Does "Indie Game" Mean Anything Anymore? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you 😃) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: to.pbs.org/DonateGAME
We talk about indie games. A lot. But what qualifies as an indie game? Does it need to have scrappy DIY beginnings? Is the amount of funding important? How about the number of copies sold? Today's cornucopia of "indie games" and their wide-ranging success seems to indicate a golden age for game creators. But who truly deserves the "indie" moniker, should these diverse properties even be under that same label, or should we get rid of the term entirely?! Watch the episode and find out!
ASSETS:
docs.google.com/document/d/1B...
-----------------------------------------
MUSIC:
"Oh Damn!" by CJVSO
/ cjvso-oh-damn
"Digital Sonar" by Brink
"Mindphuck" by Known To Be Lethal
• Video
"After Hours"
"Lakes" by Chooga
• Chooga - 3170 Lakes
"Beautiful Days" by Extan
/ beautiful-days
"Spectrum Subdiffusion Mix" by Foniqz
/ foniqz-spectrum-subdif...
"Good Way Song" by Electronic Rescue
"Alice y Bob" by Javier Rubio and Parsec
archive.org/details/escala19_...
"Sleet" by Kubbi
/ kubbi-sleet
"Toaster" by Kubbi
/ toaster
"Patriotic Songs of America" by New York Military Band and the American Quartet
freemusicarchive.org/music/New...
"Lets Go Back To The Rock" by Outsider
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/440...
"Run" by Outsider
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/440...
"Fame" by Statue of Diveo
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/352...
"Freedom Weekends" by Statue of Diveo
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/352...
-----------------------------------------
And thanks to Iain Andrews for the use of his photos in the background: / enwandrews
What do you think about the show? We're dying for feedback.
Tweet at us! @pbsgameshow
Follow us on Facebook / gameshowpbs
Email us! pbsgameshow [at] gmail [dot] com
Follow us on Reddit / pbsgameshow
Hosted by Jamin Warren (@jaminwar)
See more on games and culture on his site: www.killscreendaily.com
Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)
And regarding my glasses:
• Has League of Legends ...
I don't see the confusion. "Indie" refers to "Independent" meaning that the CREATION (concept, direction, art, gameplay style, etc) are INDEPENDENT from outside influence or orders, no big company or investors giving "feedback" on how the game should be. It's quite simple, at least for me it is.
Peace
By the way... check out my upcoming puzzle game! facebook.com/colorino
(yes yes... shameless self promotion... I AM INDIE! ... no money)
What about Devolver Digital and 505 Games, which work to publish indie games, our Microsoft and Sony. Technically, Microsoft published Super Meat Boy and Fez, which were some of the games that kicked off the indie scene
Is Valve independent from outside influences? They're a privately owned company, so there are no investors.
GastonAsston But Valve's initial success was funded by Sierra money. They were lucky and able to break off and find a ton of success by themselves, but they didn't get there on their own. Valve also ventures into things which extend beyond just making games, such as Steam OS or their controller... Or Steam itself. They aren't just about making games.
CW AtWork But lots of Indie devs had publishers too and their game development is still independent from shareholders.
Indie is more of a genre nowadays rather than an term for game developers
That was what I was thinking.
i always thought of indie games as being made by a small group of people, not recognized by any bigger more established game dev
Except it's not a genre because there are indie games in literally every genre now. If anything, indie implies that the games aren't as polished or aren't as long as traditional games.
How can they be a genre if a lot of them aren't remotely similar?
what I meant wasn't literal
I had this same argument about Indie music back in the day.
When I was young, for a band to be "Indie" all they had to be was not on a record label.
They were producing and releasing their own music themselves, with their own money and their own labour. No matter how popular they got and no matter what they sounded like, that was what Indie meant.
Down the line, Indie became a sound people tried to emulated. Indie record labels started to spring up singing bands that were going after that Indie sound. They teamed bands up with producers, marketing agencies, hype men, image consultants, etc.
In return, cut of the band's revenue from shows and album sales went to the label in order to pay them back for all the work they did on them :P
The term lost all meaning.
I think the exact same thing is happening to games right now.
Indie games used to be self produced, self distributed and self advertised.
Now they are part of a corporate mechanism that is trying to achieve and perfect the "Indie Game" look and feel.
Granted the dynamics of music marketing and games marketing are pretty different, but that's the closest simile I could come up with.
Huge production firms like Nintendo, or EA or what have you have the backing of investors to help put these titles into production, hire the best graphics people, the best software writers, the best marketers etc and get the game to make as much money as it possibly can.
Games like Minecraft are indie games because they aren't reliant on the money from investors to get produced and their marketing is largely word of mouth.
Via that system, they can be as successful as they possibly can be.
THAT si what I think is the true definition of an Indie game.
This is the first time I watched this show where I disagreed with the thesis at kick-off...and the show succeeded in changing my mind.
Great video man, as always! This is the exact thing I'm struggling with on the business end of forming an "Indie" Dev studio. When I have to present the business plan to a bank or investors, its always a challenge portraying the correct vision of what my prospective studio will make as a defined product versus that of a AAA studio. I find for the general idea of it (or at least for those that are business minded) a focus on the type of experience that comes with "indie" is the clearest defining aspect (though i totally agree with you, it is blurring quickly). Being "indie" takes all of the factors you listed like smaller production and budget as opportunities rather than limitations. This results in the experience of an indie game likely to be much more unique than that of an AAA game, because indie game development can focus on unique ideas or design, even if it isn't as monetizable as an AAA game would be. Dear Esther is always the example I go to for this concept, as the idea, design, and development of the game is only feasible on the "indie" level, as an AAA studio would never be able to produce something so small and intimate simply because of their bottom line of expenses.
Indie game developer here.
I think the most important element that defines the "indie" label, is the simple, focused creative vision.
The concept for an indie game often comes from a single person or a very small group. The games will often have a clear, simple "design goal" to them: Either a story to tell, a specific gameplay gimmick, a specific/weird/unique art style, a world to explore, special overall game feel, game design philosophy, or an artistic/personal statement. AAA games by comparison tends to kind of hit all or most of those notes equally. They still have specific design goals like all projects do, but its a lot less single-minded. Indie games tend to be much more focused on fewer elements driving the game's direction, at the expense of overall polish. This is just a natural result of having fewer cooks on the pot. Of course many indie games still have polish, but I find this to be the most meaningful element of the definition.
Indie isn't sufficient as a descriptor when talking about a game, but it does carry meaning, therefore it is still useful.
A lot of genres and labels have arbitrary and vague definitions, it doesn't make those labels any less meaningful.
Child of Light is indie then?
Leonardo Santos I see what you did there.
