Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411283 Posts in 69325 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 29, 2024, 05:05:02 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsPlayerGamesthe EA indie bundle
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6
Print
Author Topic: the EA indie bundle  (Read 11929 times)
kukouri
Level 0
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #40 on: May 03, 2012, 09:34:47 PM »

The games are indie. They were published by EA, not developed.

What people seem not to be getting about that is this.

A game can be published in different ways. You can handle all development costs yourself and then find a publisher to bring the game to the market in a way better than you could yourself.
Or you can find a publisher during or before developing a game, pitch your idea, and have them fund some or all of the development costs.

The later I can get people not calling indie. You are at the whim of the publisher most if not all of the time in that model.

The first however, how exactly is that not still indie? The game itself is what it is, was developed entirely by whatever team, with their own funds and time. Just the marketing basically is being handled by the publisher for the most part.
If people are going to call the games in this bundle not indie just because they happen to be published by EA, then you might want to look  at every other game you consider to be indie, and see if they used any PR agencies to help market their products.
You should then reconsider your stance on if they are indie or not if they did use any PR firm to help them.
Logged
eld
Level 2
**



View Profile
« Reply #41 on: May 03, 2012, 10:15:15 PM »

Again, these are not bad developers, they've independantly funded their own development, but any publishing contract signed with EA will give EA control to do things, and a bunch of it includes exclusivity, or the fact that one title requires origin.

Quote
"REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- EA Partners, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced an agreement with independent developer Trapdoor, to publish Warp™. This unique stealth action game features a top-down sci-fi world with a distinctive art style, addicting levels, hazardous traps and challenging puzzles. The new game will debut on Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PlayStation® Network and PC in Summer 2011.

"Working with EA Partners allows us to expand our distribution to a much larger audience while still being able to retain our creative vision and identity," said Ken Schachter, Founder of Trapdoor. "As an independent studio we are thrilled with the opportunity to leverage the expertise and talent of EA's publishing organization to bring our very first game on console to life."

Quote
“If you break it down, it “technically” makes sense,” Jamie continued. “EA published a bunch of cool games made by independent developers, but it’s easy to construe it as a trying to cash in on the indie label. The fact is these games may never have been made without their support, so I think it’s unfortunate that there’s backlash on it — better to applaud them as one of the few publishers that have let developers retain ownership of the IP!”

They're basically regular studios with smaller production budgets and some nice working publishing deals, there's a lot of triple-a production studios like that, with both publishing deals and their own funded work.

Still, I don't think the WARP developers could remove the origin requirements even if they wished to, there's not a single soul on steam that wants their steam bought game to require origin, and no developer would enforce requirements unless it was required by contract.


So there, independant developers, not independantly published.
Logged

Oddball
Level 10
*****


David Williamson


View Profile WWW
« Reply #42 on: May 04, 2012, 01:53:11 AM »

A bunch of 'indie' games brought together in a 'bundle' by the people at 'EA'. I bet if it had been listed on Steam simply as the 'indie bundle' then no one would have batted an eyelid, add EA to the beginning and it becomes crime of the century.
Logged

Dacke
Level 10
*****



View Profile
« Reply #43 on: May 04, 2012, 02:39:27 AM »

No. But it does become hilarious Durr...?
Logged

programming • free software
animal liberation • veganism
anarcho-communism • intersectionality • feminism
s0
o
Level 10
*****


eurovision winner 2014


View Profile
« Reply #44 on: May 04, 2012, 04:07:28 AM »

@The people mentioning Valve: If Valve games are "indie" why aren't they covered on the TIGS frontpage, Indiegames.com or any other relevant indie game site/blog?
Logged
shig
Guest
« Reply #45 on: May 04, 2012, 04:16:11 AM »

*that scene in matrix reloaded where Agent Smith whispers 'It is inevitable...' in Neo's ears, except Neo is Derek Yu and every instance of Agent Smith is an employee of EA.*
Logged
Fallsburg
Level 10
*****


Fear the CircleCat


View Profile
« Reply #46 on: May 04, 2012, 04:52:39 AM »

@The people mentioning Valve: If Valve games are "indie" why aren't they covered on the TIGS frontpage, Indiegames.com or any other relevant indie game site/blog?

Because they aren't indie. People just use them as a counter-example to the stupid self-published definition.
Logged
Radix
Level 10
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #47 on: May 04, 2012, 04:55:58 AM »

A bunch of 'indie' games brought together in a 'bundle' by the people at 'EA'. I bet if it had been listed on Steam simply as the 'indie bundle' then no one would have batted an eyelid, add EA to the beginning and it becomes crime of the century.

I'm sure EA's marketing people called it what it's called simply in an attempt to be accurate and descriptive and not for any other reason right.
Logged
Oddball
Level 10
*****


David Williamson


View Profile WWW
« Reply #48 on: May 04, 2012, 06:28:48 AM »

And I'm sure the EA Partners in this bundle are super upset by the association with a major publisher. It's swings and roundabouts. EA gets indie association, EA Partners get mainstream association. I'm sure there are plenty of gamers who couldn't give two hoots about the indie ideal, but will now give the bundle a second glance because they recognise the name EA. The whole reason these developers signed up with EA is because they hoped that association would be commercially beneficial so why hide it.
Logged

Radix
Level 10
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #49 on: May 04, 2012, 07:35:45 AM »

If some people are making money from something then nobody else should have a problem with it. Okay.
Logged
s0
o
Level 10
*****


eurovision winner 2014


View Profile
« Reply #50 on: May 04, 2012, 07:36:02 AM »

@The people mentioning Valve: If Valve games are "indie" why aren't they covered on the TIGS frontpage, Indiegames.com or any other relevant indie game site/blog?

