The creation of videogames is often seen as a high-tech industry, raking in billions. It is regularly called hit-driven, and spearheaded by huge success stories, games that sell millions or even tens of millions of copies. While all of this is true, it is only a small piece of the whole picture — just like stadium-filling superstar musicians and the production and marketing machinery around them is only a thin slice of the totality of creating music. Games have their equivalents for garage bands, little known for-hire background musicians, hobby choirs, and singing in the shower, too — not to mention that jams (compact sessions of collaborative creation simply for the sake of creation itself) are a popular hobby among game-makers, too.
Yet, even in the game industry, the complex and colourful nature of the full field of game-making is often ignored. This is even more true for political discussions and creation of support structures. For the most part, conversations are centred around gaming start-ups aiming for explosive growth or large, established studios. However, most games are made in living rooms and dormitories, during game jams, by students and hobbyists, often just for fun, or as a creative outlet. The popular and free online publishing platform, Itch.io, has well over a million games currently available, largely for free (Itch Corp. 2025) — almost 10 times the number of games on Steam, the leading commercial platform for pc games (Valve 2025).
Even many people who make videogames for a living do not consider themselves professional videogame developers, let alone a part of the videogame industry. This is especially true for self-employed, contract-based, and freelance game-makers. Some even have an aversion to the word “industry” and see their environment more as an art scene (Keogh 2023, 44–46). But labelling indie games as art is not without problems, either; according to Simon (2021, 274–275), games have a problematic relationship to both art and commerce. Indie studios typically do not choose between creating art despite financial hardship or “selling out” by creating commercially viable products. Instead, they try to figure out games that are commercially viable enough to enable them to survive and keep making games. For them, this in itself is a worthy goal.
It is common that indie game studios do not consider it their goal to create value for shareholders; instead, they want to make a living and create something of value for their players. This might seem like a less ambitious goal. In reality, it is simply a different kind of ambition. Reaching the levels of scalability that are interesting for venture capital investors requires studios to centre games being addictive and repeatedly monetizable. While that does not necessarily prevent a studio from creating good games and delivering interesting experiences to players, it is a different order of priorities than what most indie studios are interested in having. They know they need to create some income for the studio to survive, but the income serves their will to make games, and not the other way around.
And like every cultural field, videogames have value far beyond their financial potential — and outside of their artistic merits. Games are cultural products that shape our thinking, from mainstream commercial games to politically charged indie productions to unique pieces in art museums. Games express ideas, comment on politics, affect our worldviews, help us deal with our emotions, enable us to connect with other people, and so on, just like any other cultural product, from high art to romantic comedies to fanfiction. Making games is a beloved craft, often done solely for the joy of the craft itself.
The grassroots are necessary
The informal game-making spaces — jams, hobbyist and student teams, bootstrapping indies, etc. — are inextricably linked to the established game industry, and sometimes it is hard to draw a line between them. It is often the tiny indie studios that enable the big ones to work more flexibly by offering them outsourcing services; for the indies, this is a common way to fund their own creative pursuits, which may have little hope of being financially sustainable by themselves any year soon. Hobbyists and game jam participants come up and experiment with the most creative and risky ideas, which later may get adopted or adapted into large productions. Some of the most ground-breaking games started off as solo side projects — Minecraft, the most sold videogame of all time (Keogh 2023, 29; The Verge 2023), among them.
Making games as a hobby is more accessible now than ever, with many game engines and other necessary pieces of software being available for free, and plenty of content creators crafting tutorials and example projects to get started with. While some of the tools available are themselves made as a hobby project, the top of the food chain follows suit, too. The state-of-the-art game engines have their versions of free licenses and tutorial- and asset creation ecosystems. These gigantic software companies have not made the entry level accessible out of the goodness of their hearts; they know that the commercial production of games needs people to make games as a hobby. For development roles, game studios rarely hire people who have not made games. The advice routinely given to people who are looking to make games for a living is to make games for their portfolio, preferably with a team. The industry needs the students, hobbyists, game jams, struggling indie studios, and so on, to have access to juniors with proven skills for making games.
