For example: My mom, has 2 published novels. She said, she spent a few thousand to get her first novel published. That is standard in the industry for a first time author.
This is off topic a little, but that is false. The standard in the industry for a first time author is to pay nothing. A proper publisher handles everything out of their own pocket. How it works is you submit a manuscript and if they like it, they take on the task of publishing it. If they don't, they reject it, and better luck with the next one. I've published a novel and I didn't pay a cent, because it's the publisher's job to... you know... publish it. Of course, there is "indie" publishing, where an author publishes themselves, and this is what costs money. This is the same as in game development. We spend our time and money making a game and then if we're lucky enough to get a publisher to distribute it, it's on them to handle everything. That's because
we did the hard yards in actually producing the product, and now it's their turn to take over. However, most of us "indie" gamedevs can't/don't want to get a publisher, so we have to spend extra money to get our games in distribution, by purchasing licensing rights and everything on our own.
This is where I think the "indie bubble" may pop, and this is kinda what Vogel is talking about. Indie development in general used to be a relatively cheap business; you could make a game on your own with a small budget, then release it into the marketplace and because you aren't tied to a publisher, you could set your price as whatever you like to ensure you make enough profit to survive. If you spent $1000 on it, you could feel free to price it at $20 and people would actually buy it and after a couple hundred copies you'd have broken even. Now indie games are far more common -- just check out Desura, for example, which is almost exclusively indie games -- it's harder for indie devs to survive because the costs of producing a successful game are much higher.
These days, there are games that cost $4.99 and lower. When we price our games, they need to be competitive. In order for an indie game that cost $1000 to break even at a price of $4.99, it would have to sell nearly 3x the amount of copies than if it was priced at $20. In turn, we then rely on these profits to support us and to help us make another game. It takes longer to earn that money now because the marketplace is so competitive, and we don't have all the techniques at our disposal for promotion that a publisher does.
I have no illusions about being a "professional" developer who lives off indie game development, just the same as how I don't rely on my novel royalties to support me (that said, each copy sold still earns a profit, as it costs nothing for me to publish). For most people, these things are out of the question. I've got a full time job and use the profits from games and writing to supplement an already adequate income. My game, Legionwood 2, has only been successful to me so far because it cost next to nothing to make; it uses mainly edited RTP and stuff out of official resource packs, the custom music was provided to me by a fan for no charge, the scripts are either written by me or made as favours by people in the community etc. I priced the game at $4.99 and even at this price, I am still making a profit from each copy. If I had spent more to make the game, I would probably want to price it a little higher but this, again, makes it less competitive against the other indie titles.
