Golden age was more around the time of Thomas Was Alone, Super Meat Boy, Spelunky, Binding of Isaac etc. There was a low barrier to entry, but also a low satura

Golden age was more around the time of Thomas Was Alone, Super Meat Boy, Spelunky, Binding of Isaac etc. There was a low barrier to entry, but also a low saturation. One good piece of polish or gimmick was enough to hook people. This was also around the time many of the titles mentioned by GP got initial backing and before people got extremely skeptical of crowdfunding games. Since then the market has gotten way more saturated. Games have gotten way higher demands on all three fronts of polish (gameplay, audio, visual). If not a roguelike / player-generated content game / simple loop, lack of content is even more killer (which is why so many indies are either arcade, sims or roguelikes, compared to AAA games). Even several of the titles mentioned in the comments would rather come out with sequels building upon their success or games highly similar to what they made before, than experiment. Most indies I checked who deviated too far from their big hit (devs from Castle Crashers, Deathroad to Canada, Binding of Isaac) had nowhere near the same level of success. Not too bad considering they can coast by just off of their main hit's success, but it does illustrate the lack of moderate success. Or you can try make a big hit with a meme game (anime optional) and be forgotten in the next 2-5 years.