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[Nate Kling]

http://shankgame.com/news/klei-signs-with-ea-partners-for-shank/
It appears Shank is now partnered with EA.  Was just wondering what you guys thought of this. It's an interesting case of an indie game possibly gone non-indie half way through development.  Shank still looks like a game with incredible animation even if the subject matter is pretty typical and cliche.  What are your thoughts on the move?

[Craig Stern]

IMHO, that de-indie-fies it pretty as a matter of definition. One thing (in fact, possibly the only thing) everyone can agree on with "indie" is that it means you can't be beholden to some publisher while developing your game.

On the other hand, does an indie game turn non-indie the second some publisher throws money at it? Is Wikus non-human the second he starts growing that crazy prawn arm? I dunno. The animations do still look nice, though. 

[Nate Kling]

Yeah I think its a pretty interesting situation.  For me being indie is just as much about the spirit as it is the technical definition.  Just like punk rock or any kind of subculture, they all have their own spirit that also goes with their identity.  I wonder how much input EA has on the creative decisions.  They seem to suggest that they've retained all creative control but it would be a shame if EA people started getting their grubby fingers on it.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I loved that movie, so much.  
I'm going to go watch it again now.(now = sooner or later)

Personally, I don't think an indie game becomes non-indie the second they strike a deal with a publisher. If that was true, Braid and Flower wouldn't be indie. Microsoft and Sony are indeed publishers. Braid was also ported to PC through Steam-- Valve is also a publisher.

[Tuba]

As long as the developer still has the freedom to develop his game the way that he wants, I think it's a good thing that a big publisher is supporting an independent game.

[Lord Tim]

They're already pretty far into development now, aren't they? I don't think EA can do too much to the game.

It will always be indie at heart. 

[c-foo peng]

I loved that movie, so much.  
I'm going to go watch it again now.(now = sooner or later)

Personally, I don't think an indie game becomes non-indie the second they strike a deal with a publisher. If that was true, Braid and Flower wouldn't be indie. Microsoft and Sony are indeed publishers. Braid was also ported to PC through Steam-- Valve is also a publisher.

Thinking of Microsoft, Sony, and Valve as publishers isn't quite exactly the way you should look at it. They control the distribution channels, so they're acting more like retailers than publishers.

In the case of Flower, Sony was both publisher AND retailer. A point to notice though, Flower wasn't nominated for IGF...

[jwk5]

What's the difference between an artist and a starving artist? One is starving.

[Alexander Bruce]

Does it really matter?

At the end of the day, it was still a team of guys who made a game, throughout the duration of it being made, and then they got a publisher. That's just what you do sometimes if you want to go to market successfully. There are cases for and against not needing publishers, but I'd take each case as its own thing, and add them all to a folio of "examples of games that went somewhere somehow".

[LemonScented]

Microsoft and Sony aren't publishers, except to their wholly-owned first-party development studios. They're platform holders, which means that although they get to dictate technical and legal requirements for a game to appear on their platform, they don't have any meaningful creative control over the third-party games that get made, and they don't fund those games (in fact they charge for you to release your stuff on their platforms). Valve, in its capacity of running Steam, is sort of a platform holder too - I'd say more a distributor, since the PC as a platform is open, but I'm probably just splitting hairs. Ironically, as a developer, Valve is an indie: They fund themselves, and although they work with companies like EA to distribute boxed copies of their games, I don't think EA funds them in any way, or has any creative control.

So, weirdly, if your definition of indie is "not funded by an external party, who will want to own the IP, or at least have creative control over it" (which is pretty much the only definition of indie that I understand), Valve is more indie than the guys who are making Shank. Weird, eh? Where it gets even fuzzier is whether the people who are supported by the indie fund stop being indie just by virtue of taking the money - I suspect that that really depends on the terms of the contract, but it sounds very much like the Indie Fund guys are very keen NOT to try to exert creative control.

All of this is semantics, of course. What really matters is if the game is any good.

[Melly]

I think it only matters for the developer if the publisher starts demanding changes, cuts, additions, imposing strict deadlines, owning the ip, etc. If the control over development is still on the developer's hands, I think it's fairly safe to say they're still indie, as fuzzy as that term may seem sometimes.

[LemonScented]

I guess ultimately it depends on the motivations of the people supplying the money. Funding a game is such a risky business (as in just gambling that money away will probably give you a better return in most cases) that any investor with any business nouse is going to want to have some control over the product and the process just to try to make their money back and make a profit. Which is completely understandable from the money-mens' point of view, but it can hamper the developer's creative process to the extent that they no longer make the game they actually wanted to make.

If you can get money to fund a game with no strings attached then you're incredibly lucky, and your investor is either incredibly generous or incredibly stupid. Demanding changes, cuts, additions, imposing strict deadlines and owning the IP is a publisher's JOB. If they don't do that, they go out of business by funding games that either don't get finished within a reasonable time and budget, or get finished but are too niche in their appeal to make the money back.

[Nate Kling]

... or the game ends with an actually well thought out ending and leaves no room for thousands of sequels and spinoffs

[Peter]

As long as the developer still has the freedom to develop his game the way that he wants, I think it's a good thing that a big publisher is supporting an independent game.

Agreed.

I don't get the obsession with the term 'indie'. There's really no need to discuss whether the dev is still indie or not. As long as the game turns out good, does it matter?

Plus, I'm not really too worried about EA interfering with the game too much. Like someone said, the game's already pretty late into development, meaning there's not much room for change. Also, not to diss Shank or anything, but it looks like every publisher's wet dream: lots of guns, lots of blood, lots of badassery.

</uneducated opinion>

[nikki]

i think now he's not "Indie" anymore.
Now he's a profesional game-developer ! ( )

every boy's wet dream ~!

[Craig Stern]

I don't get the obsession with the term 'indie'.

That's true. We're on TGS, right? The Game Source?

[Peter]

I don't get the obsession with the term 'indie'.

That's true. We're on TGS, right? The Game Source?

Ok, I guess I didn't phrase that correctly. What I'm trying to say is that I don't understand the use of the term as a way of life, and that it shouldn't matter if someone is indie or not. Who cares if the dev of Shank is still technically indie? Just enjoy the damn game.

[nikki]

Who cares if the dev of Shank is still technically indie? Just enjoy the damn game.

 

well that's the point of this post, as the OP cared enough to write a post about it...
And because many people care and disagree about alot of thing a forum such as this can exist,
and btw why are you even caring here?, and not out there enjoying the game ? 

I do agree with you about the hollownes of the term indie, and the need for enjoyable games

[CosmicMaher]

Pretty sure indie just means small team to single person making a game on a low budget comparative to larger game studios.

Way of life and all that shit is stupid.

[JMickle]

For me, it's all about creative control. The way i see it, its an independent game because EA didn't control the whole process. IF he makes another game, backed by EA from the start, then you have a good case to claim it isn't independant. Because it aint.