Silksong is a Threat to the Gaming Industry
They don't like that it is doing well
The long awaited sequel to Hollow Knight is finally out and players have being loving it, not only for it being fun and challenging, but also for keeping the spirit that made the first game as successful as it was.
While I haven't played it yet, because I'm just going through the first one to get the full experience, seeing so many good things being said about it gives me a lot of enthusiasm to try it out once I get my hands on it.
However, the internet being as it is, it looks like not everyone is happy about Silksong and its success.
Let's talk about that.
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📢The announcement
While Team Cherry, the developers, revealed the Silksong trailer 6 years ago in their YouTube channel.
Its release kept getting pushed year after year to the point where it pretty much became a meme within the community and players would often joke at every gaming event that Silksong would appear and drop a release date.
However, it never happened, so we all started to question if it ever will.
Then, after all these years, the devs dropped the announcement that the game will release on September 4th, 2025.
But the best part?
It only costs $20, has regional pricing, and it was available on Game Pass from day one
At a time when gaming is becoming more expensive each year, seeing games like Silksong being this accessible is a rare but more than welcome surprise.
This announcement, while it was sudden, it revived the love for the series so much that player numbers on the first game skyrocketed and sold 15 million units, according to a Bloomberg article.
Not only that, but other studios and developers decided to delay the release of their games to the next year so they don't have to compete against it, which is a smart decision if you ask me.
But an even bigger surprise was that the demand for Silksong was so big that it did something I don't think we have ever seeing happen before.
It crashed all the stores
Steam, Nintendo, PlayStation, and the Xbox stores were all down due to the sheer number of people trying to buy it.
Honestly, it feels good to see that a game made by a small team is getting this much recognition.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so much), not everyone is happy about it.
Even though, this is great for players, for some reason there are some people who don't only have a problem with Silksong's sudden announcement, but also with it's pricing, saying that it is "too low" and that it "sets the wrong expectations on players".
I'm not surprised that they are saying these things at this point.
💢The complaints
Silksong has being doing so well that you might expect most gaming news media to praise it, right?
Well...some did anything but that.
While players have being having a good time with it, a few media outlets were mad that Team Cherry didn't share any review copies with them before their Kickstarter backers and players.
I don't understand why they would be mad at this.
Silksong is a community funded game so it makes perfect sense to first give access to the people who supported it and kept the hype alive all these years while they were developing it.
And it's not like they are banned from playing the game, they just have to buy it like everyone else.
The complaints didn't end there, though.
Some people were criticizing Team Cherry because apparently they had the responsibility of letting other indie studios know ahead of time when Silksong was supposed to come out, while others had a problem with the pricing, going as far as to call it a "disservice to the industry".
However, Team Cherry is an indie studio, Silksong it's their game, and they can do whatever they want with it. Other companies are not their problem.
Their only responsibility is with:
- Their fans — who kept their games relevant and the hype for Silksong alive all these years
- Their players — who bought and shared their first game and will do the same with their new title
- Their supporters — who helped fund the game on their Kickstarter so they could develop the game in peace
- Their community — who will have their back when things get tough or even defend them from bad actors
They prioritize the people who actually matter for a game to do well, and what we are seeing now are the results.
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🤔One valid argument
Out of all the concerns that were said about Silksong, there is only one that made sense to me.
The comment said by TheRoseExperience was a quote retweet from another post by an indie developer who now isn't sure how to fairly price his game anymore after seen that Silksong will cost $20.
As a dev making a smaller Metroidvania than Silksong, which I originally though would be fairly priced at 20 USD... what should I price it now?
— Lone Fungus (@BastiArtGames) September 1, 2025
It'll be a 10-15+ hours game, but it was made by one person with limited dev time and funds, I can't afford to give it away for free. https://t.co/FFcgz6TI1z
NOTE: I've seen the game of this dev and I mean it when I say that 10, 15, or even 20 dollars is a perfectly reasonable price in my opinion.
And you know what? That's fair.
If I had developed a game of a specific genre and then a big title from said genre drops, it is in the same price range I was going to give mine, and I know that my game isn't on the same scale... I wouldn't be sure what to price it, either.
However, again:
I'm not other studios' responsibility, just like other studios and developers are not my responsibility
I'm not saying this to be dismissive, it's literally how competition works in every industry.
At the end of the day, game developers are making a creative product people buy for entertainment, and the games that do well are those that deliver on player expectations.
The higher the price, the bigger the expectations, more selective people are with their purchases, and the less money they will have to buy other things.
In the case of Team Cherry, what they did is something that we rarely see nowadays.
