When Tanya Short first pitched the idea for Boyfriend Dungeon, a computer game where the player's romantic partners are monster-vanquishing weapons, publishers didn't seem overly interested.
"They all rejected it. They said the name wasn't interesting, or they just didn't understand it," says Ms Short, the director and chief executive of independent game studio, Kitfox Games.
It was only after a growing buzz about the game, and some initial funds, via Kickstarter, that the games platforms changed their tune.
Boyfriend Dungeon is now available on a variety of systems, including PC, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.
But Ms Short worries that quirky games like hers, designed by creatively independent studios, will have an even harder route to market in the future - because the biggest corporate firms in gaming are expanding.
In January, Microsoft said it plans to buy Activision Blizzard, one of the world's largest game developers. At just less than $69bn (£51bn), it would be the biggest takeover in video games history and sees Microsoft gain franchises like Call of Duty and Warcraft.
Just weeks later, rival, Sony announced a deal to buy game developer Bungie, worth $3.6bn (£2.7bn).
Reportedly, Microsoft's deal will still have to satisfy the scrutiny of the US Federal Trade Commission, whose chair, Lina Khan, has expressed some opposition to big tech monopolies.
By BBC News.