Here are some things you can sell to indy devs while they are working: dev tools, hardware, books or online media w/ ads, conferences, certificate programs focused on game dev, marketing opportunities.
Then, when they are done, you get to skim big chunks of their revenue with app store, payment processing, etc. Don't forget to sell additional advertisements, to other game devs, on top of the places where you list their games!
All of the profit streams above scale with the number of devs and the total size of their market - not with the success of the average/median dev.
Same with the music industry. Professional for profit schools for audio engineering jobs that don’t exist, tons of home recording gear you must have, publishing companies to distribute your music, expensive studio time. So many ways to throw away your money, so many hobbyists willing to play for free or cheap (I’m guilty) that music venues don’t need to spend a dollar to book shows every night. Music sucks for most independent musicians and they have to hustle really really hard to make a living wage. Otherwise they just have to teach lessons to earn money which can really take away time from further developing your craft.
I’ve been a hobbyist and am increasingly exposed to professionals, people trying to make it and I feel sorry for them. Way more skilled at music than I will ever be at programming, yet struggling to keep a roof over their heads.
I doubt most of these tool companies make much of their money from small indies. For one, a lot of these small indies seem obsessed with writing their own tools (there was a good article on here a few months ago about "how to take seven years to ship your indie game"). For another thing, a lot of the biggest tools are moving a model where you pay out of royalties rather than up front (Unreal Engine being a recent high profile example). Precisely because so many indie devs want to use these tools but can't afford them, so this payment model allows them to pay off the back end rather than up front.
Dev tools are for all intents and purposes at this point free. Unity is free, Unreal is free, several other engines are free or close to free. "online media w/ads" is somehow exploiting devs? That seems really reaching. App stores might be over priced but they are world wide. Compared to before app stores when there was no way to reach a global audience. It's easy to argue both ways. As for ads they aren't special to games people mis-assessing their own chances. They're just ads.
I said "stoke and profit off of", not "exploit" - devs have free choice and simply need to get informed about where their incentives are (mis)aligned. I also never said these platforms don't do anything to create value. The issue is that they can prosper even if the typical dev is throwing his time into the meat grinder, and devs should realize this rather than assuming that because a market is large it is viable for the average (or even above average) participant.
Biggest example is the terrible working conditions of games developers in industry. These are some of the brightest, most dedicated coders out there, but they accept less money and crazy long hours.
It's the same thing with other professions where people provide their own sense of mission and self-fulfillment: teachers, home health aides, VFX artists in hollywood... These are important, in-demand professions, yet they get paid poorly because their drive and passion is counted against their compensation.
no sure what terrible working conditions of games developers in industry has to do with people mis-assessing their own chances. People mis-assessing their own chances are people working for themselves so by definition they are not "games developers in industry". Those that are in the industry are just getting a salary and being overworked, they aren't expecting to get rich from a hit
how so? how does the industry profit from people mis-assessing their own chances?