The roots of the industry are in creativity and communities
For a cultural field, the field of videogames is still very young — a few decades, compared to several millennia of music, writing, and visual arts, and well over a hundred years of cinema. Due to being so young, videogames were born directly into a world that wanted to make a profit out of them and never had a period of only being used for social and cultural purposes. Despite this, the social side of game-making has grown strong, both in terms of game-making being a social hobby, and via the development of thriving communities of professional game-makers in many places around the world. Game-making depends on and flourishes in informal communities.
For example, the Finnish field of game-making has some important roots deep in the Demoscene — the computer arts subculture making audio-visual software demos to show off their skills, which is on our national UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage (Demoscene 2020). The Demoscene and its experimental use of tech for creative purposes is where some of the true veterans of the Finnish game industry began their journey into creative expression with software. This led to some of the earliest industry activity in Finland, including the founding of Remedy Entertainment (Wikipedia 2025). There is also a thriving game jam scene in Finland, and an exceptionally active and long-lived chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). Both are important keystones of the local industry.
Supportive and inclusive communities
Communities around videogames often have a bad reputation, the infamous GamerGate being just one example. News about harassment, abusive practices, and toxic cultures in established studios are also commonplace. Yet, in many cases, the cultures and communities of the broader field of game-making do not fit these stereotypes. As Simon (2021, 274–275) has discovered, indie game studios often work in the context of collaborative game developer communities. They go against the common notion of entrepreneurship as an individualistic and competitive way of life, and instead, commonly support each other despite being direct competitors. According to Ruberg (2021, 51–53), interdependence is especially important for queer and other marginalized indie game-makers.
In their work researching game industry communities in Finland, Myöhänen and Nousiainen (2023a, 2023b) have found them to be quite safe and inclusive for sexual and gender minorities. Their findings match my own experiences as an openly queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent professional in the field; while there certainly still is work to be done, I feel more supported and understood in communities of game-makers than outside of them, both in Finland and in international circles. In my experience, cultures of game-making are inclusive and supportive.
Cultural content beyond cash cows and artworks
Clearly, the field of games is a lot broader than only an industry creating entertainment for profit. In its complexity, it is not unlike other cultural fields, such as music or visual arts. And in many ways, the game industry depends on the broader field of game-making and its informal structures. Without the pool of talent, ideas, and inspiration that the informal game-making spaces offer, the industry might well wither.
Perhaps more importantly, game-makers participate in creating, spreading, and iterating on cultural values and stories. Even when their games do not specifically discuss societal topics, they often come from a point of view of inclusive and supportive communities. Game-makers regularly see creation of cultural content as a worthy goal in itself, without seeing it as subservient to creating shareholder value. Beyond financial gains and artistic expression — content creation that (often) is community-centric and inclusive, even when that is not the most profitable route, has cultural value in itself.
References
Demoscene 2020. Breakthrough of Digital Culture: Finland accepts the Demoscene on its national UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. (Accessed: 6.2.2025).
Itch Corp. 2025. Top games. (Accessed: 6.2.2025).
Keogh, B. 2023. The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Myöhänen, T. & Nousianen, S. 2023a. Belonging in the LGBTQIA+ community in the Finnish game industry: Part 1, sexual minorities. (Accessed: 6.2.2025).
Myöhänen, T. & Nousiainen, S. 2023b. Belonging in the LGBTQIA+ community in the Finnish game industry: PART 2, gender minorities. (Accessed: 6.2.2025).
Ruberg, B. 2021. ‘Queering indie: how LGBTQ experiences challenge dominant narratives of independent games’. In P. Ruffino (ed.) Independent Videogames – cultures, networks, techniques and politics, 43-57. New York: Routledge.
Simon, B. 2021. ‘The cultural conditions of being indie’. In Ruffino, P. (ed.) Independent Videogames – cultures, networks, techniques and politics, 268-276. New York: Routledge.
The Verge 2023. Minecraft has sold over 300 million copies. (Accessed: 6.2.2025).
Valve Corporation 2025. Games. (Accessed: 6.2.2025).
Wikipedia 2025. Remedy Entertainment. (Accessed: 6.2.2025).
Author
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Suvi Kiviniemi
Specialist, Metropolia UASSuvi Kiviniemi is a game industry specialist with an entrepreneurial background, a DEIB advocate, and a firm believer in the power of communities.
About the author