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[Medevenx]

hi guys it's me Med. i've always loved being here discussing game design and spriting but lately i haven't really been active. i've just been so busy with civil engineering university work that i'm being pulled away from my true love, video games. how do you guys find time to do games anyway (mostly pointing this out to those who just sideline game making)

i've been thinking really because of the lack of time. can we decide to no loger be indie and be part of the mainstream largely known video game companies? i mean i see some incredibly talented devs here whose games should be licensed on actual consoles but what is hindering us from that? is it our choice to be indie? what is the big differnce between an indie game dev and a not one is (besides the obvious part)?

[Moczan]

Bur isn't the obvious part the most important?

[poe]

I missed you too

[eigenbom]

Ahh calculating stresses in trusses, i miss those days ... :S

Nothing is hindering us from licensing games on consoles, and plenty do. It's so resource-intensive that many of us probably can't (or don't want to) afford the money or time. Hopefully this barrier will be reduced in the not to distant future with the Valve console, or more ubiquitous pc->tv setups, or just better support on current consoles. Though I'm not sure about the latter, in Australia we can't even access the xbox live indie games.

Independent can mean a lot of things, independent of a publisher or parent company, independent of some outside force controlling the direction of your game, but all these things are tenuous and in the end it just ends up being a marketing label. Better to just ignore it and call ourselves: game developers, game makers, bringers of joy, or civil FUNgineers.

[baconman]

I would think the cost of console-specific devkits could be a factor for some of us, although now with XBLA/(PSN/Vita?) having freeware IDEs, that's a thing of the past - unless maybe you're making a SNES or WiiWare game. Then there's making assets - although some have shown they can compare with AAA designer-developers, that's still hard for the rest of us to do.