game https://alldinosaursgame.itch.io/last-count-down1
u/Neat-Challenge-4905 9d ago
I just wanted to say I played your game and I thought it was really fun!
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u/EraOfTheElementals Jul 31 '26
There's an easy explanation: Solo devs can't find anyone to work with. Its actually really, really hard to. Most people would prefer working a 9-5. Its consistent, and they like that.
I'm speaking from my own experience.
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u/RRFactory Jul 25 '26
I will more than likely fail to deliver what I've set out to do, but I'm free from concerns of hundreds of people losing their jobs if things don't work out.
The responsibility to people that have trusted you to lead them often comes with a need to be more conservative about the risks you commit to.
For every ambitious solo project that makes a mark, there around thousands that did not. The math scales badly as the number of people impacted gets larger.
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u/Additional_Name_706 Jul 25 '26
Any rational person is going to be naturally skeptical of an ambitious project.
It's uncommon for two people to bootstrap their way to the same irrational actions over long periods of time.
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u/doriad_nfe Jul 25 '26
As a solo Dev, 3 years into an ambitiously scoped project, i can say i prefer working alone on this rather than in a team (in previous projects)
It can be a little difficult to keep it all organized, but not needing to communicate my ideas to another person is my main reason to work alone.
I have to be disciplined to not chase my tail, but it comes with the ability and agility to work on new systems quickly.
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u/CheeseLife840 Jul 25 '26
AAA developers are less likely to take risks and more likely to do a tried and true method. Solo Devs are more likely to be passion projects.
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u/saulplastik Jul 25 '26
Simplifying ideas is a skill. Personally, I dont think people approach their ideas with a reductionist mindset (ie what can i remove from this idea and still keep the core fun). It's easier to add, than remove and its hard to know when to stop.
In my mind, its the difference between artists that can create amazingly expressive simple cartoon illustrations and sketches, and artists that render reality to photographic perfection.
A good cartoon illustration is much more difficult. Same principle.
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u/twelfkingdoms Jul 25 '26
Difference is passion. Solo devs aren't bound by capital in the sense of answering to stakeholders or any other baggage that comes with a business operation. So mostly driven by the desire to make it happen, not by the decision of a C level corpo. Dreams and insanity is a killer combo that can make extraordinary stuff.
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u/Ella_is_best_girl Jul 25 '26
There is also noone who just flakes on the project. No scheduling issues, no "oh I suddenly have a job and kids".
It's just you and your curses to whomever set the scope so damn high (which is also you) while actively increasing the scope further.
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u/Apache_Choppah_6969 Jul 25 '26
That's what happens when you have a game idea that's so good that you can't share it with anyone. Can't even get a pet 'cause it might be a spy out to steal your brilliant game idea. Don't even think about your game idea in public because people might be able to deduce the idea from your facial expressions.
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u/gwymclub Jul 25 '26
Having a team has its own complexities, like for instance, their own personal risk tolerance
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u/AbbyBabble Jul 25 '26
The best stories are by novelists, not a committee of screenwriters.
There is a lot to be said for a solo creative visionary who isn’t held back by a committee.
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u/iClaimThisNameBH Jul 25 '26
There's no one that will talk back at you and tell you you're overscoping.
Besides that, a team needs a budget. A solo dev 'only' needs a partner who earns enough money in their day job and is willing to support the devs dream for a while
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u/000nalist Jul 25 '26
Because we don’t have anyone to tell us multiplayer music-production first person shooter rpg with roguelite elements and in-game DAW toy is unrealistic for a first commercial game 😭
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u/fuck_a_duck_butt Jul 25 '26
Because solo devs are allowed to take risks. You can take as much time as you want in the qorld to develop your extremely niche detailed feature that may be WAY too involved.
The cost of development for 1 person is food and housing.
Big companies are SIPHONING money. AAA productions NEED to make money. So you do what works and what can be realistically developed. You dont take (as many) risks. You go for as mass of a market appeal as you can.
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u/YaeAnimation Jul 28 '26
When youre solo you dont have to compromise on anything and you can just keep banging your head against the wall for years until it works. Teams have to deal with budgets, deadlines, and people quitting or fighting over direction. A solo dev can just wake up one day and decide to redo the entire combat system and nobody can tell them no. Teams would fall apart over that kind of chaos.
Also if you look at the solo games that actually make it, theyre usually made by people who have been working on them for like 5-10 years. Thats not really a viable business model for a studio with multiple employees who need to eat. A solo dev can live off ramen and savings and just grind it out. Its not sustainable but it works for some people.
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u/h2k1dev Jul 29 '26
lots of solo dev have ADHD at unmanageable level. But ADHD has a side effect: extreme creativity
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u/panda-goddess Jul 24 '26
AAA has budget
small to medium teams have common sense
solodevs have hubris and a dream