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[DoubleJump]

From a business standpoint, what does it mean to be indie?

In the past few years, the term ''indie'' has been used so much that I sometime wonder if it means anything anymore.  I am worried that more and more developers choose to go (or not) independent for the wrong reasons.

To me, the definition of an independent developer is pretty straightforward.  Development studios should only be called indie if they are not seeking support from publishers to finance, market et distribute their games.  While this may seem like a simplistic explanation, I think this is what best defines ''indie'' from a business standpoint.

My academic background being finance, I see a very obvious analogy to the indie/published dilemma.  When you build an investment portfolio, you first thing that you have to determine is your level of risk tolerance.  If you can't sleep when the S&P 500 drops 5%, you probably shouldn't make risky investments.  On the other hand, professional investors such as venture capitalists and angels strive for risky investments.  They know that while there is a strong possibility that their investment will give them negative returns, there is also a slim chance that they will ''score a home run'' and get their money back 50 times.

How does this apply to independent developers?  Well, every developer has to choose which road they want to take.  The first option is to play it safe and look for a publishing partner.  If you get a deal, you are assured to get a certain level of financial compensation for your game.  However, you are also giving up your right to collect profits.  So, you end up with limited downside as well as limited upside.  If you want to relate this to a financial instrument, think of bonds.  The second option that indie developers have is to go all the way and put everything on the line.  By doing financing, marketing et distribution by themselves, they are taking a higher financial risk by incurring additional costs and are guaranteed nothing in terms of cash inflow.  However, if their game is a success, they will reap all the rewards (profits) generated by their work.

The point that I am trying to make is that just as investors need to carefully evaluate their level of risk aversion, indie developers should also think about how much risk they are willing to take.  If you are only in the indie game for the upside, you should really rethink your business model.  On the other hand, if you are looking for big money, you shouldn't build your game or your studio to be attractive to publishers.  You should do your own thing and strive for public recognition.

I'm curious to hear your opinion on the matter.  Do you think that the indie/publisher dilemma is handled with enough diligence?

By the way, I'm new to the community.  So, hello to everyone and I look forward to discussing with all of you!

[Uykered]

My parents are my publishers, I don't call my self "amateur". They provide me with money if I need it and with food and shelter. My mum even marketed my games to my auntie.

amateur is more of a label like "hippy", "emo" etc. to feel special.

[Moczan]

Indie is not financial term, it's about creative freedom so gtfo. As long as you do what you want and money comes second, not first, it doesn't matter which monetization method you use.

[MattG]

indie is building games and having total creative and artistic license without financing from one of the big companies IMO

[_Tommo_]

It's a somewhat sound point of view, but I think that "indie" here is best related to creative indipendence and scale rather than economical indipendence.
It's easy to see that both giants such as Blizzard or Valve are economically independent, but have a scale that puts them out from the "indie" league.
Also, small casual/clone-game-maker studios are economically independent but aren't still really "indie" because they forgo individual creativity to exploit the current trend (as any AAA studio would do).

PS: publishers DO NOT guarantee a return, that's completely wrong if you have a royalty deal with them, and usually not many traditional publishers do what you say - aka they buy your game.
Most often (more often on IOS) they will sign a deal with you and use you to fill a game portfolio and balance THEIR risks, while your game alone is as prone to fail as any other indie.
Just look at chillingo: they have some cash cows, and then a vast wasteland of flopped titles... and they still get 40% or more on revenues of those "marketing flops". Not exactly a deal for the developer.
I wouldn't advice going for publishers at all nowadays, they are useful only if you really need some advertising and weight with reviewers.

[Christian Knudsen]

It sure didn't take long for this to turn into yet another thread on what it means to be "indie"...

Anyway, the OP presents a false dichotomy: Being "safe" with a publishing deal or "gambling" everything by doing it yourself. There's a third option which I imagine most developers on these boards have chosen -- having a paying job and developing on the side. You don't have to throw caution to the wind and risk everything to be an indie developer.

Besides, if you want a publishing deal, you'll probably still have to present a prototype of your game, so you'll still be working on your game without any financial support before you, maybe, maybe, get a publishing deal.

