I might be being a bit nitpicky I agree with the heart of this but:
1. Supergiant had massive success with Bastion, I don't know the numbers off hand but I believe Transistor did poorer than Bastion or at least critical reception was worse, I bought it off faith in them but never completed it like Bastion and Hades. Transistor defininetly didn't have the same reception as Bastion. So it's not like they hadn't already found success. I'd also argue that Bastion had a high level of polish including really good voice acting for a small indie game.
2. Dwarf Fortress also seems like a weird one because the creators (brothers) lived off donations forever and were really poor for a long time. I remember reading their blogs and they just more recently were able to get long overdue medical and dental healthcare they critically needed. They chose not to monetize it until their Steam Launch directly. They had created such a unique experience because of their very unique background and willpower that people forced money on them.
I'd argue Minecraft is a much better example of MVF, Vampire Survivors, and Phasmaphoia (used unity store assets) overall this is just another datapoint that the most important thing to optimize for is gameplay and player experience over look.
Once you nail gameplay, you can succeed so long as you put just enough polish in visually. Anyone that grew up immersed in UGC games can also tell you this. Garrysmod, Roblox, Minecraft modded servers all have janky art and at this point extremely outdated but there are creators that make six figures, some even seven.
I personally made thousands a month as a 14,15,16 year old running a custom roleplay server and it's what inspired me to go into games finally when 26.
I might be being a bit nitpicky I agree with the heart of this but:
1. Supergiant had massive success with Bastion, I don't know the numbers off hand but I believe Transistor did poorer than Bastion or at least critical reception was worse, I bought it off faith in them but never completed it like Bastion and Hades. Transistor defininetly didn't have the same reception as Bastion. So it's not like they hadn't already found success. I'd also argue that Bastion had a high level of polish including really good voice acting for a small indie game.
2. Dwarf Fortress also seems like a weird one because the creators (brothers) lived off donations forever and were really poor for a long time. I remember reading their blogs and they just more recently were able to get long overdue medical and dental healthcare they critically needed. They chose not to monetize it until their Steam Launch directly. They had created such a unique experience because of their very unique background and willpower that people forced money on them.
I'd argue Minecraft is a much better example of MVF, Vampire Survivors, and Phasmaphoia (used unity store assets) overall this is just another datapoint that the most important thing to optimize for is gameplay and player experience over look.
Once you nail gameplay, you can succeed so long as you put just enough polish in visually. Anyone that grew up immersed in UGC games can also tell you this. Garrysmod, Roblox, Minecraft modded servers all have janky art and at this point extremely outdated but there are creators that make six figures, some even seven.
I personally made thousands a month as a 14,15,16 year old running a custom roleplay server and it's what inspired me to go into games finally when 26.
Good comments, and I agree your examples are better :)