GTA6 is messing with Tomas Sala’s plans. He’d supposed to launch ShipShaper earlier this yr, however “life acquired in the best way,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz. “After which I noticed all this stress about, ‘Oh my God, GTA is coming, you need to pack it earlier than September’.”
The sport is now set to launch into Early Entry on September 2, suitably far off from GTA6’s launch on November 19. Not that Sala thinks indies should be significantly anxious about releasing close to GTA6, which, as he factors out, is not launching on PC.
“I don’t see why people are scared of it. It has its personal fucking viewers that doesn’t go round shopping for nerdy area of interest crusing video games or nerdy puzzle video games or tiny story-driven emotional deckbuilders. They only need to play GTA.” He factors out that almost all gamers don’t purchase indie video games – certainly, a 2025 Circana survey discovered that 63% of US gamers purchase a brand new recreation as soon as each six months or much less (with 33% shopping for a recreation lower than every year), whereas solely round 14% purchase a recreation as soon as each month or extra. It is seemingly that this small proportion of enthusiastic repeat purchasers represents the principle patrons of indie titles. “I am fairly certain that is not the GTA viewers,” says Sala.
He additionally doesn’t think that the blanket media protection of GTA6 round its launch may have a lot of an impact. “The media doesn’t cowl indies anyway, besides the flavour of the week – every thing’s Meccha Chameleon now. It is not like they’re masking the highest ten video games that got here out this month. There’s some actual fucking nice indie video games that got here out, which acquired a assessment perhaps on RPS or Eurogamer, and that is about it. That is all of the protection they’re ever going to get.”
Many indie hits don’t make it into articles or influencer streams, he says. “And so they’re nonetheless very profitable, as a result of they discover their viewers.”
Extra typically, he thinks we’re dwelling by means of a interval of astonishing indie creativity. “We will speak about the business as if it is in a downturn – and for a lot of people it’s – however in the event you take a look at what will get made and put out, it is a golden age.”
Go for the area of interest
Sala rose to fame for creating The Falconeer, a 2020 third-person aerial fight recreation. He adopted it up with Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles in 2024, an informal sandbox-style constructing recreation set in the identical universe. The Falconeer is by far the higher recognized recreation – because of being accessible on streaming platforms like Sport Go and Luna, in addition to launching on consoles and being given away without spending a dime in a restricted promotion – however Sala says Bulwark has truly offered way more items. “It outsold The Falconeer in uncooked gross sales every single day. It nonetheless outsells it.”
The purpose is that fame doesn’t essentially equate to monetary success – and Sala is beneath no illusions that the boat-creation recreation ShipShaper will go viral as the most recent indie darling of the week. “Should you’re making one thing that is as nerdy, as geeky, and as area of interest as designing your individual tall ships and steamships,” he says, “you are not within the working for that.”
However he thinks that it is attainable to tick alongside properly with out grabbing the headlines, as a substitute counting on area of interest followers and phrase of mouth. “Which I think is one of the best place to be,” he says. “Small however steady.”
So many video games on Steam hardly ever get written about, however are “quietly large,” he says. Project Zomboid springs to thoughts, which has offered more than 15 million units since 2013. However he says a recreation doesn’t must promote tens of millions to be profitable. If, like him, you’ve got a studio consisting of one individual, “you don’t have to make so much of cash.”
As Mike Bithell touched on just lately, it comes right down to product/market match – matching the size of improvement with the potential viewers dimension. “Earlier than you begin, you have to take a look at what you are making, what your viewers goes to be, how that matches collectively, what they’re keen to pay,” says Sala. “All these very fundamental questions about doing enterprise, which really feel extremely uninteresting and opposite to artwork and doing what we would like, however it’s probably not. It is just a bit bit of frequent sense.”
For ShipShaper, he is carried out his analysis. “I’ve checked out boats and gone, ‘Hey, there hasn’t been a brand new boat recreation in fairly some whereas, there’s so much of viewers for that, they usually’re paying so much’.” Though removed from glamorous, video games about issues like boats and trains have a devoted and price-insensitive viewers, he says, mentioning that practice simulator followers can pay a premium for DLC content material primarily based on particular locomotives or strains. “Boats are the identical,” he says. The HMS Victory DLC for Naval Motion sells for £49.99.
