What’s Indie?
Indie is a category in the world of gaming (also in the music world), but what kind of category? What kind of game do we think of when we hear ‘Indie Game’? I think of game with a bit of a mysterious storyline, with mystic music and unique gameplay. This is probably true, but the real term for Indie is that the game is developed by someone independent. Which means he/she/them is not a part of a company working full time developing games.
All developers starts out as Indie’s, mostly. It’s usually someone or a team that made some mods or are just interested in programming and designing who starts working on an own game. Because of their dedication to develop games – they aren’t bound to have a major success once the game is released. That’s why they usually are free, or very cheap. This is also because there’s no big publisher involved demanding money. An indie developer could be working for years without any of their games becoming a hit and still seeing it as an opportunity to do what they love to do. I’d say there’s just 1 guideline for a Indie game to become a hit; The game needs to be unique. It needs to have something that’s not already taken.
Whenever an indie game becomes a hit, the developer usually continues to develop games, this time for the sake of the community/fans and not as much playing around. The developer may choose to start working as a developer full time and perhaps recruit more to the company and get an office, this makes them a developing team. They could still be indie but sooner or later they will have a contract with a publisher and suddenly they aren’t as indie as before. That does definitely not mean that they wont develop the same type of games as before, it’s just a small difference on the papers. The most of the game developers are a medium sized team but the developers we hear the most about is the bigger ones.
The biggest developers are a whole office with developers, usually with cafeterias, gaming rooms and other really cool stuff that we usually see on interviews. These teams have had many successful games in their past that is the origin of their wealth. They are being supported by big publishers and their games will have huge booths at every year’s E3. These companies were indie developers 10-20 years ago and are being so successful thanks to their early dedication.
What I think is sad is that these huge developers rarely brings any new content to the gaming community, they release a game from their favorite series every year without really trying anything new. This is where the Indie’s are the best, because they bring so much new stuff that we have never seen before. The bigger developers can’t produce these games because there is some magic line (=P) between being independent and being bound with 100 contracts. These huge developers have so much power to create the most epic game in years, but they lack in inspiration and creativity. So they spend all their money, which is a lot FYI, on really nice looking games – but they are just the same as the last year.
Its easy to forget the indies when bigger games get so much attention. Remember that the indies are the key behind a successful company.
Discussion Topic: The World of Indie Part 1: A little about Indie
