From Manor Lords to Against the Storm to Terra Invicta, indie publisher Hooded Horse has enjoyed an incredible run since it was founded in 2019. With a bunch of big successes under its belt, you might expect CEO Tim Bender to be looking to expand, swallowing up more and more indie games to increase his chances of finding another hit.
But not only is he completely disinterested in publishing more than around 10 games a year, focusing on stability over growth, his advice to indie developers is to avoid indie publishers entirely.
"People can hate me for this if they want," he says, "but most indie publishers are not people indie developers should work with. The vast majority of indie publishers, in their whole structure, are predatory and opportunistic."
This could all be a cunning ploy to stick it to the competition, but Hooded Horse isn't exactly struggling to find developers to sign. Bender's warning to devs is also consistent with the rest of his publishing philosophy, where "ethical treatment of developers is critical". He wants to be a positive influence, he says, as evidenced by his championing of fair contracts where developers don't need to wait for the publisher to recoup their costs.
"They're looking to sign a bunch of games," he continues, "to invest in the ones that are otherwise successful, make them bigger, ignore and drop—basically abandon—the ones that aren't, while sucking up whatever they can through recoup. They're not particularly competent either, most indie publishers; they don't add a lot."
The vast majority of indie developers should be self publishing rather than working with indie publishers.
Tim Bender
Bender believes that an indie developer who uses self-publishing resources like Simon Carlos' GameDiscoverCo or Chris Zukowski's How to Market a Game "can self-publish better than 95% of indie publishers". Devs are the best people to champion and sell their games. "They will know their game, they'll structure it right, they'll actually care about it. The vast majority of indie developers should be self publishing rather than working with indie publishers."
He also recommends sites like Gamalytic, a database designed for devs and market researchers that provides estimates on sales, player numbers and revenue.
"You can type any publisher's name in there, pull up their portfolio, sort by release date, and see [its release schedule]. Like, oh, this indie publisher released six games a month, and everything made about one to $2,000 and then, you know, 'OK, I know how these people are oriented.' Just in general, you should always research the track record of the publishers."
It wasn't all that long ago that nobody would even need to say "indie devs should self-publish", because that was the very definition of an indie developer. But now you've got countless companies invested in discovering the next viral indie game, promising marketing and investment in the hopes of getting something like Manor Lords. And obviously that can be incredibly beneficial, at least if the developer and publisher are aligned. Along with Hooded Horse, the likes of Raw Fury and Fellow Traveller spring to mind. But they exist alongside plenty of more mercenary outfits.
"You really have to research and be careful," says Bender. "And the truth is, if you're in doubt, self publish. That's really what it comes down to, because it is very viable to self publish these days."
