In contrast to my post earlier this week, I’m now going to talk about the people out there who are making games “as they want to make them”, that is to say, indie developers.
To be clear on the definition, I’m just using Indie to mean a game which is made without the financial support of a publishing house or anything.
This has created a pretty interesting model. Increasingly, Indie games are implementing a model whereby you can pay a small sum now, in the alpha or beta stage, and get all later updates for free even after the price increases. Minecraft is the foremost example of this, but we can also look at games like Project Zomboid or Overgrowth to see the same model. This has all kinds of benefits; it brings people in and generates an active base of players before the game is officially “out”, the players can fulfill the role of testers, can give feedback and advice (If the dev wants to listen, of course), and most importantly the early sales generate money that mean the game can actually continue to be developed.
The thing is, because these games are made by individuals or small teams, and thus have far lower overheads than triple-A titles like Gears of War or Modern Warfare, they can be far, far more experimental and unique. Sure, you get games like Katamari Damacy from the bigger houses but those are the exception rather than the rule. Indie devs have an easier time in this regard. I doubt you could sell the idea of Dwarf Fortress to EA or Sony and have it still resemble DF once it’s been minced by their focus groups and marketing and what have you. Hell, you can’t even get a decent version of long-running, successful franchises like SimCity anymore.
But indie developers can. They can make extremely complicated games, niche games, experimental games,
games that look like spreadsheets, games like Mount and Blade or Kenshi or a zombie game where one bite infects you 100% of the time. Or that are Minecraft, but with a dimension removed.
Which isn’t to say that all indie games are classics and we should bow down and worship their creators. Just that I have an appreciation for them because of the freedom they are afforded, compared to big name publishers.
You find a lot of creativity in the indie game market; the sort of creativity that you won’t, nay can’t find in the mainstream. You can’t find it for precisely the reason you mentioned in your post; there’s too much creative control, too many focus groups, and too much push for sales.
I tend to get going about indie games for the same reason that I get going about Open Source software…there’s so much potential there! There are so many things that Microsoft does, so many ways they dumb down their products in order to create more sales…(for example, in the base version of MS Server 2008 the included backup utility is dumbed down to the point of uselessness…but, oh lookie here, we have an upgrade that actually give you the functions you need! It’s extra, of course, but you want it work now, right?) they do that because they want the money first and the working product second. That’s fine, that’s kind of why they are in business in the first place.
But, now you have this other group of people, the open source community, who make software for it’s own sake. Whether they are in it for the recognition, the experience, or because they’re obsessed and they just can’t stop coding, these people put the working product first; there’s no money involved to get in the way of the vision.
And that’s what I find so appealing about indie games. They aren’t in it for the money, they’re in it because they want to be. And that creates an end result with a whole different air about it.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the best games of all time have come out of corporations. But, now, as the industry begins to suffer (IMO) a creative stagnation wrought of its own nervous tic about sales, the indie scene is where you might find a lot more creativity, and a little more nostalgia. And for a LOT less money. I think it’s pretty cool that XBOX has opened up to this with it’s game marketplace (Wii as well?), so that it’s not all just shunted to the PC scene.
That’s why when people are all like, “man, I have this GREAT idea for a game” I always recommend indie over trying to go to the big corporations…because if they DO like the idea, then you might lose creative control, and that was half of what you wanted in the first place. Whereas if you get a group of open source code monkeys and fans together, then you can keep them in line behind the project you were after in the first place. What do they get out of it? Some get simply the satisfaction of coding and gaming, because that’s what they do. Others get an official spot in the credits, and a nice addition to a fledgling resume.
Open Source/Indie 4 life!
(except WoW…gotta have my WoW XD)
No mention of Achron? Boo. :(
(Proud alpha-stage buyer of Achron here, $10 well spent and saved $20 in the end :P)
Mister Adequate and I have actually both been pretty excited about Achron for a while. We’ve been meaning to do a post about it and then we keep failing to get around to it!
Oh, good! :D
Yeah, I don’t play it much because it turns my damn brain to mush, but it’s so insanely good for that brief period before I go braindead from trying to figure it out.
Learning curve of the decade right there, IMO.
I looked that up….ooohh man that sounds crazy…I can barely keep track of ONE timeline lol! To be jumping back in time every two seconds to fix something I did…that just kind of confuses me…it sounds really cool, but…I’m not so sure I could get it to work lol.