Frankie Smile rules. Do more timelapse pixel art, I look forward to that stuff an you're basically the only guy on RUclips doing it. Actually maybe I 'll do it some day, my art looks like this: s22.photobucket.com/user/JoshKing/media/gristlegut7.png.html
I've found myself getting excited about indie games more and more lately. Teslagrad, Popup Dungeon, Heart Forth Alicia, Hover, Hex Heroes, 90s Arcade Racer, and Shovel Knight are making me shudder in anticipation. I'm excited to go home today so I can purchase Scram Kitty and His Buddy on Rails, which looks like an amazing shooter on the level of Radiant Silvergun, Gunstar Heroes, Bangai-O, and other classics.
Does anyone know what video that is where Mario is talking to the protagonist from Braid? "Does this look like a goomba to you?" Looks hilarious, I'd like to see it in full.
Dorkly, I believe. Not sure of the exact name though.
KirbyPhelpsPK I found it, it's called something like "Mario is too mainstream."
I think it is an episode from Super Cafe in the HISHE channel
Read the description. It's linked there.
Ross Llewallyn Yeah that's how I found it, but at the time I made that comment I was on my phone and didn't want to open a Google Docs document just to find one video.
I find that the "Indy" games more often than not are created by a team whose dedication to the game runs deeper than making money. "Indy" game companies seem to have the attitude "It will be released when it's ready" attitude towards there games. They are in it to make a game they love and they do not care how long it takes. I actually am head of an "Indy" game developer. We are creating the basic story and concept art for our first game and coding is scheduled to start in a few months. When laying out the timeline for the game we decided that 2016 was the earliest possible year for release if we want to create a game that we are proud of. That "We need to think it is perfect before its done" attitude is what makes "Indy" games Indy.
Hi everyone, something like 5 years ago two friends and I decided to develop an engine and after that a game (I'm a programmer and my two friends are also programmers).
One year after(4 years ago) we started to develop a game with our engine, so, we felt confident enough to call ourselves "indie".
Something like a year and a half later, another friend join us to help us with the business part.
We worked in an internship to get some money for the game, and we got a very modest budget, but a budget.
Using that budget we hired for outsourcing a musician, some artists and we bought some sounds.
Time after, a writer joined to us.
In 2014 we published an Early Access(not on Steam) and we got mixed reception, most of the critics said that our project had potential, but only that, potential, also, we suffered a lot with the marketing.
Some months ago we came to an agreement with Bandai Namco to help us to improve the game and now our game will be published with Bandai Namco.
With that help we hired a very talented musician, a very talented sound producer, an small but brilliant art studio, and also, two interns wanted to join our project.
So, right now in our studio we have 3 programmers, a business manager, a writer, two interns(one for legal stuff, another one is programmer), also, in the development team we have the musician, the sound producer, and the arists(something like 10 people).
That means that right now more than 20 persons worked on our project and we are being funded and published by Bandai Namco but for most of the time we worked as a self funded studio.
I don't think we should call ourselves indie, but also, we are not AAA.
luis enrique vargas azcona How did you get in touch with Bandai Namco?
It was in the Sony's DevSummit
I kind of agree. We seen to categorize games in overly broad terms. We have Indie on the lower end of costs/team size (or whatever criteria you use), and AAA on the high end, and an unnamed middle section.
But games are games are games. Being independent doesn't really tell you much of anything anymore.
I do find it odd that we refer to some games as "AAA", but we never seem to refer to any as just A, or AA. Curious.
Triple A games is just a term the gaming industry created in order to help the audience distinguishing good titles from the poorly developed ones. It was based on the academic grading in the US. AAA was an acronym, but has been miss-used so as to lose the acronym's meaning & reduce the term to being a very polished game.
I think the biggest problem with the term "Indie Game" is that literally, it is a description of the development process and environment, rather than anything concrete about the game itself, meanwhile, most people think of the term and use it as if it were a label of genre.
But this is why it's not a very good label, because genre is concerned with the actual product, not the process, and so whenever people use it like a genre, it doesn't reliably work to describe the games.
What adds to the confusion is that many people don't even realize there are two concerns to separate here. Hence, you could argue all night about what are the right parameters to be an "indie" company, and when you finally agree, you still wouldn't be any better off describing indie games.
Fun fact: Jamin Warren (the host of this show) is actually in "Indie Game: The Movie". He says a few lines about Fez about 12 minutes in.
Was just watching the movie and was surprised.
You hit the nail on the head. Indie was a movement to "fight the man". And back when it started in the 2000's, the developers literally were the "poor, eating ramen, working two jobs" types. However, the change in the *economics* of the situation means that "indie" can be big business. And thus what is happening is that indie developers are slowly displacing classically published games.
Before anyone disagrees too vehemently, this follows a pattern known as "the innovators dilemma". Harvard Professor Clayton Christianson first described the situation in his book of the same name which he published in the late 90's. In his book, he described how "disruptive technologies" (since simplified into "disruptive innovations" due to disruptions coming in forms other than technological ones) can produce fundamental changes in the economics of a business.
The disruption will typically start small and chase the incumbent businesses out of niche areas that they don't want anyway. The disruptors will use the capital they gain to then chase the incumbents further up-market. Eventually the existing players in the market will find themselves serving only the high-end of the market shortly before that high-end is also consumed by the disruptors, thus ending the incumbents.
If you look at indie games vs. publishers, you can see exactly that. Publishers have moved up-market to where they only serve the high-end gamer. Your episode on the cost of gaming is reflective of this situation. They want you to buy more stuff to keep gaming so that they can continue to feed their voracious, hollywood-sized investments in creating each game.
Unfortunately for the publishers (and very fortunately for the average gamer) commoditization in the market will eventually wipe out the high-end competitive advantages they have. High-end techniques like motion capture and quality voice acting will eventually be offered as services by commodity businesses looking to expand past a few "big customers". This means that in a few years, the small-ish studios we have been thinking of as "indie" will be capable of producing their own Call of Duty or World of Warcraft quality games. Heck, a quick check of steam suggests we're getting pretty darn close already.
In effect, classic published gaming is dead. So-called indie gaming is the future. Long live gaming!
There was an article on Indiestatik by who I'm pretty sure was Chris Priestman, basically saying that the moniker of "indie" is pointless as long as we keep arguing about what does and doesn't fit into some arbitrary, binary category, and that the real reason we even call indie games indie is rooted in the much, much more important issue of funding. Basically we need to worry less about what is and isn't indie and more about which developers really need our attention and support in order to thrive.
Indie games exist! An indie game is something personal that someone has experienced and feels the need to express it through a medium in this case a game. It doesn’t have to do with how many people are working on it or the budget.
I think of games as having 3 levels. Almost as if in tiers.
