The Nintendo Switch was an indie game haven, until it was overrun with slop

The archetypal respective months aft Nintendo released the Switch successful 2017 person been described arsenic a "gold rush" for autarkic crippled developers. The Switch's eShop wasn't precisely barren, but aboriginal connected determination was a batch of country for caller releases. To enactment it into perspective, Nintendo announced successful 2018 that astir 1,000 games were added to the level successful its archetypal twelvemonth oregon so. The fig of games released each twelvemonth conscionable adds to the fig of games disposable connected the eShop; successful 2024, GameDiscoverCo reported that 50 games were added per week, starring to much than 2,300 caller games successful 2024 by November.

What started arsenic a golden unreserved for indie developers dilatory spoiled, and yet the eShop became overrun with slop. This pushed immoderate developers to the margins, portion level degradation soured the acquisition arsenic a whole.

Coming retired of the alleged indiepocalypse, the play aft the indie aureate property from 2008 to 2015 - deliberation Fez, Braid, and Super Meat Boy - developers were reeling from the monolithic influx of contention and a diminution successful discoverability. The eShop, for immoderate time, was a reprieve to that. Nintendo itself seemed poised to enactment that play of growth; days up of the Switch's motorboat da …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.