Santiago: ‘Over-romanticisation’ indie’s biggest challenges

Renowned indie game maker Kellee Santiago has told Develop that she believes an ‘over-romanticisation’ of the independent game development space is one of the sector’s most significant challenges.

The Ouya developer relations lead, former Thatgamecompany president and Indie Game summit co-organiser made her claim as she detailed the highlights of the IGS, taking place at GDC next week.

"I think one of the biggest challenges I see is that ‘over-romanticisation’ of the indie games development space," she told Develop. "There’s this idea that you sacrifice everything and then work, work, work, and then it will all pay off and you’ll be super rich one day."

Santiago suggested that a more pragmatic, realistic approach is needed to ensure individual indies and the wider community can enjoy a lengthy existence making games and keeping games makers financially independent. And she stated that is exactly what the IGS hopes to deliver.

"We have some talks about how you can aim to be really successful, but I do find sometimes with indie that can be the dominant conversation, which could lead to unhealthy practices in games development, and we want to be realistic too," Santiago explained. "I want indie developers to be making these cool games for at least my lifetime, so we’ve tried to shape the conference so as to give them the tools to do that."

To read our fill interview with Santiago, and learn more about the Independent Game Summit at GDC, click here.

Image credit: Official GDC Flickr photostream