-Indie being lower tier such as the game Turbo Dismount (Steam). Its a small group of people, if even anymore then just one person, not a big budget really. The person/group/company is not really known at all. The game likely never becomes super popular. The game makes money, but not enough to live off for very long.
-(insert word for this middle tier). Games like Payday 2 who have a bit bigger amount of people, a bigger budget. The games /group/company is much more known then an indie game, but not so well known that anyone who games will know the name. A the games is popular but not so popular that everyone knows what it is. But its probably at least heard of somewhat. It makes more money then an indie game and the makers could live longer off the money.
-Mainstream market game. This is a game like Farcry 3. A large group of people with a massive budget. The games company everyone knows about. The game makes a ton of money and the game is well known, even if someone isn't interested in it. The money made is so much that they can not only live off the money for a long time, but they have enough to make more games.
The thing about this tier system is your place in it can change as these factors grow. Minecraft is a great example of this. It went from Indie game, to the middle tier, then to the mainstream market game. If you somehow have not heard of it, you wouldn't realize it was an indie game at one point.
Obviously in all of this the problem is that middle tier doens't have a name yet. If we had one we could classify games better. Maybe we could call the middle tier games "Midmarket Games".
I think it helps to think about indie games in a historical perspective. I mean, when the label appeared and began to gain its popularity, the sceene just was a couple of people making games for flash and distributing them through blogs and forums. The same happens with many other arts. For example, I studied literature and there are dozens of definitions of literature. Every definition highlights an important aspect, but leaves out many works that we would consider literature. And then chosing a definition, becomes a broad-sense political choice: is it aesthetics? Is it resources? Is it commercial success? What you consider an indie game tells more about you than it tells about games.
For example, I work in small studio. My boss doesn't consider it an "indie studio" because he thinks 10 people is too big for an indie development. And, like you said, that number doesn't compare to TellTale's numbers.
When I hear 'Indie', I personally see it in regards to the community... the actual people that are making the games. I've become extremely close with people in the Toronto game dev community, and they are some of the most approachable, friendly, and tightly knit community I've ever known. We just get together and enjoy making games, regardless of how big of a deal they are.
We meet up at game jams, or at social events like Torontaru and we can toss ideas back and forth and discuss progress. Some come from nowhere and are wanting to make games, some came from working on major AAA titles and want to do their own thing,
The range of people talking to each other is astounding and have been extremely warm and welcoming to a startup like myself.
You are right in saying that the normal connotation with indie games is mainly due to their marketing now(although again, most games that carry the 'indie' vibe lack marketing altogether), and you are also correct in saying that not all independent games are also indie games. I've generally retired the term 'indie' in favor of 'low budget' or 'non-commercial' but I generally don't prioritize a game's mode of funding over its gameplay aesthetic when dividing games by category.
The fact that more and more independent games, and games with low budgets are able to obtain levels of polish and contentiousness comparable to high-budget titles is something that's excited me immensely.
It should also be mentioned that browser games and gamemaker games are incredibly numerous, although many of them are made in homage to, or rip off of better known games.
Oh come on! Google Calendar won't let me place a single non-recurring reminder anywhere after Dec 31st, 2050?? So dumb!
I love this episode, you quick fire questions and shoot them down. Really enjoyable.
The question is: is Journey even an indie game? Is Telltale Games an indy studio?
We tend to do the mistake to take every trend in Indie games and act as if those trends defined indie games. Actually, what happened and what we describe as Indie Games is this: while the industry produces games which cost several millions and thus have to consider marketability for broad masses, some developers produce games for low costs and thus can market them to smaller audiences which creates room to be different.
This does not mean that every game which dares to be different (like Journey) is an indy game. Rather, some (!) indie games show how much a concept that is different allows deviations from the proven formula which encourages big studios (or just investers) to enable more expensive games which also try out new stuff.
So what do we make of indie games and marketing? I see it being relevant for console marketing since being Indie friendly means that this consoles infrastructure allows its users to enjoy a broader ranger of games. Furthermore, it might be relevant since the next minecraft or Binding of Isaac might make its debut on that console. However, I do not see how marketing games as Indie really is any use: "Indie" doesn't tell me anything about the gameplay or about what the game will offer me.
I tend to see Indie creators as either one or a few people making one game for their first maybe second time.
Once they release their game or two and make a possible million or slightly less then they are no longer Indie, not if they also have more games and money on the way, look at Notch, he was indie until Minecraft made him stacks of dosh and he grabbed more and more people that he lost the indie title.
***** Another legit definition. I kinda like that my conclusions stay the same then
Alex Bermann You are quite right, Indie is not a style, it is a development stage company. The problem is that many confuse an *indie* developer with a *simple* game, because usually a company that has *fewer resources* will be based on making *simpler games*.
Okay. It'll take a few decades
Alex Bermann lolololololololol
I'm currently working on my own neo-retro RPG with a few friends, and I haven't really thought about the "Indie" label until now. I love the video and you bring up some great points! I even labeled myself as an Indy developer, but I'm seriously rethinking that label. Great work!! :)
This comment is super late, but I think one thing that the word Indy typically means (at least to me) is that the game is being made without the hand of a publisher or investors being able to step in and say "no, you can't do that because it might not make money, or it might offend b someone, or the general audience might not enjoy this experience". They're games that are made because that's what the designer wanted to make, not what ended up coming out after going through the approval board at their company.
You mentioned how we'll have to find a way to determine what 'indie' games are just plain good games, and I think we already have decent infrastructures for things like that, we just need to utilize them some more. Reviews are the most simple way of doing this, from professionally written ones to the community review options though things like metacritic or more recently Steam's user reviews. I believe we just need to make people more aware of this type of system, and actually try and weigh in with our own opinions as well to get a larger poll group.
How can you say that Team Meat were in it for the money. They wanted their game on the xbla dashboard because they wanted people to love it like they did.
p.s. do you're glasses have lenses in them?
if they did have lenses they would be shiny, so no they don't have them
They don't, but he does In general. He took the lenses out to get rid of glare.
no they dont
He has answered the question about his lenses so many times there is now a link to a video of him explaining in the description of every video
he answered it at the end of this video
The way I see it, the development of the term 'indie' in video games is very similar to the way 'indie' has developed in music. In music, recordings used to be recorded on 8-tracks and distributed locally. Nowadays, the way music (and video-games) can be distributed has expanded because of the rise of digital distribution. Someone could record a song in their bedroom and have it up on iTunes within a few hours. The way indie is used in music is simply to define a genre that isn't 'mainstream'. The term 'indie' in music covers a wide array of music genres (indie rock, indie pop, indietronica etc). It's the same way for video games. Obviously, there are a few exceptions with breakout hits; but overall, the sensibilities of the concept is what makes the content 'indie'.
when I think of an indie game I think of a start up game company rather than an artsy game. in fact those seem like better labels than what we have now.