[SplinterOfChaos]

I agree that finance isn't the only thing to consider in "is this indy", but it's not like it doesn't have importance. It is because an indie is financially independent that s/he is allowed utmost freedom in what s/he chooses to pursues.

As for Blizzard and Valve, they still gain some of the benefits of being indie (i.e. creative freedom, profits), but they also have the advantages of the dependents (i.e. massive audience, mainstream interest, big budget). Does that mean they are neither? Maybe they're both!

To look at being indie as only having some sort of "spirit" is highly subjective and i don't remember any doctrine defining principals we all agree with. There certainly are some things, but what are they?

[eiyukabe]

I don't feel like going indie cold-turkey and risking it all is a valid or optimal approach. In fact, I view working on an indie game on the side while your day job keeps your bills paid and keeps you from drawing unemployment or mooching off your parents or whatever as the more "responsible" approach. Also, I feel that the cold-turkey approach is what causes indies to panic and become just as evil as publishers, only smaller. I can easily see someone stressing out after going through their savings and deciding to just rip off minecraft and spam the minecraft forums instead of working on what they truly want to. If you have income on the side, you might have less time to work on your project, but you are more likely to be in good spirits and be able to provide what your project needs instead of what your bank account needs. Indie developers should love their games like children, and you wouldn't quit your job when you have a kid so you can spend all of your time with them would you?

Therefore, I don't really agree with the dichotomy presented by the OP. I think that the risk/reward setup is a side effect of the indie/dependent dichotomy, but what it primarily comes down to is whether you are a respected contributor to society who will get justifiably rewarded or you are an unacknowledged wageslave that will be laid off when the project ships with no future gains (the company you worked for keeps the brand presence for future sequels, consumer good will if the title is a hit, future profits, IP such as assets & engine, etc). Heck, look at the Team Bondi debacle where over 100 employees were left off of the credits. In this industry, we have to fight just to have people know we worked on the damn game! I really think the indie approach to game development is the "natural" approach, and what the mainstream industry is doing is an abomination of ethics. I hope that the passage of time will remedy this; we need big and small, but we don't need evil.

EDIT: For clarity, since I'm kind of darting around the original question -- to me, indie is the ideal way to make games, the only way it every should have been. Not to say that every game should be made by one to three people; you can be as big as, say, Valve and still be indie (in my opinion). I also feel like this is the future of game development. How much longer are we going to starve watching our creative talent inflate the wealth of those who have nothing to give to society beyond an arbitrary position at the top of a corrupt workplace hierarchy?

[Zaphos]

@eiyukabe, I kind of want to agree just so I can say "never go full indie" but I don't see how cold turkey isn't valid ... a number of people seem to have succeeded (or to be presently succeeding) by going full time indie?  I think world of goo, meat boy, braid, fez, etc were made or are being made via a cold turkey strategy?

[Atnas]

OP makes sense and it's one way to look at it. Moczan you're bein pretty rude. :c

There are plenty of people who get into making indie games not only because they enjoy it but because there are tasty financial prospects glistening on the horizon. To some people it DOES mean freedom but to others it just means more $$$ and neither is wrong.

[eiyukabe]

Fair enough. Although in the example of Braid, Jonathan worked on that for something like 3 years, which seems to indicate that he had savings or side work (he did some consulting at some point, maybe before or maybe during Braid's development). I don't know much about the others, but WoG was done by ex-industry people who, while they might have developed it "cold turkey", they probably had decent buffers in place (a network they built up from working in the game industry so they could more easily get jobs if they needed to, maybe even savings). I suppose the cold-turkey way of looking at things is not a good one; if you started indie development "cold turkey" with $100,000 in savings and no debt, you're probably in a good position. Perhaps what I should have said was something more along the lines of trying to set up enough of a buffer so your living expenses aren't constantly pressuring you into making the wrong types of decisions. This can be done either with a steady job with indie development on the side, or enough savings and a decent support network to help you go full-indie.

With all that said, I haven't gone full indie, so maybe I'm just completely wrong  . Still have too much college debt to take such a risk, so I'm trying the easier approach of just making small things on the side of my main job and hoping I can build up a fan base to be profitable later.

