Half of Russian indie teams work without pay — study
The indie incubator prototype.indie attempted to create a profile of an indie developer from Russia. The research was based on a survey of the domestic game development community, but the number of participants was not disclosed.
No, Iʼm not a Human
Main Observations:
- For most respondents, creating games is not their primary activity. Only 46.3% of indie developers have chosen game development as their profession;
- However, for many, game development consumes a significant portion of their time. 37.7% of indie developers spend more than 30 hours a week on it, and another 21% spend 21 to 30 hours a week. Just 16% manage to keep it under 10 hours a week;
- 42% of indie developers have already managed to create at least five games. Another 23.5% reported having one or two games in their portfolio, while 17.3% are working on their debut project;
- Regarding their current game, 17.3% of respondents are still working on a prototype. For 42.6%, it is in active development, and 13.6% are at the release preparation stage;
- The majority (72.8%) of indie developers in Russia are "jack-of-all-trades." They perform multiple specialist roles;
- Game design is the most popular specialization among indie developers (62.3%). It’s followed by programming (53.7%), narrative (45.1%), producing (37%), graphics (35.8%), and marketing (35.8%);
- 16% of indie developers admitted they wanted to assemble a team to work on games but failed. Another 42.6% said they prefer to make games alone anyway;
- Just over half of the respondents make games purely out of enthusiasm without receiving any payment for their work — such indie teams in Russia account for 53.7%. Additionally, in 22.2% of teams, only some members are paid, and only 15.4% of teams pay all participants;
- 71.6% of indie developers do not plan to limit themselves to the Russian market and intend to promote their games to a global audience;
- The most popular engines in Russia include Unity (45.1%), Unreal Engine (30.9%), and Godot (13.6%). Also, 8% of respondents use proprietary engines;
- Most Russian indie developers want to or already create action games (53.7%), adventure games (53.1%), RPGs (44.4%), simulators (35.2%), shooters (32.1%), puzzles (27.8%), and visual novels (25.9%). Note that respondents could indicate multiple genres, so the total percentage exceeds 100;
- The majority of indie developers cite marketing (68.5%) as the most challenging task, not the creation of the games themselves. At the same time, many consider lack of funding (46.3%), difficulties publishing games in stores (25.9%), and challenges with contracts and legal documents (11.7%) as major issues in game development;
- Despite all the challenges, almost none of the respondents are contemplating leaving game development. Only 3.1% admitted they no longer want to make games.