I've been experimenting with some game making here and thought since you asked I'd show you I made a strange game about a mad orange that thinks he's a banana. scratch.mit.edu/projects/19754284
I don't think that the concept of the "indie game" is too nebulous to properly separate games into groups. It's a normative descriptor. There is a grey area, but games that meet most or all of the standards that define indie games (low-budget, small studio, quaint aesthetic, etc.) fall clearly in one camp, while games that meet very few or none fall in the other. The ones in the middle are debatable, but it's still clear enough that they're *more* indie than AAA titles and *less* indie than something made by one guy in his basement. In this way, the term can do real work categorizing games.
That said, I think your last point is more important. Sure, the term *can* do work, but there are downsides to actually using it. It's accrued so much cultural baggage that the label can distort a person's impression of a game, or even alienate people from playing in the first place. I also agree that talking about indie games as a whole with regard to their qualities as games makes little sense and can give people false impressions. It's like talking about whether you like paper-back books or hard cover.
The biggest difference to me when I talk about indie games is the fact that indie games that really succeed are about taking new ideas or something that isn't too popular and making a game around it.
This even divides the indie scene in two, 1) the innovative games like Minecraft was when it came out, or Paper Please for example. 2) And the old platformer with a twist or minecraft 2.0. (Not saying that the intention of those games are bad, just that they aren't too original).
If you look at AAA titles, they usually doesn't change anything when it comes to mechanics, just stick a new theme in or something and ship it. (I think I don't need to set any examples...)
Another thing that I think is important, is the labeling of a game. Make a game with "AAA graphics" and ship it (With good marketing to help), no one will think that it is an indie game, but when Steam labels something as "Indie" or "Greenlit" you usually expect another thing from the game.
I feel as though the term "Indie Game" describes the genre and overall feel of the game more than how the game is produced. Generally, the main character is alone throughout a whole indie game (i.e. Steve in Minecraft [excluding servers of course] or the character from Journey) while you have several interactions with various characters and AIs in mainstream games (i.e. ED-E and Fawkes from the Fallout series or the millions of people you run over in GTA). This acceptable loneliness adds and introvertive factor to the game which we can then relate to our lives and thus gives us that warm and fuzzy feeling when we play an amazing indie game. And it may just be that people who don't like indie games are simply extroverts in real life and aren't comfortable when alone. Just a thought.
I think up until now, I hadn't thought much about what "indie" meant. I knew I liked a lot of "indie" games (my kickstater backing history is literally only games), but the label of "indie" always felt really pretentious in a way, like those people who only like music that "you probably haven't heard of," which made me feel like a jerk. That said, I knew I liked a whole spectrum of games that qualify as indie.
After watching this I've had some time to think about it, and while I agree with your conclusion that we should just drop the indie label all together, I was able to figure out what indie actually means to me. I think it's about supporting an artist/creator/developer with their game (as opposed to a company as a whole). When I play smaller games that are really good, my first thought is always about how "___ did such a good job," and how I want more and more people to buy and play their games, so they can continue to create new stuff.
When I play a pokemon game, for example, it's really fun and I want people to support it as well, but I know that tons of people are going to see and play it as a default of sorts, because it has a large company like nintendo behind it. With indie games, it's about building a game and its creator up to that level (obviously not the same level as my example of pokemon, but just building it up from complete obscurity).
But yeah, in the end, I just love games, and want there to be more and more good games, so I don't think where it comes from (so called indie vs mainstream) maters, as long as it creates a fun, creative, memorable (and emotional) experience for the players, so dropping monikers like indie could absolutely be for the best.
"Indie" made more sense as a concept ten years ago, when there was a clear distinction between the scope of publisher-backed retail games and downloadable games made by small teams. Xbox Live Arcade games used to have a hard size limit of 50MB; that size gradually increased to 200 MB, 1 GB, then we stopped caring about size, then we stopped distinguishing downloadable games from retail games entirely, as our notion of what "indie" games were capable of expanded over the generation. At some point, major publishers focused almost all of their effort into making a few huge blockbuster games every year, and the "B" publishers and the idea of the mid-tier game died an unceremonious death; when that happened, "indie" rushed in to fill the void, and now "indie" basically encompasses "anything smaller than Assassin's Creed".
I think "Indie" means something genre-busting, not how many people have made them, or how much money they've made. A few good examples are VVVVVV and Minecraft, but they are "indie" in different ways. Minecraft has essentially made a new Genre. There is no current existing term to describe it other than "Sandbox" and that only describes it very loosely. Another good example of this is freeware game Yume Nikki. It consists of exploring maze-like areas to find items that give you the ability to explore new areas. It is a never before seen genre, proven by the fact that all games with the same premise are called Yume Nikki fangames. VVVVVV is indie in the way that it still follows the standard Metroidvania setup, but with the catch that you can't jump.
What makes all of these games indie is that they did something differently, not who they were made by or how much money was spent on them.
I think you almost had it when you discussed indie as a marketing term. A title's indie status could be determined by its method and cost of marketing relative to the cost of the project on whole. Most of what we may feel are indie titles largely comes from our perception of their marketing as minimal. If we see an ad for the game on television or in a magazine we would almost immediately consider it as not indie. On the other hand, if we hear about the game only through word of mouth or from a video game news site/blog/RUclips channel where the spot is not paid we will probably consider it as indie. There are of course some exceptions, but as long as these exceptions don't become our main source of exposure we perceive it as indie.
"It seems these days there there are more indie games than non-indie games"
It's always been like this, but as you said, they used to be much harder to distribute.
They just seem more prevalent now because the internet has made it so much easier to reach a wide audience - and the limits to a games success are more dependent on the quality of the game, rather than one's budget to distribute floppy disks. I hate to think how many amazing games have been made in the past, and were never widely available because the creators weren't able to get it published.
Last year, I started categorizing my Steam Library by "Indie" and "Non-indie." With the explosion of amazing games coming out since then, I'm now back to brick-and-mortar genre classifications - Adventure, Action, Arcade, RPG, Racing, and my new favorite that didn't exist before - Roguelike. (Yes, I'm fully aware that defining "Roguelike" is about as tough as defining "Indie Game." It still helps!)
I have a love/hate relationship with labels. Steam introduced a "tagging system" where users can add label tags to games.
One of my hobbies as an amateur game creator is using the RPGMaker VX Ace Software to make games. I also enjoy playing the commercially released RPGMaker games that have become more commonplace on Steam, partly to play great games, and partly to gauge "what it takes" to make it on that platform. I think the RPGMaker Program is a great tool that if utilized by a talented designer can produce amazing retro style RPGs.
Many however, don't share this viewpoint and dismiss ALL RPGMaker games as amateur trash made by people with no skills or talent, which couldn't be further from the truth (though I am sure such games have been made with the system).
