Why do you say that? The indie game market is not all that crowded, if we're thinking about games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Sword and Sworcery (all of which did way better than $3000 a quarter). Gamasutra, the other day, was lamenting the fact that there aren't enough games in this space.

Assuming we're not talking about the very difficult mobile market (but just about high quality indies on the PC), why is it absurd to think that a small indie studio could be quite successful (even with a first game)?

That is why you won't make $3000, because you won't make $10.

> Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Sword and Sworcery

All of which cost at least $100k to make.

What I see is some incredibly successful indie games where the niche is so narrow you can't believe it made money at all (think of a brutal puzzler like AntiRoom, which was another very successful one).

I guess what I'm really asking here is what you think the barrier is, because it's not an incredibly crowded market. On mobile, just getting your game noticed is next to impossible. That's easier in this space. Or maybe you disagree?

[0] http://www.desura.com/games/browse/?filter=t&kw=Search+...&s...

[1] http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=765&browses...

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released_DESC&...

1. There are too many games; it's as hard to get noticed in this sector as it is on the app store.

2. You don't stand a chance if you can't make a polished game, and a polished game is going to have a $100,000 budget (or let's just say, way more than "I think I'll download the free version of Unity" can afford).

3. Most games are mediocre at best, and yours probably will be too (because the designers of those hits really knew what they were doing, and you probably don't).

Am I getting this right? All of the above? Some of the above?

I've seen lots of indie games that I think are mediocre become hits. I've rarely seen a game that I think is a gem go completely unnoticed. Part of it, it seems to me, is that a really tight niche game can become a hit within that niche and make a surprising amount of money doing it.

Take "Battle of the Bulge" by Shenandoah (which is an iOS game). $20,000 ask on Kickstarter for a game that is going after people who are into hex wargames. I'm going to guess that that game did considerably better than $3000 a quarter. They're making more, after all.

Similarly, there are people out there who love side-scrollers and will basically buy any side-scroller that looks even remotely good. If it is good, is it really going to be a financial bust?

"Team Licence" http://unity3d.com/get-unity

Do you happen to have a link to which setting to switch?

"This is done by selecting Edit->Project Settings->Editor in the application menu and enabling External Version Control support by selecting Visible Meta Files in the dropdown for Version Control. This will show a text file for every asset in the Assets directory containing the necessary bookkeeping information required by Unity. The files will have a .meta file extension with the first part being the full file name of the asset it is associated with. Moving and renaming assets within Unity should also update the relevant .meta files. However, if you move or rename assets from an external tool, make sure to syncronize the relevant .meta files as well."

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ExternalVersionControlSystemS...

Now free version is fully featured and pro version just has some team features and lack of revenue restrictions.

http://unity3d.com/get-unity