Indie game developers have one unfair advantage over funded studios. Money lets you delay reality. When you’re bootstrapping? Every mechanic matters. Every feature has a cost. Every wrong decision hurts. So you talk to players earlier. You test faster. You cut ruthlessly. You ship what actually works, not what looks good in a pitch deck. Here’s what most indie devs miss: 💡 Funding does not create product–market fit. 💡 Grants don’t validate your game. 💡 Publishers don’t fix weak player demand. It only amplifies what already works. I’ve seen solo devs with $10–30K ship profitable games because they obsessed over players. I’ve also seen funded studios burn $1M+ polishing games nobody asked for. That said, once something is working, capital becomes leverage. Here are 40+ funding options in 2026 for indie game developers: 👇 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JHLQsykKbYFjDH6oRtx5VDDlfKaRMymR-RPGb_hoNzo/edit?usp=sharing

Hello everyone! i'm Giulio Piana (He) I've been a video game developer for over 15 years. I started with Flash games, then moved to mobile and other platforms with Unity. I co-founded Broken Arms Game, an independent studio, and then worked for a few years at Miniclip and Gameloft. Last year, I had some changes, first in a newly formed team at Voodoo and then at a startup in Singapore. In November 2024 , my contract ended at the same time with the birth of my second child, so it took me a few months to decide what to do. Now, I juggle beetween being a father, working as an indie developer, and working as a freelance consultant. You can follow my journey on linkedinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/giuliopiana/ I joined to meet new people, and improve my game production skills that i need to be focused on what is importnat. I like different kind of games but the one i play trought all my life are Zelda and Mario. But i also enjoy some fps and rts when i have tiem to paly... My goal is to become more precise and organize and learn more production tools and techniques to implement in my daily work.