Making Arcade-Only Indie Games for a Withdrawn World - Nikita Mikros | grokludo 23

Imagine approaching an arcade venue with the following pitch.

You've got a machine that takes up the space of seven arcade cabinets. It's five vs five – and that's the newer, scaled-down version – with retro pixel art graphics, and there's a moderate learning curve.

"How much to play?" the proprietor asks. You say it'll be the cheapest machine in the room.

Nikita Mikros and Josh DeBonis made that pitch every time they sold a Killer Queen cabinet, and while it seems like something owners might balk at, the game has been a sensation in the US. Some have even called it an arcade revival.

When I tried it in San Francisco, I was warned – "People are obsessed with this game." But after returning to Sydney, I had to admire its success from afar. One of the downsides to arcade games is some markets are hard to get a foothold in.

Here in Australia, what passes for an "arcade" these days is row after row of gacha machines and rigged carnival games, with a couple of token 90s beat-em-ups in the corner. Mikros says this is par for the course, and those games are just for the dads – the industry calls them "the dad games."

This is why Killer Queen's success actually springs out of adult venues like pubs, bowling alleys, and axe throwing joints selling alcohol – the arcade games just need to bring people in, and money is made on drinks.

Odd, isn't it, that pubs there have less gambling than the "family friendly" spots?

Bringing people in is something Killer Queen proved to be very good at. It's an eye-catcher, this mammoth machine with crowds around it, and people want to poke their head in to see what the fuss is about. At $2 per game (the whole game, not each player) it's easy to try. Friends are made. Communities are established. There's even a dedicated competitive scene.

All of a sudden, this success story doesn't seem counterintuitive. It seems brilliant.

Nikita Mikros joins grokludo to talk about making arcade-only games in a world that just wants us doomscrolling, as well as the challenges Killer Queen had when Covid hit, and he also gives us a sneak peek at the new games he's working on.

I hope you enjoy it, and thank you all so much for supporting grokludo!