You make a good point and I can't disagree with what you said, but I still think the indie scene is a much needed breath of life into the video game industry. It's true that with the opening of game development to pretty much every one with a bit of know-how you're going to get flooded by a multitude of mediocre, sub-par video games made by small teams trying to cash in on one-hit phenomena, following the "rules" of what's easier to develop (the indie version of market studies): retro-looking insanely difficult puzzle platformers that end up being mediocre repetitions of one another, in spite of what personal touch the devs claim they brought in. This is true. But, from my experience with the indie scene, you're more likely to find sheer works of passion, truly original, fun, immersive, innovative and worthwhile projects than you do in the "standard" big studio video game business.

Indies are less likely to suffer from dumb "sequel-itis", designed only by market analysts who probably never even played a video game in their lives to milk a project and make the most money out of it possible. In the indie side of things, if a developer envisions a game as a single, complete experience, they're free to make a single game and move on, the only pressure they might get to make sequels comes from fans, but fans are also more likely to understand the value of a game as a standalone experience with no need for sequels. Independent developers don't have to deal with big head honcho publishers telling them how to make their games, changing design decisions during development because "this is what the target audience wants, so you'll have to change it". Indie developers have a much more free environment, the problem is that there are simply way too many of them, and you have to sift through a huge deal of 'meh' iterative games in order to find one that truly stands out -- the thing is, when you do, it sure as hell beats anything the big studios are putting out. There are a lot of hurdles and obstacles small developers can't overcome, mostly the fund limitations, so they have to bypass them by being creative, artistic and passionate -- three core values that seem to be lost to big studios for ages, now.

Obviously, there are great AAA titles that get released every once in a while, but it's even harder to find those among the tedious flooding of yearly releases than it is to find indie games worth our while.

I, for one, welcome an indie day during this promo. I'm glad the indie video game scene exists, because it is my firm belief that, if it wasn't for indies, the future of the video game industry would seem even bleaker than what it does now. I'm glad we got a , a [url=http://www.gog.com/game/primordia]Primordia, a Dear Esther, a Stanley Parable, an Ether One, a Steamworld Dig, the [url=http://www.gog.com/game/trine]Trines, a Broken Age, a Valdis Story, a Kentucky Route Zero, a , a [url=http://www.gog.com/game/legend_of_grimrock]Legend of Grimrock, a Dead Synchronicity, The Cat Lady, an FTL, etc, etc. Wouldn't many of these be worth picking up if GOG had an indie day during this promo?! I think so.

Let there be indie games for a long time to come.

Will the promo run for 5 days?

ah. well nevermind :)

this is going to be a close one today. about a 500 vote difference with mere hours to go . . .

Yep been holding steady for the last 8 or so hours..unless there is a last minute upvoting........

I've been reading about Caesar III vs. Caesar IV, but any opinions on GOG about it?

Also, the way I read it, for Z + P, it seems like you just build armies, and don't have to do any combat. Is that right?

I would love to buy Empire Earth series on -80% or -75% :-P

Zeus has been on my wishlist since forever. I'm buying it whether it's 75 or 60% reduction.

This is for Z+P:
You have to build up your city with houses for the better standing who represent your improved army - for that you need horses, wine, olives, clothes, etc. When you see that the city has developed enough in the army screen you can go and invade foreign colonies. There is basically no fighting, only if you wish to do it when you defend your city, but you can bribe enemy armies to go home :)

Hmm Empire Earth won't prevail, interesting...

Excuse my stupidity, but how are you supposed to vote? If it requires facebook or twitter, forget it.

You just click on the battle of the games page and vote for the games no facebook or twitter.
If you cant find it - the link here: http://www.gog.com/gamerumble

Got Unreal Gold in the deal. Can't wait to try it out since in my time we played basically only Quake ;)

Ok, thanks. So I guess you just click one of the game links. That means I've been voting for both sides when I was trying to read up about each of them. :)

There will be a "vote for" option for each set of games. Clicking on the games themselves does nothing.