Puzzle Pirates Shows Indie Developers Can Succeed in the MMO Market2009-09-10 00:00:00for small,
independent developers to remain profitable without the help of one of these major publishing houses. In fact, it's virtually impossible to get your homegrown title distributed on a home console, no matter how well it stacks up to the titles the big boys are making.On the PC side, the situation for indie devs isn't quite so dire, thanks to electronic distribution of these smaller titles being a much more viable option. Companies such as PopCap and WildTangent have found great success selling their smaller titles for under $20.
The burgeoning MMO market has also become quite a boon for small dev houses. San Francisco-based Three Rings Design is perhaps the best example of this, with their quirky MMO Puzzle Pirates becoming a large success for the company, despite their small amount of development and marketing capital. With only three full-time employees working on the game during most of it...
