Thanks for the interesting question Kenney :)

well its quite an obvious and also a complicated matter to explain.

The audience on platforms like pc and various mobile units are endless. It is true that they build up a massive crowd off users within all age groups and pretty much every taste out there.

The inital question of yours is justified by those facts but to us there are clear reasons for niche markets. To make things clear the following is just our opinion, people may think different.

1.Contra:

The mainstream market is big and overcrowded with a lot of great titles and bad titles. We all know that. As a nobody you arent going to achieve anything without professional PR even if you have a fairly decent game on your hand.

>Pro Niche:

A smaller amount of people can be reached more easily. Less competition gets you known within your scene pretty fast and also very popular. The customers are very dedicated and often turn out to be exactly the type of person to like your game. Why would you want the biggest audience in the world when you are creating something that is dedicated to a certain group of users anyway? You are making games for a special audience, with really special interests so your product in turn is regarded as something special. Doing otherwise could under some circumstances even lessen the value of what you are trying to do.

By the way have a look at the recently funded Kickstarter for Elysian Shadows:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1945059142/elysian-shadows-next-gen...

Its main audience and main reason to be funded was the commitment shown by the backers of the Dreamcast Scene.

2.Contra:

Another point that needs to be mentioned is the following.

It seems to us that a lot of people think you can be creative on every platform as long as your telling yourself:

I am an indie game developer! My game is for indie lovers who hate all that is mainstream! So I can do what I want!

That is simply not true. At least to us. Creativity itself has become mainstream on platforms with large audiences. Otherwise we would not have as many creative people developing for these audiences and those technologies. There are endless freelancers and small companies producing content similar to those that turned out to be popular with the audience. One puzzle or bubble shooting game after another... It is earning money and playing it safe what your going for on those markets. That does not mean there is nobody trying to be different on pc or mobile units, but usually those are not the succesful ones. Customers of those markets have been trained to like a certain kind of game. People who want to see different things usually also turn to other platforms.

>Pro Niche:

There is not as much content around, so you basically have a lot to say about what kind of games you would like to have running/sold on your console. It comes with a lot of creative freedom.

Ouya, Pandora and Dreamcast can be looked at as clean white papers where as pc, mobile and mainstream consoles have there prearrangements one has to go with in order to create games.

3.Contra:

The lack of personal involvement with a market and scene is a pretty great factor to ignore mainstream markets. Why should one develop or be creative within a market one does not appreciate as much? Thats a good reason to add to this list.

>Pro Niche:

We grew up with those consoles and developed our specific talents within those communities. Its a way to say thank you to the generally positive and supportive people there and also paying tribute to the systems and creative work of others that we love and appreciate very much. There isnt so much support and respect for each other within mainstream realms.

------------------------------------------- 

So I hope that makes our reason for mainly focusing on niche markets more clear. Its not like we are completely ignoring mainstream markets (PC and Linux Versions of our games are planned) however its not what we hold the highest regards for.

A very honest statement for the ending:

Everything mainstream has been a niche before and can become exactly that again. We simply choose to go with what we are able to appreciate and work with. That is what everybody should do ;)

Thanks again for asking.

Greetings!