Wrong question, in my humble opinion. A bubble is speculative at its core. It’s about traders, the stock market, investors, speculators and shit placing much more value on a thing than what it’s worth. The distance with reality grows massive, until everybody wakes up and "pop!" all that sweet sweet wealth (or savings, for the peasants) vanished into thin air. Think housing market or beanie babies.

The question here is if indie game dev can remain sustainable. It’s like restaurants: the more there are, the harder it gets. The risk is not nearly as sudden and explosive as a bubble though. If there are too many, some shops close, others shrink.

Furthermore, the tools and knowledge required for gamedev keep getting more readily available. It’s an art too, so there will always be someone somewhere with the overwhelming drive to do it, profitability be damned.

The article actually addresses this, but I feel "indie games bubble" is simply too broad a term. Is there a medium-high budget indie game bubble? Maybe. But can indie games in general even have a bubble? Fuckloads of indie games are passion projects, or made from crowdfunding money, or otherwise not based around the idea that they have to be the "product" of a sustainable business, making the whole idea of a "bubble" pointless. If the bubble pops, will itch indies stop making games? Will passionate solo devs languishing at double digit Steam review numbers stop releasing games? I don't think they will.

No. There will always be a demand for new videogames and indie studios make the best ones.

If anything the AAA bubble is bursting right now.

Someone didn‘t understand the meaning of speculative bubble

Betteridge's Law of Headlines still applies. Asking that question shows a misunderstanding of what a bubble is and also assumes that's what's happening right now is the only thing that will continue to happen into the future, rather than the ebbs and flows that come in any economic conditions. Current economic conditions are affecting a variety of industries right now, not just indie games, which the article acknowledges with regards to layoffs at big AAA studios. The market will only bear X amount of some thing, and spending is slowing, so X has to lower with it. That affects all video games right now, from Fortnite to Shadow Gambit.

The marketplace has grown a lot, so it might be harder to stand out. But indie studios tend to operate in a far more sustainable way.

As long as there is a demand for games that are complete, affordable and GOOD... the indie game market will stay healthy.

I could see there being fatigue with particular genres of indie games (Metroidvanias, Rougelites, First-Person Horror without combat, speedrunner-oriented 2D platformers) but not with the very concept.

you could call it an indie game fad, echoing others, I dunno about "bubble".

So the article is arguing what is indie and what is not...

This has nothing to do with "bubble" in the economic sense. I was worried when I read the title but looks like things are alright.

Seems like from reading this the answer is if there is it's popped mostly and if there isn't then things will continue on as is maybe getting slightly worse.

Will there ever be not a bubble? What else but games is there to create when everything is automated?

There are probably multiple indie game bubbles, like roguelike card game bubbles or Metroidvania 2d retro 16 bit graphics game bubbles.