Going back to the first point, Steam's labels allow all RPGMaker made games to now have the RPGMaker Tag, which is great for people like me who want to soak in as many of these kinds of games as possible, and a bit of a disservice to the creator of that game because it makes certain users who may otherwise be interested in a retro RPG be dissuaded by the perception that all games made with that program are exactly alike in tone and quality.
Indie by similar comparison carries with it a sense of quick identification for those who generally prefer them over AAA games (and in particular their marketing schemes), but like you said does a disservice to those games' creator(s) who may be losing a potential audience due to the stigma of the label.
There is no real easy solution for this, the lines blur but they will take another few leaps in our game development/distribution climate before they can dissolve altogether.
To paraphrase a certain quote, "I reject your inadequate labeling schemes and am just going to do whatever I feel like doing."
Also, I finally found someone else that goes by Jamin!!
This is the exact problem people have with labels like "indie rock". The idea that a band plays indie rock is an something that can be traced back to how the majority of bands who were releasing niche pop music from the mid to late 80s (to this day) released that music on independent labels. However a lot bands that people and publications consider to be "indie bands" release albums on major labels and some even became successes in the mainstream. Plus most metal bands, EDM artists and everything in between release music on independent labels.
There is also a vast difference between stuff like The Strokes for example (a band that has a much more post-pun oriented sound) and a band like Vampire Weekend (whose sound is oriented around African influenced bands such as Talking Heads, Paul Simon and even High-Life), these two bands are still labelled indie through, even though these is a clear difference between them musically (which you can agree on, no matter how much you dislike either of them). I guess you could say they both release rock/pop music and that's true but it wouldn't help anyone looking for something that sounds similar to either of those.
This is also true for indie games, since there is vast difference between Journey and something like Braid we should stop focusing so much on how these games were released and only focus on the content of these games. So you're right, the term "indie game" doesn't mean anything any more, the same way "indie rock" or "indie" lost any meaning it had in the first place.
7:07 Smoke Signal eh? ... [STARES DRAMATICALLY AT SAN DIEGO BURNING AROUND HIM] ... smoke signals ...
#notoffended
I think Indie is best thought of as a reference to the mindset and approach going into developing a game.
Which is to say: True indie games are the ones that are developed by teams that could be said to be *acting independent of a powerful outside influence,* essentially making the game *they* want to make in the way *they* want to make it.
The ultimate result of this is that the title indie isn't exclusive of budget, poly count, style or even large publishers! It's a matter of mind and spirit, the idea that "we're going to make the game we want to make," which just so happens to often coincide with novel ideas, retro design and an idea that you're going to make the best game you can.
Given this, yes, Valve in many ways still is "indie." Minecraft is indie. Telltale Games is indie. Most of the things we call indie, are in fact indie.
I personally feel that indie games best describe a genre of games that cant be well defined,With the influx of more and more easier to use engines and game creating tools its becoming more easier to create a game with less people.I mean sure you can define some games as being a shooter or an RPG but minecraft for instance could be a puzzle/Adventure/sanbox/rpg/shooter hens how indie games are getting harder to define but that's just my opinion.Cheers and love the show :D
Hey hey! i just found this show and i really like it! just subscribed! One question, is it too late to send in a video of a game we are making to get it aired on the show? P.S my original question was about the glasses but you cleared that up at the very end of the show hahahaha glad i watched it to the end!!! :)
The thing about the label "indie" is that it describes a spirit, not a genre. It's a label that bring both fans and developers together to celebrate what they love about games. Indie developers generally come together and help each other, where as corporations like EA and Activision have to keep their trade secrets by virtue of being a corporation. Fans of a game or series or genre often rally together to form a community. The indie fan community is often divorced from specific genres or titles and are fans of the embodiment of the spirit. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, just that it is a label that people can rally around. Dropping a label because it carries baggage does a disservice to all the positive connotations that label brings to the table.
I think of Indie games as a type of style like how many of them are very reflective of past styles of games and, to some degree, implement features of current games we like.
That's not "indie", that's "neo-retro". Lots of indie developers pick that because that's what they like to play and it doesn't cost much.
But that definition excludes a lot of games that aren't reflective of the past at all, like Journey or Bastion. You can make comparisons to some elements of them, but they're not really like anything from the old days.
OgreSamanosuke Yes, but the gameplay in Bastion is reminiscent of yesteryear. I can't say much for Journey, haven't played it.
Will Hoyt I actually think the backwards-looking trend is a bit of a bad thing. I can understand it in the context of constraints, but I don't think remaking the games of our youth is a good way forward.
PBS Game/Show I think the backwards-looking (or neo-retro) trend in the indie scene is popular only because the mainstream isn't moving forward, but are stagnate.
I was starting to think that Indie was becoming more of an aesthetic rather than simply just being from an independent company.
I think it makes more sense to define the aesthetic than to check whether or not the game was made by a large company, because that shouldn't get in the way of the enjoyment of a game.
Playing Dear Esther while tripping balls was the closest thing to a spiritual experience I've ever had, and it was badass. I play mainstream games mostly but some Indies have been fantastic, Gone Home and Brothers A tale of Two Sons stood out the most for me.
At first I was kinda sad you didn't mention the glasses, but then the ending happened and I busted into laughter. Thanks for answering it was bugging and I totally understand =P
I think it's HILARIOUS that you have to do the glasses disclaimer every. single. time. Maybe you should have fun with it? Wear different glasses for every take :p Get Warby Parker to sponsor!
Loved the video, I subscribed last week.
In order to categorize Indie games we need to look at other media.
But indie music and Indie movies have the same problem as games, the only thing that really makes them all indie is marketing.
However, I believe that not all media that is marketed as "indie" is indeed indie
Indie for me is kind of like a genre of music. I can't really tell you what makes rock rock, or jazz jazz. But I know it when I hear it.
Same with Indie in all media.
"In to the Wild" had a budget. the crew must have needed to travel through most of the west coast. but it looks and feels Indie.
"The Smiths" have massive global recognition. Hell, one of their songs was used for the opening of Charmed, one of the most mainstream shows in existence. But they feel indie.
In that way, some games just have that.... thing, that makes them indie
I've noticed a similar conundrum for indie music, in that the answer isn't exactly clear cut. Some say it's a music style, some say it depends on what label they're signed to or how much exposure they get, all of which contradict each other when you think about it. I've heard people refer to Imagine Dragons as indie, even though they're signed to a major label. Arcade Fire, The National and Mumford & Sons are all signed to independent labels but they sell millions of records and play sold out arenas on tour. Macklemore became one of the biggest and most overexposed artists of last year and he doesn't even have a label. MGMT, The Decemberists, Deerhoof and Yo La Tengo are all classified as "indie", but musically they're completely different.
With indie games the problem is more or less the same. Amnesia, Bastion, Braid, Dear Esther and Castle Crashers have very little to do with each other as games, and with some their claims to being truly "indie" are tangential. It also disproves the whole stigma about how all indie games are made by pretentious auteurs who think they're God's gift to humanity (coughJonathanBlowcough).
I think the strict definition of "indie" where the developer acts as its own publisher is an important distinction because it has been largely indicative of a game made for the love of making a good game, and not for the bottom line. But then we'll need to determine whether focusing on that bottom line (read, more sales) itself proves that a game is "good."
As an indie writer, I feel a huge camaraderie with indie game designers/creators. I get help, though, with editing, sometimes covers and definitely have betas &ct. Without going to “Big 5/6” we still have small press publishing options for authors that mirror Steam a couple years ago. Currently steam is the Direct Kindle Publishing option, it’s indie. IMHO, an indie is a person pubbing their own, original creation however they could. So long as it’s not a conference-table created piece of work like so many others already out there, it doesn't matter if I did a Kicksarter or Indigogo to get there. It’s me and a couple people I paid/worked with for free, so the creation feels indie.
In fact, giving it more thought, not all baselines are created equal. Some people can afford more pricey help. Some people hire ghostwriters. I play mostly indie games because they make what I'm looking for in a game.
You bring up a lot of valid points and I think I agree that indie isn't a term with a definitive meaning anymore. People still use it all the time but I've noticed they attach their own preconceptions as to what constitutes an indie game and it usually causes some sort of argument because everyone has their own definition.
Games are games, there's lots of different types and styles and everyone has their own preferences, I don't see why it can't just be left at that.
One thing to think about is that the definition of Indie might have changed over the latest years. If you went back a few years and showed people some of these indie games, they might not all be considered indie.
Let's not forget Runner2, the game blurs the line between mainstream and indie. it is from an indie studio but managed to have charles martinet (mario) voicing it
What changed? As far as I'm aware, indie game just means a game developed by an independent developer, a developer working independently without any publisher.
You're definitely right about the small studio thing though. It's the same problem we have with a lot of things. How can a continent be defined by size? How can a planet be defined by size? What scientifically defines the threshold?
My Answer to your question is: YES. When I see a game I base it on the concept of the game and maybe reviews. Of course, If a game is made by a more "Main Stream" developer as you said in the video, I will be more likely to play/purchase it, since it will most likely be more reliable to actually work. BUT I LOVE all the games people have made on their own. I have been playing a game called Banished recently. I guess it was made by one single developer (although that could mean anything, of course). I really find your videos interesting and I hope they never End!
Good Episode. I think the label "indie" still applies, but a distinction needs to be made between "indie" (small team, small budget, startup mentality) and "independent" (small- to mid-sized- established teams). Indie GAMES are games with an aesthetic that reflects the small teams that build them, Indie STUDIOS are small teams with a startup mentality, and independent games (Journey, etc.) and independent studios (e.g. Doublefine, Mojang, Team Meat) are former indie companies that have matured.
I actually really liked this video, I was actually thinking about this topic in detail beforehand, So thank you for bringing it up.
While I'm not sure if this is correct, the assumption that I always had was that an 'indie' game was 'a game developed without the help of a large or major publisher and upon its launch was relatively unknown' that could then potentially increase in popularity, but upon reaching a certain threshold of notoriety could then be considered 'mainstream' when it became successful. This emphasis on being 'underground', 'unknown' or 'non-mainstream' is why the term 'indie' is so often presumed to be associated with hipsters. But I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole.
But as you said before, this isn't really the case any longer, due to things like kickstarter making certain projects popular or noticeable before they're even out, such as Mighty Number 09. Along with major or larger developers providing smaller developers with some level of help, whether it just be toolkits or distributing them through XBox Live or something.
... Also, could you do an episode exploring how games can positively or negatively affect our relationships with others on both a group/social level and a personal level? Such as how playing with others can improve our skills for cooperation, but also lead to a competitive nature that can lead to other problems. I think you also touched on in an episode how playing as someone different can help you better empathize with different people, but how unfavorable stereotypes in games could potentially further ostracize those being stereotyped. I know it's kind of a broad subject.
Admittedly, I was one of the people initially wary of 'indie' games and now my Steam library is full of them. Thinking back, I think it's the same reason why I've always been wary of independent films and music. There's a culture there that's a little elitist. Or, at least, can be perceived as such from the outside. I had this perception that I wasn't allowed to take part if I just wanted to have fun and I was afraid that I just wouldn't 'get' it. Which I now realise is absurd. My taste is so eclectic that indie games, like Fez, Dear Ester, FTL and Papers Please, fit in my Steam library just as well as Skyrim, the collection of Star Wars games, Saints Row, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Scribblenauts and Mass Effect. In fact, I've probably sunk just as many hours into FTL as Skyrim at this point...
Hey Jamin, big fan please keep 'em coming!
I think what you have to say is interesting, but I see the term indie game as still useful. While it describes a wide variety of games, any two indie games can have similarities drawn to each other that couldn't come from triple a games.
Wittgenstein writes about a 'open' concept of a word; the idea being that some words don't have a fixed definition that is used to describe a broad spectrum of ideas. When discussing batman there are many different story canons and arcs and yet the word batman is still useful to us; we know what is being discussed and because the ideas of batman still have associations (even if the story canons are incredibly different) we can still speak meaningfully about it. It is up to the experts to decide what is and isn't batman,
I think the term indie is the same way. Sure respawn isn't 'indie' because of its size, but because it is free from outside publishers, and because it took creative risk with new ideas with a relatively small (compared to full aaa) team. Respawn is light years different from team meat but I still understand what is being said when both are called indie games. It's up to the experts (those who play the games and use the word most frequently) to decide which games are really indie and which aren't.
As to your point concerning lost gamers that don't want to play something labeled indie: reviewing the comments suggests that these people avoid playing indie not because of the term but they don't want to risk their hard earned cash on something new and unfamiliar. Fair enough. I'd love for them to be included, but they get to make their own choices. It's up to me to talk up a great game and get them to play.
Awesome show Jamin, even if I don't always agree. Cheers to many more!
Really nice episode, guys. It brings some interesting thoughts and it flows very well. Congratulations!
I would argue that the "indie" title is a spectrum, with one lone dev in their basement at one end and respawn entertainment and other studios like that at the other.
Though I completely agree about how "indie should not be a label anymore due to it not describing anything about the gameplay genre.
When I first heard of indie games a few years ago, I think of games like Braid and then eventually Super Meat Boy, all the stuff like that. I mainly think of games made by one person, or maybe two. When indie games were introduced, and if you watch the Indie Game movie, they were supposed to be about the developer making something that they loved. Something that was true to them. Jonathan Blow said in the movie that it was all about "let me take my deepest fears, and put them right into the game". He made a game that HE loved. Same with Team Meat, they made something that they loved. They could both relate to it and so they still had that connection to it, making the game they loved. With a big team, you don't get that. You might have a connection to that one character you created out of the 5,000 in the game, but that doesn't mean anything.
I find that one of the biggest differences between indie and AAA is the audience they create for. With almost all the indie games I can think of, the developers don't try to satisfy everyone. They don't shoehorn multiplayer or RPG elements into their game just because it's the hot thing right now. Where as games from larger publishers will try to appeal to as large an audience. When I hear 'indie' attached to the genre of a game, I expect that there is a certain coherence with the package wherein every feature in the game was as the developer intended, rather than demanded by publisher. When I know I'm playing a AAA game, I just assume there are going to be these disjointed elements that I'm going to have to ignore.
I think that indie developers have a lot of faith in their audience when making a game for a very specific niche of people. You'll find a similar divide in pop music versus 'indie' music. There are 'pop' bands who don't come out from the large publishers.
I totally agree with this video.
The term "indie" should go away because I see it more as a negative than a positive now. For example, Playstation is announcing all these fantastic "indie" games on youtube via trailers that are coming to the PS3/PS4/Vita, but in the comment section, people seem to think that all indie games are trash and only 8 bit and simple and end up disliking the video and comment saying "where are the real games" or "another indie game -_-." It's crazy to think that some people outright dismiss all these fantastic games just because they fall under the "indie" tag.
Sweet waynes world reference
Guns of Icarus Online developer Muse is absolutely one of my favorite developers if only for their dedication to their game. Maybe the way developers treat their product could be a telling factor.
Concerning the part about some people disliking games labeled as indie, I think it's just one of those situations where a person can just be ticked off from sheer abundance of the term.
Like "gluten-free" and "vegan" and 'selfie", when the word becomes common (no matter how long it's been around) and you hear it used in such an abundance in such a relatively short amount of time, you find yourself rolling your eyes whenever you hear anything pertaining to it.
Or maybe you just don't like games of a certain style. IDK.
You talked about how it was difficult it was for small-time developers to make widespread games after video games took off, but this isn't universally true. The UK had a THRIVING indie game scene with the BBC Micro and the ZX Spectrum leading the charge. People could submit their games to publishers in the post really easily and then they could be on shelves for £2.99 the next weekend if the game was good. Of course this led to lots of terrible games; but the market was still there.
This faded away with Americanisation and the UK games industry is nothing like it used to be (unfortunately), so this kind of indie appreciation had to be reintroduced once it took off in the US. But it goes to show that indie games broke it big even in the NES era in some places, bridging the gap of what we call "indie". When the majority of games on store shelves are indie (such as back then in the UK), is that when a game ceases to be indie? When Minecraft is in the shop window or the latest indie game has an ad campaign on the front page of Steam is it then larger than indie then?
If "indie game" title disappears, then what would happen to awesome indie game blogs that reports smaller and bigger indie games like Indiegames.com, Indie Statik and others? Does those become obsolete? Yes, there's lot of these ignorant gamers that think that indie games are all crap and should not exist, but for me who 99% plays indie games is important to have some way to find these games still and not mixed with all the AAA games, because of discovery.
I have kinda different perspective because of this, the "marketing" part is really important to me personally.
Indie should be defined on if the company was known or not before a game of theirs went big, like Squad.
I believe the way "indie" is used as a title these days is very similar to how movies a few years ago were defined as "indie." There's a sliding scale that indicates that several types of films are identifiable as "indie" but does it mean a film without any production and actors? Or does it apply to a film that just uses a smaller than normal budget? And these films that are generally known for being sparse and experimental earned the same time of critique that indie games do now. So I think I see the term in name only, but I love the fact that we have so many open mediums these days to experience new and experimental games.
It seems indie films & independent films both refer to the former with the term indie film stressing the budget more in comparison to the two.
indie games is a genre, but if a genre fail to give us a clear picture of what the genre stands for, it is difficult to say that there is still a genre. indie games is not directed at specific objectives and therefore make it difficult to understand what indie games actually mean.
I'm just going based on my own interpretation, but the way I understand it, the term simply refers to games created by groups that are not formally affiliated with any company, organization, or other studio. The studio must be independently owned, controlled, and operated by a single team of developers (of any size) who may divide labor among themselves but do not organize into divisions.
So, it's more of a methodology than anything else; keeping all parts of the production force more intimately involved in the creative process rather than handing jobs off to somewhat marginalized subgroups of employees with very specified and inflexible roles in the game's development.
I agree with you. When I hear indie game, I think bit gaming (retro), extremely difficult platforming/puzzles, and artsy for sake of being artsy. Now I know on a conscious level that these do not apply to all "indie" games, but the connotation of the term, for me, hurts that chances of me buying it. There some indie games that I did want to get after watching the gameplay, via Let's plays, so I think that's the best route for indie games. Hopefully the tag goes away with time.
While part of me would love to shriek that "indie" is a sort of spirit in which one uses constraints to develop interesting games... I also recognize that it's not actually true, and that several of these games that are "indie" have nothing to do with "indie" as it has been conceptualized. It's making me rethink how to define the games I DO like, when so many of them otherwise fell neatly into the "indie game" category.
This reminds me very much of the debate within the "craft" beer community. The distinction of if a beer is "craft" are not cannot really be defined. Does it matter how many barrels of beer the brewery produces a year? How far they distribute? the styles or inventiveness they offer in their product? And so many breweries of varying sizes and have such different feels (or genres to stay related to games). A brewery with 4 employees that specialize in Belgian style beer has a lot more in common with Brewery Ommegang than another small operation that does all English ales. It makes me think that he term craft beer has lost a lot of its meaning
I hope I remember to come back to this video in 50 years. If I live that long. Hopefully I will
I think "Indie" is/has become more of an exotic label than an actual practical one designating what kind of game it's talking about. It's a bit like how what our culture defines as "hipsters" used to really like underground media but now since many more people are aware of this kind of media, "hipster" has simply become more of an exotic label to designate someone with unusual tastes (who is very smug about it, but that's a story for another day).
Valve IS the publisher... They aren't free of publishers. They just have smaller internal teams that make their games for them.
But lots of indies are self-publishers. To the Moon is self-published. Valve is more of an online digital retailer than a publisher.
GastonAsston You mean Steam is more of an online digital retailer than a publisher like Valve is? Because Valve is a Publisher.
Vhan Wolfe That's like saying Walmart is a publisher, they are not, they're just a store front.
I like the back and forth from left Jamin and right Jamin.
I'm still not convinced that you're not secretly Busdriver.
Indie is now a term used to denote a game that's not "main stream" or syndicated. Titles like Call of Duty, Madden, and Pokemon are certainly not Indie. Half-Life (after 2 games, 3 episodes, and a ton of side games) is no longer an Indie title.
Games like Blood of the Werewolf, Super Meat Boy, and Faery are indie titles because they are not cranked out and try things not common to main stream gaming.
Your haircut was jumping around all over the place in this!
I made an independent game based on an independent web series (Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures), but does that make me dependent on the web series, and my publisher? Indie, like with Indie music in the 90s, is starting to mean "non-mainstream". The band Oasis were a sensation here in the UK, and yet were still referred to as "Indie".
amazing episode, been thinking about this recently and you hit the nail on the head.
I think we could look at how the film industry uses the term. That would not only help us define it, but also to have a term is is more or less consistent across industries. Of course, games don't exactly have the "Hollywood System" to help define this, but we can come up with something if we consider what it actually means to be in or out of the "Hollywood System". First of all, a famous director can make independent films - Quentin Tarantina, the Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, and Woody Allen all make pretty much exclusively independent films, and have become big names doing so. So how big or small or famous the game developer is shouldn't matter - and don't confuse "film studio" with "game studio"; the correct analogy for the film studio is the game _publisher_. Before that, let's also consider funding and popularity. Independent films don't get funded by the big Hollywood studios, but that doesn't always mean they're on a shoestring budget - Do you think QT will really have trouble raising money to make his next film? Nope! So budget isn't the thing either. His films are also very well known (I'm sure most people could name more than one) and very popular - sure, it takes a particular taste, but there's no doubt that millions (at least) see his films. So it's not about how many people watch the film or play the game either. What makes the difference for a film is just whether you have a big Hollywood studio behind it or not, so the thing that matters for games is whether there's a big publisher behind it or not...
Okay, easy enough to say, but without the "Hollywood System", is it really that clear what constitutes a "big" publisher? Well, I think there are three criteria: 1) easy funding, 2) marketing, and 3) access to distribution. A big publisher can just say, "here is the money to make the game", whereas an independent game can still get a large budget but has to do the work of raising those funds the hard way. (This is why crowdsourced games may be indie, even if they raise millions of dollars - they had to raise the money themselves.) A big publisher also has a large, dedicated marketing arm to promote their games (or at least the ones that, in they end, they feel are financially worth promoting). An indie game may get little in the way of marketing, or if they do then they may have had to build it from the ground up, create their own marketing team, etc. Finally, a big publisher already has established distribution channels and access to be able to put games on shelves in places like GameStop and WalMart. Indie games often aren't able to get to those places, or can only get there _after_ they've proven themselves a popular and financial success. Releasing a game someplace like Steam, an online game retailer, or an App Store doesn't put it into the same category because there isn't a gatekeep saying who is and isn't allowed to sell there (or the gatekeeper is *far* more lenient).
And hopefully the film indistry can also learn from the bigger (popular, well-funded, and profitable) independent games published in venues like Steam, combined with the success of Netflix/Hulu original shows like "House of Cards", that wide theatrical release or airing on network primtime doesn't have to be the sole mark of success and quality in film and television anymore... which may in turn lessen the importance and influence of the "Hollywood System", which would probably be good for everyone but the big Hollywood studios. (Although they'll still manage to scrape by, I'm sure!)
CREATIVE FREEDOM IS WHAT DEFINES INDIE DEVELOPMENT TEAMS. THAT'S WHY THEY LEFT BIG STUDIOS IN THE FIRST PLACE. BIG STUDIOS, MADE NECESSARY BY LICENSES AND EXPENSIVE EQUIPTMENT -AS YOU MENTIONED. BIG STUDIOS MADE IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE FOR EVERYONE TO HAVE A SAY IN THE CREATIVE DESIGN OF THE WORK, LEAVING MANY UNSATISFIED WITH THEIR JOBS AND LEAVING THEIR JOBS AT TRIPLE A STUDIOS TO FORM SMALL GROUPS THAT HAD CREATIVE FREEDOM IN THEIR GAMES.
(I think the need for caps is gone now, people this far into my letter will appreciate what I have to say by now.)
The defining link between indie studios is not that of marketing, but of control over their games, I believe that one -now but not previously- indie developer said triple A development was like "working on a turkey leg" And now that person has freedom over the entire vision for their game, which I imagine is much more fulfilling, but of course, working with fewer people also makes the going tougher. Creating a stereotype you mention OH SO MUCH in the video. I think indie still does mean something, even if the lines are becoming ever more blurred. (you know why, I'm not going to explain that to you)
This links into SO SO many of the things you said, I almost cried while forcing myself to delay posting this while watching through the rest of the video. Checking you weren't going to make a sudden double back or something crazy. Please, please include this in the discussion, because many people who have watched this video could do with knowing the reason indie studios exist in the first place.
Thank you for reading this far.
I really like this episode. (Why did his hair keep changing?) Anyway, good stuff. :)
I've been asking this question for awhile myself.. I love my indie games as much as my AAA titles, but lately I haven't been able to search through the "Indie game" category on steam, because the range of games as become so extensive that I can hardly tell the difference between a AAA and an indie...
I predict that the indie label, will evolve to something like what we call a hipster kind of thing in the future. by this i mean that indie will start advertising there creations with the creation off it self. a indie game will not be about the game it self as much as it will be about how, when, where and by who it was created.
love the show my first comment ever ^
What makes indie games deserving of their own genre to me (at least this argument would have been more valid back in, say, 2012*) is that indie games aren't tied to what a publisher/investors wants you to make. Publishers/investors will only fund something they know will sell (the most typical example being the Modern Military Shooter).
Without a publisher/investor, any indie developer is free to make whatever he desires. The only downfall being that the developer must find other means aside from a publisher for marketing.
*Nowadays, when everyone and their mother figured out they could make an indie game, the games library of indie games is a much bigger part shovel-ware than it was back when making an indie game was something unique. Today, the indie genre is almost synonymous with "2D, Pixelart-Sprite based sidescroller with no niche"; Exceptions are much harder to find these days, but I won't say there are less than there were in 2012.
I like how the Humble Bundle dropped the "Indie" it used to have
Indie games set out to do something new while AAA games stick to tried and tested methods, I think its worth having a word for "hey we're trying something completely new and we don't care if barely anyone notices".
Also Alternative music is describes a lot of things but its still a useful word.
ZUN's Touhou series, like it or not, is a good example of a very successful indie game(s). in terms of budget, staff number, way of distribution, and cultural impact. it's about as diy as it can get...
how does japan's doujin game scene/market fit into this discussion of "indie" games?