The Last Independent Game Studio Standing

In 2019, there were eleven mid-sized independent game studios — studios with between 50 and 200 employees, self-funded or with modest outside investment, not subsidiaries of a platform holder or publisher — that had each shipped at least one commercially significant title.

Today, there are three.

The attrition has happened through acquisition (Microsoft, Sony, and Tencent collectively bought six of them), through studio closure following unsuccessful releases (two), and through the kind of quiet dissolution that happens when a studio runs out of runway between projects and the team disperses (two more).

What remains: Larian Studios, the Belgian developer behind Baldur’s Gate 3 and its predecessors; Supergiant Games, the San Francisco studio behind the Hades series; and Motion Twin, the French cooperative behind Dead Cells. Each has survived through a different model. Larian through sustained critical and commercial success that gave it enough leverage to remain independent despite acquisition offers from multiple large publishers. Supergiant through a radically constrained team size — it has never had more than 22 employees — and a fanbase loyal enough to support direct sales. Motion Twin through cooperative ownership, which made acquisition structurally difficult.

What they share is that none of them are available to acquire at the price their acquirers would want to pay. That won’t last forever.