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[ANtY]

What is indie and what is not

When today’s morning I read an article where Epic Games called themselves indie, cup of bitterness overflowed. At this point I decided to write this post[...]

[Manuel Magalhães]

What do you mean by "faceless companies that develop AAAgames"?

[ANtY]

What do you mean by "faceless companies that develop AAAgames"?

I'd call it "blowing out of proportion" 

[Christian Knudsen]

Do Epic own the IP to the games they make? If they do, they're indie. And a game developer can also publish games made by other game developers and still be indie. So of course Mojang is indie. As is cliffski, even though he's publishing a game made by someone else. EA isn't an independent game developer, because as far as I know, they only publish games made by EA subsidiaries. Mojang and cliffski are still making their own games. It's not really as complicated as everybody always tries to make it.

[ANtY]

I didn't say that Mojang isn't indie, I'm just wondering how to interpret it in my way, not yours where you assume that indie == independent (IP right?).

[leonelc29]

it happen, all over again.

[moi]

Phil fish is the only indie, everybody else is a hack

[thatshelby]

I didn't say that Mojang isn't indie, I'm just wondering how to interpret it in my way, not yours where you assume that indie == independent (IP right?).

IP = intellectual property

[ANtY]

I know this  

I was just referring to it since it's a relevant term - "do they own IP? Yes? So they're indie" sth like this

[Noah!]

It's important not to let labels define you. When you let labels define you, you lose yourself for the sake of the label. If the label dies, you die too. If the label doesn't die, you're still dead, but the label dies on.

It reminds me fantastically of the phrase "if you are what you do, then when you don't, you aren't." My friend said it and I thought it was wise. But he said he got it from a girl whom I had a love-hate relationship with. Unrequited love-hate. I cared. She didn't. She said it. I vomited out of sheer willpower.

[Netsu]

With all those different indie definitions flying around I prefer to treat it more like a scale.
On one end of the scale you have a bearded man making his game alone in a basement relying on his animal friends to bring him food leftovers form the overworld.
On the other end you have any AAA studio that has little to no control over the content of the game they're developing, because the management is telling them what the publisher thinks the shareholders want them to produce.

[JWK5]

"Indie" doesn't mean a whole lot to me, I am not much for "scenes". When it comes to games I see it as either a game a bunch of people made or a game one or a few people made.

Which is best, most artistic, etc. (to me)? Neither. I've seen great, inspiring stuff come from both ends of the spectrum. The only major difference I see tends to be how personal a project is versus being a shared vision and the amount of resources available to make the project with.

[ANtY]

I just don't like the way some use the indie label for marketing purposes when they have obviously nothing in common with it.

[JoGribbs]

They are an Independent Developer because they are not owned by a publisher, is that hard to understand?

Wait no sorry lets put on our thinking caps and mull over 'definitions'.

It reminds me fantastically of the phrase "if you are what you do, then when you don't, you aren't." My friend said it and I thought it was wise. But he said he got it from a girl whom I had a love-hate relationship with. Unrequited love-hate. I cared. She didn't. She said it. I vomited out of sheer willpower.

What is... going on... with this post?

[ANtY]

They are an Independent Developer because they are not owned by a publisher, is that hard to understand?

indie != independent, is it that hard to understand? I have no problem with them calling themselves "an Independent Developer"