Indie games will only save us if anyone funds them

According to a post on Ivy Road’s website, the studio had been tinkering with a new project called Engine Angel. Early footage shared by Ivy Road’s Liz Caingcoy shows that it’s an action game where players fight using the car they are driving. It’s a novel concept, but the studio ultimately couldn’t get it funded. “It’s a particularly tough time for raising game funds, so while we weren’t necessarily surprised, we are disappointed that we won’t be able to bring Engine Angel to life together as a team,” Ivy Road explains.

As of March 31, the studio will be shut down. Its developers are now looking for work just like those recently laid off from Epic Games.

While the closure of developers like Bluepoint Games or Meta’s game studios can be credited to the changing whims of desperate large corporations, Ivy Road was failed by an industry that would not fund its next game. Indie studios aren’t immune to the same problems plaguing the AAA space right now, even if they have a rad-looking pitch and their last game earned a nomination at The Game Awards.

As Ivy Road succinctly put it, “making games is incredibly challenging work: it requires technical skills, emotional investment, financial investment, a whole lot of long hours, and a bit of luck and serendipitous timing thrown in.” Going indie isn’t a guarantee of success, and these smaller-scale games can’t save the industry if no one is willing to fund them. That needs to change if we want to see a better future for this medium.