"The independent game space has a problem with failure," said indie developer Ashley Zeldin at GDC 2015. "When all we hear about are successes, that creates unrealistic expectations about the viability of independent game development."

Zeldin is the creative director of Adorkable Games (Fantastic Jack, Two-Faced) and she took the stage during the GDC 2015 Indie Soapbox session to call for all developers -- but especially indies -- to talk more openly about their failures, as well as their successes.

Her argument is that lots of developers fail early and fail often -- they just don't talk about it much, leading many newcomers to have unrealistic expectations of success as indie game makers. This leads to survivorship bias, and hurts developers' ability to learn from failures other than their own.

It was a great talk, and you can now watch Zeldin's brief segment of the full Soapbox session for free over on the GDC Vault's official YouTube channel.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.



Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.



Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech