We as humans find life exhaustingly boring, seeking entertainment from movies, shows, and recently video games. With great visual and sound design, video games are a versatile medium that can portray elaborate stories and satisfy our need for entertainment.

According to venturebeat.com, the video game industry is booming and extremely competitive. Finding a job for a studio is an uphill battle, and if you’re employed at an indie studio your job is hardly secure. Say the game you’re working on completely flops in the market. Then you’re back on the hunt for another job that could end the exact same way. According to statista.com, the company behind the Sims games and other projects, Electronic Arts (EA), “spent 961 million U.S. dollars on marketing and sales-related activities” in 2022. Indie game companies don’t have the boundless amounts of cash to drop on advertising, the most they can do is post on various social media accounts showing off snippets of future gameplay. 

 I play a wide variety of games coming from different companies and indie games compose a large number of my favorite games. My favorite rogue-like game Going Under by Aggro Crab features the intern Jackie at this new start-up company called Fizzle, but underneath the office lies the graves of failed tech start-up companies. Jackie’s job devolves into descending under the office and fighting the monster-turned-employees. 

Going Under has wonderful simplistic graphics and a great sense of humor that really accentuates the experience. It was my first rogue-like game and it was easy to learn and introduced me to the genre that I’m in love with. I don’t think any other game would have given me the experience that Going Under did, no matter the studio or budget.

Going Under received a ton of support and the developers are working on another game coming out next year called Another Crab’s Treasure, whose gameplay explores the drastic effects of oceanic pollution.

When these studios are supported they have more funds to make more games, securing the developers’ jobs and introducing new stories that can cover assorted topics the world needs more representation of. 

Ultimately I can’t tell you what to do with your money, but the next time you’re looking through a large game sale, stop by the Indie section and see if you’ll find something you’ll like playing.