Sergey Klimov from Charlie Oscar: "Being an indie means being personally interested in success"

Sergey Klimov, who founded the Charlie Oscar studio, shared his opinion about what indie is. He believes that independent developers sacrifice everything for the sake of their games and in case of failure may be left penniless.

Gremlins, Inc”The risk that indie studios take is personal.

For example, the founders of CD Projekt could lose their apartments if The Witcher 2 failed after the release was postponed. At that time, they had already spent the advance,” Klimov wrote on Twitter.

He noted that something similar had happened to himself. According to Klimov, in 2015 his studio lacked €100 thousand to launch Gremlins, Inc in early access. The title was published with the help of developer friends who lent money. A similar story happened now, in 2021, with the release of Spire Of Sorcery — the studio had to borrow € 150 thousand from relatives and friends.

As Klimov writes, such situations occur not only in the video game industry. He advised me to read the memoirs of Bono, the vocalist of the band U2. In the book, the musician told, among other things, how much the tours cost and how difficult it was to get the support of investors.

“Being indie means being personally interested in success,” the developer summed up.

Charlie Oscar opened in 2013. She has developed two games: Gremlins, Inc and Spire Of Sorcery. The latter has not been released to early access. The release of the project is scheduled for October 21.