Horses is a hit, but its studio might still be in trouble

After an independent narrative horror game Horses was banned from Steam two years ago, putting Santa Ragione studio in danger of closure. Co-founder of the studio and Horses Producer Pietro Righi Riva had to make a difficult phone call to the game’s director, Italian filmmaker Andrea Lucco Borlera. “I was terrified for him,” Riva said in an interview with The edge. “It was his first game and he put in so much work, so much passion, so many years, and this was supposed to be his big breakthrough.”

But even though it all sounds like a happy ending, Riva isn’t ready to breathe easy yet. “I’m relieved because with all this attention, I’ll probably be able to return most of the money [roughly half of $100,000] that I had to borrow,” he said. “But we are not out of the [woods] yet no.

Horses is a short, crisp game with Dreamcast-era graphics and gameplay that’s less about clicking on items to insert and remove them from your inventory. And even though Santa Ragione has had success with Saturnalia And Prince of the Milky Way before the bans, it was a largely unknown developer. Riva is aware of what this looks like, recognizing that bans have been instrumental in Horses piercing through the noise.

“There’s no way the same kind of interest would have happened,” he said. And despite that tough first call, Riva says Borlera is very happy with the effect the bans have had on his game. “He’s extremely happy with the reception the game is getting,” Riva said. “People read the game and […] engage with it in a way he hoped.

This commitment, however, is not enough to compensate for the access Steam could have provided. Although Riva is grateful for the support of players and showcases like GOG, it is not enough and he still fears greatly for the future of Santa Ragione. “Even with all the publicity, all the reporting, all the criticism, everything else,” he said. “It still doesn’t compare to the type of audience we would have on Steam.”

Steam has an outsized influence on the PC gaming market. Indie studios that can’t afford the costs of porting their games to consoles are at the mercy of Valve’s vague, capricious, and often inconsistent moderation whims. However Horses found a circuitous path to relative success without it, Riva said this journey has been traumatic, affecting not only him and his team, but also his peers and his future plans.

“I think there is going to be, in my case, and in that of others, a certain degree of self-censorship,” he said. “It’s terrifying, and it’s going to inspire people to make safer and safer games, including me.”