I think what OP means is that a small studio could make a game that would go toe to toe with the big studios, not just in terms of sales but in scope. Driver was made by basically a bunch of guys who somehow managed to blag their way into Sony sending them few PS1 devkits, and it's on the same level as other big productions of their time.

Nowadays yes, you get the occassional Battlebit and Vampire survivors which would make most AAA games blush in terms of sales, but in terms of scope they aren't anything like Assassin's Creed or Diablo 4 - that's not to say that they are worse, obviously not - just that it's impossible for a small studio to deliver the same scope as AAA studios with 1000+ people per project.

But that's not what the original mastodon post said - it was about people getting hired at a very young age. I run a small indie studio (5 people including myself) and know a lot of other indies, and have myself in the past worked for other indies. Even among professional indie/smaller studios it's really rare to see a teenager working (I've never myself seen it).

I think it's to a large extent due to the professionalization of the industry (even indies/small scale) and overall raising of the bar of expectations.

Battlebit has a scope similar to Battlefield. It’s just not a AAA flop.

> Minecraft

Was bought by MS almost 10 years ago. No way I would describe as an indie game at this point.