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[J. R. Hill]

Someone will have to make a Declaration of Indiependence

But then again, if people united on the definition of Indie, it would no longer be independent, but united.

[/weaktrolling]

[Derek]

True, but I would like us all just to settle on it meaning independent

That's far from settling it, as proven by the OP.

[starsrift]

I didn't want to excessively belabor the point, because I don't necessarily disagree with Paul and Derek's explanations, but on the other hand, I think if you went and asked the designers who work at Valve and Bethesda whether they feel indie - or constrained by a publisher who endeavours to exert creative control - they would disagree. I was trying to search for an interview I read where one of the Bethesda guys refers to themself as an indie company, but after several minutes of looking, I couldn't be arsed to look further. I think there's a lot of room throughout the spectrum, and some ambiguity isn't a bad thing.

More germane to the original topic, I wasn't aware that Rinku had intended it to be a "encourage other people to play small, obscure games" thread, since that was mentioned nowhere in his original posts or linked previous thread.

[DavidCaruso]

If the definition is just stopped at "independent" then that would mean that anyone who has made a great game is considered indie regardless of where they work at, because making a great game involves 1) having a great idea and 2) having the necessary talent, resources, and (if applicable) influence required to make that idea a reality, both of which are required to achieve any creative vision of any worth. This can be expressed in a single factor, the capacity of a given team to achieve their vision, aka that team's degree of independence. At the same time a team who makes bad games isn't very independent at all regardless of how many people are in it or how much money they have, because their lack of talent, drive, and/or resources limits their freedom of possibility and necessarily puts constraints on their vision.

It's a muddy label which doesn't really have much to do with the actual games lumped under it, but I just see it as an expansion of the hobbyist gamedev community. Team size depends on who you count as part of the team (are testers in a game's team? what about people who only contributed a small part of the artwork/music/code?), publishers excludes XBLA/XBLIG games which are published by Microsoft (I remember Edmund McMillen complaining that Microsoft was putting too much stress on him during the development of Super Meat Boy.)

[Derek]

This can be expressed in a single factor, the capacity of a given team to achieve their vision, aka that team's degree of independence.

AFAIK, the term "independent" really just refers to self-governance, so I'm not sure where you're getting your definition that includes "good and bad" (well, actually I know exactly where you're getting it, but where did the definition originally come from? ). Your definition is not only kinda redundant, but it's also much muddier than the accepted definition because, for example, certain kinds of constraints are great for creativity. Also, what if someone's vision itself is bad? Etc.

The term "indie" has existed long before video games and even though it's short for "independent", when it comes to art there's always been an extra implication of separation from the mainstream and small size.

I just see it as an expansion of the hobbyist gamedev community.

I think so, too.

Team size depends on who you count as part of the team (are testers in a game's team? what about people who only contributed a small part of the artwork/music/code?), publishers excludes XBLA/XBLIG games which are published by Microsoft (I remember Edmund McMillen complaining that Microsoft was putting too much stress on him during the development of Super Meat Boy.)

XBLA/XBLIG games are not really published by Microsoft, because Microsoft does not fund or own the games. Also, you can have a publisher publish your game on XBLA for you. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacking_(video_game)

This game was developed by Double Fine and published by THQ on XBLA. Microsoft is not listed as a second publisher. As the platform owner they do play some publisher-like roles, but I think the relationship is pretty different overall.

As for team size, if you, for example, included all of the Microsoft/VMC people who touched Super Boy then yes, it would be a larger team than, say, an army of one like cactus. But it would still be much smaller than a company like Valve.

When deciding what to post on TIGS I don't often run into conflicts, and it's plain to see that there are trends (good and bad) that are specific to indies, so I don't find it to be a muddy term at all - it's quite useful! I'm not sure how you'd use your definition, though, since, like with the term "art", you are simply equating it with "good". You may as well just use "good", then.

