soooo..... what is an indie game, and what is not an indie game?

The same "truth" goes for every game of any budget, sometimes a triple A for $70 can be cheap because it will give you hundreds of hours of quality entertainment, sometimes those same $70 will give you a 8h long story that barely leaves an impression on you

The thing with indies is that there's more of both cases lol, and that the pixel aesthetic has overstayed its welcome, yet some devs are doubling down with bigger, cruder pixels that don't resemble anything anymore, so it gets mentally taxing

No, you said: ""pixel art" which is just low res regular art"

I want an example of what you mean by that phrase.

i would definitly add Iconoclasts to that list

I remember times when even indie developers aimed for best graphics quality, now it's either 2D pixel-art or 3D minecraft-like.

You mean a definition? If you took any "pixel art" and converted it to considerably higher resolution but otherwise the exact same image, may people would no longer call it "pixel art". Like it being low res is what seems to qualify it as "art" for some.

you do know that there are as a broad overview basically only two types of computer images - pixel and vector. however, all modern monitors or tv's use pixels, there are hardly any vector monitors in existence anymore, so even vector graphics gets rasterized in to pixels for the outputs.

(you do have others, for example voxel, which you can say is pixels in a 3D environment)


edit: this is a nice little read - https://medium.com/retronator-magazine/pixels-and-voxels-the-long-answer-5889ecc18190

Sounds to me you're talking about definition, not resolution but still an odd take at any rate.

Not sure what we're calling "indie" really, but for me it's much more about the genre and quality than it is who made it. I paid $100 for the ultimate edition of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and it earned every single penny. Up to like 250 hours already with more to come, and I don't think longevity is the most important thing anyway. It's a super high quality game for fans of its genre. In contrast I waited for Resident Evil 3 to hit $20 because it's kinda short and more of an expansion pack for RE2.

If I was a huge fan of 2D platform games then I'm sure Shovel Knight would be worth $50 to me or whatever, but I'm not. It just all depends on the game.

That's just like, your opinion, man!

Exactly. That's my point. It isn't always clear.

I guess you can say a few definites.

A guy who made a game on their own without any studio backing, is an Indie Game.

A game that is AA or AAA isn't an Indie Game.

Then there is a kind of sliding scale between those two.

And things like Kickstarter have only confused things more.

And if you come from a AA or AAA studio background, and create a game on your own, with maybe some help from others, how should that be viewed, as you obviously have experience and a leg up. Very different to someone or even a group just starting out on their own.

I think there are some studios who want their game to be perceived as an Indie Game, when really it isn't. Some even get help via Kickstarter with that premise.

So like I said, the lines are blurred, and it isn't always easy to tell.

It's really not that complicated, though.
"Indie" means "independent".

Question is: Independent from what?

Well, "independent from financial and technical support of some big publisher" seems to be a reoccurring theme, when it comes to "true indie games".

And no: asking for money via KS isn't the same as getting the money from a big publisher.

Easy in theory no doubt, not so much in practice it seems, with all the variables at play.

Using KS is of course being used by genuine Indie developers, but also by others who aren't true Indie developers to prop up finances and get less pressure from the usual studio backers.

The sad truth about indie games (IMHO) is...

... that they aren't Indy games, like Indy 3, Indy 4, or even Indy 500.