--- title: How LuGus Studios Turned a Viral Prototype Into a... description: LuGus Studios co-founder Kevin Haelterman shares how the Belgian indie studio survived 15+ years by pivoting from work-for-hire to self-publishing with... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-lugus-studios-turned-a-viral-prototype-into-a-successful-business-cje0ectla twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How LuGus Studios Turned a Viral Prototype Into a Successful Business | daily.dev og:description: LuGus Studios co-founder Kevin Haelterman shares how the Belgian indie studio survived 15+ years by pivoting from work-for-hire to self-publishing with... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-lugus-studios-turned-a-viral-prototype-into-a-successful-business-cje0ectla og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/cJE0eCTla.png og:image:alt: How LuGus Studios Turned a Viral Prototype Into a Successful Business og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How LuGus Studios Turned a Viral Prototype Into a Successful Business **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 14 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary LuGus Studios co-founder Kevin Haelterman shares how the Belgian indie studio survived 15+ years by pivoting from work-for-hire to self-publishing with Liftoff, a drone simulator born from a viral prototype. Key lessons include building an audience before the product, treating updates as marketing, running games as live services without toxic monetization, and staying lean at 13 people by focusing on impact over headcount. The studio also invests in the local Belgian game dev ecosystem through meetups and a co-working space called Spawn Point. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [15 Years of Indie Dev In 4 Bits of Advice](https://daily.dev/posts/15-years-of-indie-dev-in-4-bits-of-advice-io7fn5jjf) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Lessons from going indie after a decade at id Software](https://daily.dev/posts/lessons-from-going-indie-after-a-decade-at-id-software-6db9f7vdr) · Game Developer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Slopecrashers Dev Talks Game Development, Publishing & What's to Come](https://daily.dev/posts/slopecrashers-dev-talks-game-development-publishing-what-s-to-come-x6g2u83s5) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#steam](https://daily.dev/tags/steam) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-lugus-studios-turned-a-viral-prototype-into-a-successful-business-cje0ectla) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How LuGus Studios Turned a Viral Prototype Into a Successful Business","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-lugus-studios-turned-a-viral-prototype-into-a-successful-business-cje0ectla","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-lugus-studios-turned-a-viral-prototype-into-a-successful-business-cje0ectla"},"datePublished":"2026-03-23T19:40:19.997Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T19:40:49.693Z","description":"LuGus Studios co-founder Kevin Haelterman shares how the Belgian indie studio survived 15+ years by pivoting from work-for-hire to self-publishing with...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e17d4fa02e305beccf6020b4485f2508?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e17d4fa02e305beccf6020b4485f2508?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"80 LEVEL","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"80 LEVEL","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/78eebcd76c154e6bbfd565fed7dc4093","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-lugus-studios-turned-a-viral-prototype-into-a-successful-business-cje0ectla","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"steam","timeRequired":"PT14M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80 LEVEL","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How LuGus Studios Turned a Viral Prototype Into a Successful Business"}]} ```