[Paul Eres]

True, but I would like us all just to settle on it meaning independent which is what the word is short anyway for without having to muddy the waters by listing things like team size, certain aesthetics, budget concerns, price point, etc. as bullet points after it because I feel that the narrower we define it the further we're getting away from the original meaning.

has anyone even mentioned anything like that in this thread, or are you making things up? i didn't see anyone mention the things you listed

in epistemology, they distinguish between essential and accidental qualities of a word. essential ones are qualities which, if changed, would make the word not apply. accidentals are qualities which are not essential to the word, but tend to be true of it anyway, even though they aren't a part of the definition

an example: we could say that apples are red, round pomaceous fruit of the malus domestica tree family. "red" and "round" are accidental, not essential: apples which are not red or not round are still apples. but nonetheless red and round tend to be true of most apples

[C.A. Sinner]

Not in this thread but in the 5000 other threads about "the meaning of indie" we've had on tigs

[Paul Eres]

i think the word indie has a couple definitions, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't mean anything, or that those multiple meanings don't simultaneously exist. it can mean the primary sense of an independent individual or team which self-publishes their games, or the secondary sense of pertaining to the indie spirit

as an example, popcap, early on, prior to being bought by EA, back when they had no employees and were just a team making bejeweled, was indie in the first sense, but many people thought they were not indie in the second sense because they tended to clone games (e.g. puzz loop vs zuma), and to make games that they thought would sell rather than games they wanted to play, and to be more concerned with business matters than creative matters

so when someone called popcap 'not indie', they didn't literally mean that they were not an independent developer (because they were, up until the point where they started hiring salaried employees to make games for them), just that they acted in a way and made games which were very dissimilar in spirit from other indies. they were still technically apples, but they weren't round or red, and didn't taste very good

[InventorOfTheInternet]

Not in this thread but in the 5000 other threads about "the meaning of indie" we've had on tigs

C.A. Sinclair

My apologies, it looks like I accidentally set the internet to rerun mode.  I have amended the problem, please excuse the inconvenience.

Yours truly,
Al Gore

[Paul Eres]

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

[Türbo Bröther]

has anyone even mentioned anything like that in this thread, or are you making things up? i didn't see anyone mention the things you listed

What Sinclair said but also Pteriforever's definition on the first page which I feel is a bit too exclusive for my liking.

as an example, popcap, early on, prior to being bought by EA, back when they had no employees and were just a team making bejeweled, was indie in the first sense, but many people thought they were not indie in the second sense because they tended to clone games (e.g. puzz loop vs zuma), and to make games that they thought would sell rather than games they wanted to play, and to be more concerned with business matters than creative matters

so when someone called popcap 'not indie', they didn't literally mean that they were not an independent developer (because they were, up until the point where they started hiring salaried employees to make games for them), just that they acted in a way and made games which were very dissimilar in spirit from other indies.

Popcap were indie because they were doing everything on their own. People only  tried to define what indie was in regards to Popcap probably because they hated match-3 games and wanted an easy excuse to poo-poo the company.

[Paul Eres]

i don't think you quite understood what i said about accidental and essential -- i wasn't saying that people were saying popcap wasn't indie, just that when people called popcap not indie, they didn't mean that they were not independent, they meant that they acted differently than other indies, and that things which were generally true (but not essentially true) of indies were not true of popcap

in other words, there are two uses of any word: the first to refer to its essential characteristics, and the second to refer to its accidental ones. most words can be used in this way. e.g. "obama isn't really black" -- people saying that don't mean he doesn't have black skin or isn't of african descent, they mean that he grew up rich and without having the same type of experiences that most blacks in the country do. or "junk food isn't real food". they aren't saying that junk food isn't actually food, just that it doesn't have many of the good characteristics associated with food. it's just how language works, sometimes words refer to the essential characteristics of a category, and sometimes they refer to the peripheral characteristics of a category

[Türbo Bröther]

Just because they weren't doing exactly what other indies were doing at the time doesn't make them any less independent accidental or otherwise, because they didn't fit into the pigeon hole that some people wanted them to. It's why I want us to just settle on the term just staying at independent without having to narrow it unnecessarily. Not just for Popcap but in general. It's broad enough to accommodate a wide variety of people/developers without having to narrow it and exclude people who fit the description.

[Blademasterbobo]

why are you being so stupid i dont get it

[Carrie Nation]

There's inevitably like 3 people who come in with the argument that

"IF WE USE THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD INDEPENDENT THEN EVERY GAME IS "INDIE" BECAUSE PRETENTIOUS STATEMENT ABOUT INDIE MEANING LOVING YOUR WORK AND BEING YOUR OWN MAN"