groze: 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.
I agree. It definitely has a place, and if anything, the indies are what will help pull the industry through once it hits the wall. The triple A companies will end up screwing themselves trying to go for flash instead of substance, and the morons at the wheel will keep on beating their heads against the idea of people caring less about pretty pictures and more about things like good characters, good stories, good gameplay, little things like being able to evoke emotions and provoke real thought. What annoys me is that the shitty indie people are bringing down the good ones by association. What annoys me is the thought of people waving the indie banner when in reality it's about their stuff being cheap garbage being made for a quick buck. To me, it spits in the face of small crews doing good things. Right now I'm waiting for Wasteland 2 (on GOG, of course) because I'm disgusted with what a bigger publisher has done with a series that I used to love, and the indie group is doing it completely differently. If all the indies went away, to me there's no seeming bleaker. It straight up would be. That would be the point where the majority of the industry was being controlled by the number crunchers and the bullshit marketers. That's when games being made by people who couldn't tell a compelling story to save their lives and don't even want to try to would have no soul whatsoever.
