>I think the main issue here is that people don't clearly delineate making games from making money.
>You wanna make games? No one's stopping you from creating the most whackier experimental game this world has ever seen.
Creators still have to pay rent, buy food, and pay other bills. So unless you're privileged enough to be able to pay your bills without making any money, then yeah you do need money to make games.
The guy who made Banished contracted his way through the lengthy (something like 4 years) development. Functionally it cost him a lot of money and effort over time, but he did not need the extra overhead of a publisher (unless you consider Steam a sort of pseudo-publisher, which it is).
Money is just a thing we use to get other people who don't like us enough to work for us for free to do things for us. There are ways to get resources to make development possible beyond saving up a ton of cash (which carries a lot of risk in and of itself).
The main reason I ended up in boring IT world instead of gaming, even though I do know a few people in the industry, is a consequence how the whole industry works.
More so in Europe where not so many games make a hit. For each Crysis and Killzone there are lots of 1 game closed studios.
>You wanna make games? No one's stopping you from creating the most whackier experimental game this world has ever seen.
Creators still have to pay rent, buy food, and pay other bills. So unless you're privileged enough to be able to pay your bills without making any money, then yeah you do need money to make games.