I think the lone developer, or lone lead developer as it truly is now, is still viable. It is probably better this thinking is out there though. Most games are a small team or require assets of many developers nowadays. The land rush is over but gaming is still the biggest draw.
Most projects we work on are in house or contract and they have a couple or few people on teams. Sponsored games and advergames were also the money makers with flash gaming and will be with WebGL and more. Internal IP or titles also help pad revenues and transitions. Gaming is big in agency promotions. Gaming is bigger still in mobile.
It is very difficult no doubt but even a single developer is more like a team now with things like Unity/Unreal/Cocos2d-x/etc as the engine team, asset stores for many things, contractors for art/audio/design/development and plenty of markets to get into. The age of the from scratch lone developer is over, but there is just as much opportunity as ever for teams of 1-5 or so.
Most projects we work on are in house or contract and they have a couple or few people on teams. Sponsored games and advergames were also the money makers with flash gaming and will be with WebGL and more. Internal IP or titles also help pad revenues and transitions. Gaming is big in agency promotions. Gaming is bigger still in mobile.
It is very difficult no doubt but even a single developer is more like a team now with things like Unity/Unreal/Cocos2d-x/etc as the engine team, asset stores for many things, contractors for art/audio/design/development and plenty of markets to get into. The age of the from scratch lone developer is over, but there is just as much opportunity as ever for teams of 1-5 or so.