[Zaphos]

I think Jonathan Blow did Braid full time but had built up more than $300,000 in savings beforehand, which he spent making the game.  So yeah, buffers are nice.

Although I think some people have succeeded with much less buffer.  And people have also probably gotten distracted trying to build their buffer, or lost motivation trying to do a job and make a game on the side simultaneously, and never made their dream game for that reason as well.  The Meat Boy team have even attributed their success partly to the pressure of a lack of buffer.  So, I think the best answer may depend on the type of person, the game they want to make, etc.

[Virion]

With salary of USD$800 per month as game programmer (well, I'm living in Asia), I am still struggling to save my first buffer enough to go full indie. Currently only saved around less than USD$2000 lol how long you think I could save up to something like Jonathan Blow did? But luckily my team mate is doing the game fulltime (he teaches concept art at a nearby college, 1 class per week) and hopefully our game can be released in few more months from now so I'll see how it go. Feel kinda guilty for not able to full-force with him in the development.

[ANtY]

I think Jonathan Blow did Braid full time but had built up more than $300,000 in savings beforehand, which he spent making the game.  So yeah, buffers are nice.

I was always thinking that he took a bank loan.

[Zaphos]

Oops, I no longer remember where that number even came from  , the number I see googling now is actually $180,000: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121814539048522033.html (edit: changed kotaku link to actual article link, note it starts halfway down the page)

"$180,000 of his own money" implied to me 'not a loan', but I'm not sure.

Also, very relevant quote here, re how much money is "needed": http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/3266/gdc09-jonathon-blow-reveals-braids-budget/

"Also, a lot of that money was spent because I didn't want to live in a shack somewhere... It doesn't require $200,000 to make a game.  It requires a PC, a dev kit and enough money to live on for the time it takes to develop, plus extra time because it will always slip.  If you can live for three years at your Mom's house, you can make a game for free."

[moi]

johnathan blow
did braid, did braid
johnathan blow's big brain did braid
while eating beans with butter bread
johnathan blow
did braid, did braid
jonothon blow did braid ,in bed,
bent on his butt but brave and bald
johnathan blow
did braid, did braid
jonhatan blow got the bank,to borrow beef
for braid,for braid
but he got back badly burnt.
banker berated, "get bust you bum!"
no bread for braid
that's bad
for braid
that's bad
for braid
jonhotan Blow bit the bullet
and back to back did braid in braid
Johnatan blow
did braid , did braid
he braid he braid

[bluescrn]

To me, the definition of an independent developer is pretty straightforward.  Development studios should only be called indie if they are not seeking support from publishers to finance, market et distribute their games.  While this may seem like a simplistic explanation, I think this is what best defines ''indie'' from a business standpoint.

I disagree with that definition.

I'm working on an iOS project, which to me is very much indie - Entirely self-funded, one coder, one artist, our own design.

But it's likely to be published through a publisher - as they're a well known name with a lot of experience on the platform, and should be able to do a significantly better of marketing the title that we could on our own.

But your definition, anything that gets Humble Bundled is no longer indie, as Humble Bundle Inc is basically a form of publisher. Oh, Steam is a publisher, too...

It's incredibly hard to define 'indie' these days, when indies range from amateur hobbyists making their first Game Maker game, to 'AAA indies' with millions in funding (usually from previous successes) and sizeable teams.

[Atnas]

Yeah, having a publisher doesn't mean the development isn't indie. If they get involved in the development (because they want it to sell) then people might start to question it, but in the end "indie games" are just games made outside of a corporate environment, no matter the budget or success they have at becoming accessible by the mainstream market.

[PompiPompi]

$200K is his living cost for 3 years? Some people don't make this amount of money in 10 years(after taxes).

But anyway, is there actually a place that the term "Indie games" is defined? Who is the first person to use the term "Indie X"(replace X with anything?).
As time pass I seem to be less and less certain what Indie means, and what makes some poster here more right about it than the other? I mean, it's not defined in the dictionary, is it?

[Christian Knudsen]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/indie

And please, for the love of god and all that is holy, don't turn this into another "What does it mean to be indie" thread...