They overdelivered
They did this not just by creating an amazing game, but by trying to give their players the best experience possible without gatekeeping it by pricing themselves out of their budget.
This is something other developers and studios can learn from if they would take a moment to study what Team Cherry did, instead of villainizing them, and I hope they do.
📈How Silksong benefits the rest of the industry
Even though many people have said how Silksong will "damage" the industry, I want to offer a different perspective and mention a few ways I believe it will actually benefit the space.
👀More eyes in the indie scene
Discoverability has always been one of the main challenges in the gaming space. Even more so when the titles that tend to make the most noise are those from big triple A companies.
Yet here we have a game created by an indie studio making headlines everywhere.
The reason why this is a good thing, is because it shows to players who are used to only buying from the big companies that there are amazing games being made by smaller, passionate teams.
Isn't that what we always wanted?
For players, casual or otherwise, to see that the gaming industry is more than these franchises from huge established companies that keep pumping out games every year.
If so, I believe that Silksong and any successful indie games before and after do exactly that.
Also, I have to be honest here.
Remember when I mentioned that many games were delayed because of Silksong's sudden release?
Well, ironically, I would have never heard about any of them if their devs hadn't announced the delays and thanks to that I already wishlisted a few of them.
⛓️💥It broke the rules
During the last few years, we have seen many of the big players in the gaming space, follow a certain pattern.
I'm talking about:
- Creating and releasing an unoptimized game
- Investing ridiculously big budgets marketing
- Building excessively big teams only to lay them off later
- Crunching culture and "development hell"
- Prioritizing critics and/or investors over players
- Making games ridiculously more expensive or aggressively monetized
In other words, they have turned the industry into a corporate mess that has forgotten that for games to do well they need to be fun for the people who buy them in the first place.
On the other hand, Team Cherry did exactly the opposite by:
- Releasing their game when it was complete and as optimized as possible
- Dropping a single trailer and just a couple of announcements on Twitter (X)
- Keeping their team small and focused
- Having a healthy and fun developing process
- Putting their community first over critics and not being publicly traded
- Giving their game a fair price, so more people can enjoy it
This way, they proved that smaller studios don't need to play by the rules the bigger companies are trying to push. They only have to focus on the things and the people that actually matter.
🔎Players will look for other similar games
One of the things the people that complained forget about gamers, is how we react when we find a game that we like.
Sometimes, when we like a game, we play it over and over again until we have found every secret, item, alternative ending, or reference, but once we are done, we do something else:
We search for other games that give a similar experience
I know this because it happened to me.
I never played a boomer - shooter until I played DOOM for the first time, and now my Steam Library has various similar titles. Not only that, but one of the reasons why I was open to trying Hollow Knight is because of Blasphemous, which is another metroidvania known for being challenging.
I really like that game, so I thought that Hollow Knight might be similar based on how creators and other players were describing it, and they were right.
Obviously, these two games are not exactly the same, but that's the thing – they don't have to be.
Players don't want clones. They want games that bring their own spin to a theme or genre, while sharing features they are familiar with. That's how games can stand out from each other and build their own identity.
💰Players will have more money to buy other games
As you know by now, video games have been increasing in price every year.
With the introduction of $80 games and some companies pushing for $100, players are now way more selective with what titles they buy. Even more so since the cost of living is not exactly improving.
People can't afford to purchase expensive games all the time and when they do buy one, they will have less money to buy other titles.
That's why it's good that Silksong is only $20
It brings people into the indie scene, it makes players interested in similar games, it shows that games don't have to be ridiculously expensive for developers to make a profit, and leaves players with enough money to buy other titles.
It keeps the industry alive and that's what we all want.
Also, it pricing was such a good move that communities dedicated to pirate games decided to support Silksong by actually buying it.
It was also the first time I hear about something like that happening.
Final Thoughts
Silksong has certainly caused quite the stir in the gaming industry and it's not hard to see why.
It's an amazing game from a studio that put it's community and fans first every step of the way and it's now reaping the rewards.
That is also why other pople are mad at Team Cherry.
They made an example of what independent studios and devs can achieve if they do their own thing instead of following the rules bigger companies have being trying to push.
No big budgets, expensive marketing, big teams, or high pricing. Just vision, passion, and respect for the game they are creating and players who will buy it.
I think the results speak for themselves.
That's all for today.
Expand your game library with our official Nexus store.
Nexus.GG has partnered with us to bring you our very own video game storefront, where you find a carefully curated selection of games that I think are worth your time and money.
You aren't getting some random games, either. Bioshock Infinite, Dead Cells, Vermintide II, and Dying Light are some of the titles you can find.
Support Brother Angelo and grow your Steam Library.
