"Culture moves at it's own pace" is an odd thing to say, as if artists/designers aren't part of culture. If you take a look at history, artists often have a hold of the reigns--like it or not. It's not about being thought police, it's about introducing a new thought, and people are free to accept or reject it. Less about constructing culture, and more about questioning and affirming values. But that's slightly tangential, and assumes games should be political, which I don't have a problem with, but wasn't my original argument.
You misunderstand me, artists should be able to do whatever they want without worrying about stepping on anyone's toes.
They should not worry about being banned for distribution like Hatred did, or GTA5.
They should not get flack for making a women character sexy like in Bayonneta or Dragon's Crown.
They should be able to be as violent or as non violent as they want depending on their vision of the game.
Anti-GG are the ones who are pushing everything to fit their ideological lines.
If customers are feeling abandoned by their old media, that's uh... culture moving at its own pace? An argument that comes up a lot on these forums is that "fun games will always be made" and I think that's true. Maybe with encroaching topics, there will be fun games with less potentially offensive themes, but for some reason I doubt that too. Game designers are rejecting male fantasy audiences to some degree, I guess we can argue if that's a problem or not.
The indie market is super broad, that's the point. More games made specifically for children, or women, or a different race. It's the same market yes: however, that's assuming games designers were always targeting the whole same market, instead of the most profitable one, young white males etc. By broadening the scope of your themes and characters, you're expanding the market of who buys games, not limiting it.
You do not understand. GamerGate is broad, they are the market, they don't just buy COD or whatever, they also buy Indie Games. In fact PC Gamers are probably the predominant driving force behind GG and Indie Gaming.
You think the followers of Anita Sarkesian is your market?
They don't buy games, there are in this for the ideology.
We can all dream about the uncharted untapped markets, but show me the statics, are they really there?
People who buy RPGs? Who do you think are likely to be GG or not?
People who buy platformers? Who are they? GG or not?
People who buy roguelikes?
People who buy strategy games?
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/232790/Gamasutras_Best_of_2014_Leigh_Alexanders_Top_5_Games.phpThis is what they want. There is nothing wrong with those games(except the Kardashian one),This War of Mine is on my personal game of the year list, but we know pretty much what women want as games(as in their are actual statistics) so we know what the feminist critics would want.
Narratively focused, more casual non-competitive experiences.
And that is fine. But is it the audience for your particular game you are making?
I cannot imagine in any way why would developers would be dismissive of any of their audience, GG or not.
Maybe they have personal or ideological reasons for it, but even then at the end of the day you would still have to deal with the devil they consider if you want to be profitable.
UPDATE:
You may think I am talking out of my ass here but lets take Steam as an example. If you are an Indie I don't have to explain what Steam is, you live or die by it.
http://store.steampowered.com/curators/#p1Pro-GG subscribers:
TB +386k
Nerd^3 +93k
/r/pcmaster +79k
Cox list +69k
Total =627k
Anti-GG subscribers:
PC Gamers +150k
Jim Sterling +91k
RPS +78k
Total =319k
It's not a perfect list since there are some that I don't know their position on,probably neutral, but this should give you at least an idea.
The list also is not a representation of
your market and how it can help
you individually.
For example RPS does a lot more promoting of Indie titles, and while everyone would dream of being taken up by TB and he does take Indies form time to time, it probably won't happen.
That is one legitimate problem with the new youtube media promoting, the more potential audience they have the harder it is to get picked up. In articles you can be more broad since you are under the brand of a site not individual personalities.
However the numbers don't lie, it is stupid to dismiss a huge chunk of your audience.
Also if you look at
The Cox List you will see that its not just COD crap.
Developer