“You go, ‘Oh, that is fairly costly’,” he says. “However it’s a distinct segment. And to gamers there, it isn’t costly. It is like their Star Citizen.”
He noticed it as an area he might do one thing in. “I really like boats, I perceive that emotion,” he says. Then it was only a case of figuring out some sums. “How costly can it be? How a lot time can I put in it? I’ve turn out to be much more enterprise minded,” he says. “All of us have to do that, it is a fundamental ability now.”
Freedom on rails
The notion of being a solo indie developer evokes concepts of untrammelled artistic freedom, galloping down no matter artistic paths pique your curiosity. However the actuality is extra about rigorously selecting which initiatives to pursue and the way a lot time to spend on them.
“I am not an fool,” says Sala, “within the sense that if I need to be free creatively, then I’ve to imprison myself as properly.”
“Freedom is a really relative factor,” he continues. “Now I’ve cash for 2 years, and 7 years in the past I had cash for 2 months.”
He says all of it comes down to creating your individual definition of success. “You must dwell by your individual requirements and be grateful for what you have acquired. And in the event you’re free, you win. Should you don’t must suck as much as any person or beg for cash, then you definitely’re blessed.”
As a solo developer, there are issues he likes to set himself as a artistic problem, like not utilizing textures, one thing he has “caught to for years as a result of it forces me to do issues in a brand new approach.” However keeping track of issues like markets, metas, return on funding, and enterprise improvement can also be half of the job, which implies limiting artistic freedom to inside particular areas.
“I don’t love the issues most people love, however there’s sufficient weirdos like me on the market that love precisely what I really like”
And Sala is aware of that he’s unlikely to interrupt out of the area of interest he enjoys working in. “I don’t think I could make a success, I don’t think I’ve that in me,” he says. “I don’t have the psychological capability to do something aside from what I am doing. There’s extreme limitations to my expertise, ability, expertise… As an illustration, I am not all for good gameplay. By no means have been. I discover myself making much less and fewer gameplay and increasingly more instruments or story. I wish to innovate and make new stuff, however I don’t just like the trivialities of balancing each enemy. So I am going to by no means make the right recreation. It is simply not in me.”
He is content material along with his area of interest, making video games about constructing boats. “I don’t love the issues most people love, however there’s sufficient weirdos like me on the market that love precisely what I really like. So it is fantastic. I am going to go look out for my weirdos.”
“I think that in the event you take a look at all my video games, they’re all a really particular acquired style for a really particular viewers that fully will get what I need to do, and might’t discover it anyplace else,” he says. “I think niches are a survival house.”
Past constructing boats
As for what’s subsequent after ShipShaper, Sala says he generally goals of doing one thing radically totally different, like an area recreation or a narrative-driven title. However he is conscious of that want for product/market match – and he is aware of it is smart to proceed making video games set within the Falconeer universe. “The world I constructed, people are actually digging it,” he says. “So I’ve dedicated to that, saying, okay, this franchise or no matter you need to name it, it is a fucking lifeline.” He calls it the “bonus card life gave me.”
The subsequent step, he thinks, will be an open world crusing journey set within the Falconeer universe, appearing as a prequel to the opposite video games, and exploring the world earlier than it was ruined by warfare. “ShipShaper was truly simply the enhancing tech I used to be playing around with,” he says. “So ShipShaper is a little bit diversion the place I am looking for new methods to farm the franchise, with an in-between app that can deliver new people in – hold the cash coming in a way.
“So it is a industrial selection, but in addition as a result of it is its personal factor, it was enjoyable to do. And I like that it is brief, and even when it is in Early Entry, the factor itself is there. And if it is a success, I am going to spend a yr including to it. If it isn’t, it’s going to launch when GTA is popping out, only for enjoyable. I am going to see if it could oppose GTA.”