GTAV: 155 million copies made by around 5000 people listed on their game credits while ago (probably way more did work there since there + many people worked on it but didn't appear in the credit).
There are always exceptions for everything. But the AAA games on average sell some millions of copies, while indies on average sell a few thousand copies on Steam.
Game companies use contractors, which is cheap to pay for, compared to full time employees, which you have to pay full time benefits.
Problem with gaming like I said previously, is the day1, which kills most sales. If your game is broken on day1, you lose potential sales. This is the time, when most devs give up, after horrendous launch.
As for your indie, most of them are carbon copies. The ones that are successful are those who bring good gameplay.
<How much does it cost to make an indie game? You're looking at a range from
about $50,000 to $750,000 to make an indie game. The lower $50k amount is the total cost for a solo developer, on average, to work for a year on a game (at least in our experience). As you add more people, the cost goes up.>
Most indie games cost between 5$ to 20$. At 1k copies, that is $5k-$20k. At 10k copies, that is 50k-$200k. At 100k copies, that is that is $500k to $2m. You take out Steam cut, and you get $350k-$1.4m profit.
The 5$ game is very cheap to make, while the 20$ is little bit expensive. If 20$ is $400k budget game, they will gain $1m profit, if they sell 100k, which isn't hard to do for 20$ game quality.
If they charge more money for their games, it will not sell alot, which will make them alot of sales.
For example, if 20$ game quality decided to sell it at 30$, it won't hit 100k. While the 20$ price will sell more than 100k, since its cheap.