“Horses” Is a Hit, But Its Studio Faces Trouble
▼ Summary
– The indie horror game “Horses” was banned from Steam, jeopardizing its studio, Santa Ragione, and the director’s breakthrough project.
– The bans generated significant publicity, turning the game into a cause célèbre and making it a bestseller on the alternative storefront GOG.com.
– Despite this success, the developer remains financially precarious and fears for the studio’s future, as the audience reach still doesn’t compare to Steam’s.
– Steam’s immense market influence and inconsistent moderation create a traumatic, high-stakes environment for indie developers reliant on the platform.
– This experience is causing self-censorship, with the developer and others likely to make safer games in the future due to the fear of arbitrary bans.
The narrative horror game Horses has become an unexpected bestseller on GOG.com, a remarkable turn for a title banned from the dominant Steam platform. This success story, however, is layered with financial anxiety and industry critique, highlighting the precarious position of indie developers reliant on a single, powerful marketplace. For the studio Santa Ragione, the game’s viral notoriety is a double-edged sword, providing vital revenue while exposing the fragility of their business model without Steam’s massive audience.
After Steam’s removal of Horses two years ago, studio co-founder Pietro Righi Riva faced the grim prospect of shutting down. He recalls the difficult call he had to make to the game’s director, Andrea Lucco Borlera. “I was terrified for him,” Riva admitted. “This was his first game and he put so much work, so much passion, so many years, and it was supposed to be his big breakthrough.” The ban threatened to erase that effort entirely.
Paradoxically, the censorship became the catalyst for the game’s breakthrough. Riva’s public documentation of the bans across multiple storefronts sparked intense curiosity. Players and press wanted to know what was so controversial about a game with Dreamcast-era visuals and simple inventory puzzles that it couldn’t be sold on a platform hosting titles like Sex with Hitler 2. This scrutiny transformed Horses into a cause célèbre, driving it to the top of GOG’s charts.
Despite this surge, Riva remains cautious. “I’m relieved because with all this attention, I’m probably going to be able to give back most of the money that I had to borrow,” he said, referring to roughly half of a $100,000 loan. “But we’re not out of the woods yet, no.” The financial reprieve is welcome, but it doesn’t solve the long-term challenge of operating without access to Steam’s user base.
Riva is acutely aware that the bans manufactured the game’s visibility. “There is no way the same kind of interest would have happened,” he stated bluntly. While Santa Ragione had previous successes with games like Saturnalia, it was largely under the radar. The director, Borlera, has embraced the unexpected outcome. “He’s extremely happy with the reception that the game is getting,” Riva noted. “People are reading into the game and engaging with it in a way that he hoped.”
Yet, this engaged community cannot replicate the scale Steam offers. Riva is grateful for support from alternative storefronts like GOG, but emphasizes it’s not a substitute for Steam’s market dominance. “Even with all the publicity, all the reporting, all the reviews, everything else,” he explained, “this still does not compare to the kind of audience we would have on Steam.”
This experience underscores a critical issue for independent studios. Steam holds an outsize influence over the PC market, and developers who cannot afford console ports are subject to Valve’s often opaque and inconsistent content moderation. For Riva, the journey to success without Steam has been traumatic, affecting his team and shaping his outlook on future projects.
The ordeal is likely to have a chilling effect on creativity. “I think there is going to be, in my case, and in other people’s case, a certain degree of self-censorship,” Riva confessed. “It’s terrifying, and it’s going to make people make safer and safer games, me included.” The story of Horses is thus a tale of viral success born from adversity, but one that leaves its creators, and the wider indie community, wary of the powerful gatekeepers that control their primary path to players.
(Source: The Verge)