Because they aren't indie. People just use them as a counter-example to the stupid self-published definition.

my post was more in response to:
Quote
To keep the utility of the word "indie", I would say that Valve games are indie because developers have power there (read their leaked employee handbook to see just how much power) and conversely no game with EA's label on it is indie.
i was under the impression that more people ITT brought up valve as an "indie" company (and this isn't the first time i've seen that on tigsource) but tbh i didnt remember who it was and was too lazy to look it up. Tongue
Logged
eiyukabe
Level 2
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #51 on: May 04, 2012, 09:28:26 AM »

I had a spiel on gamesindustry about this already, and I will keep it "short" (hah), but if you don't understand or disagree let me know and I will elaborate/discuss.

Publishers rent-seek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking). They move wealth around without adding value to the world (though technically they add _some_ value in most cases, the wealth they move around and extract far exceeds the value they add, like if someone donated ten dollars at a charity dinner and ate one hundred dollars worth of food). Game developers are value-adding entities; they create intellectual property that increases the happiness of society (if done right). For every dollar that the teams in the EA Indie Bundle got, said dollar would have gone to another indie developer or another game or a movie or what have you - to another value adder. Now said dollar is going to be divided by these teams -- oh, and EA. So from one stance, EA is doing something good by supporting these indie developers. From another stance, they are simply helping one value-adding entity get noticed over other value-adding entities and taking a cut themselves (I assume, like I've said elsewhere if EA is taking no money from any of this then I would be shocked and would reevaluate my stance).

This is what the "independent" movement evolved to fight: a world in which people whose only talent is shifting and accumulating wealth controlling our destinies. This is older than video games of course, as the movie and music industries have had similar realizations and similar attempts to fight it. Unfortunately, it seems like even developers whose livelihoods depend on a healthy and fair game market don't understand the issues involved in this. The hatred of EA is trendy for many, but what they have done to developers (and they aren't alone), burning out talent that could have made wonderful games that bring a lot of joy to the world, helping to create a system with bloated parasites between developers and gamers, is worthy of much more than bandwagon hate. Likewise developers seem to think that "independent" is some malleable word that now means "maker of puzzle platformer with stylized pixel art" or "curator of open worlds with block building" or "purveyor of quirky experiences who spends time circle-jerking on tigsource" or what have you.

No. Sure, there are different facets to the "independent" moniker (was it independently developed? Independently published? OMG DID YOU TEACH YOURSELF EVERYTHING YOU KNOW? YOU LEARNED TRIG IN HIGH SCHOOL? NOT INDIE!!!), it is important to stay focused on the intent of the movement: to fight rent-seeking entities that exist to fatten their wallets at the expense of our freedom and the quality of the experience that ends up in the gamer's hands.
Logged
ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
Level 10
*****


Also known as रिंकू.


View Profile WWW
« Reply #52 on: May 04, 2012, 06:42:29 PM »

i'm curious about this 'valve handbook' or whatever -- and about how much power valve devs have relative to other devs. but i can't imagine valve devs have all that much more power over the design of their game than EA devs? maybe a little bit more, but i'd find it hard to imagine a first-year valve employee can go up to gabe and say 'this game sucks, let's do it my way' and have gabe give him the time of day
Logged

JWK5
Guest
« Reply #53 on: May 04, 2012, 07:33:58 PM »

Eiyukabe, this is one of the few times where I wish TIGS had a "like" button.
Logged
Paul Jeffries
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #54 on: May 05, 2012, 03:29:05 AM »

You think this EA thing is bad, wait 'til you see this.

What the hell right to these guys have to call themselves 'indies'?  They don't even make games!
Logged

www.vitruality.com | SPARTAN - Small Pixel Art Animator and procedural tile generator
Manuel Magalhães
Forum Dungeon Master
Level 10
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #55 on: May 05, 2012, 03:44:45 AM »

Indie is a force that goes beyond games.  Noir
Logged

ham and brie
Level 3
***



View Profile
« Reply #56 on: May 05, 2012, 03:44:55 AM »

i'm curious about this 'valve handbook' or whatever -- and about how much power valve devs have relative to other devs. but i can't imagine valve devs have all that much more power over the design of their game than EA devs? maybe a little bit more, but i'd find it hard to imagine a first-year valve employee can go up to gabe and say 'this game sucks, let's do it my way' and have gabe give him the time of day

I think the point would be that if you thought the game sucked, you wouldn't go to Gabe. You could start for yourself doing the work your own way and try to convince other people to help you. Whether they listen or not is then up to them.

At EA you wouldn't be allowed to do it because the managers would say you're not doing the work you're scheduled to do. At Valve, the other devs would judge your opinions and the result of your work.
Logged
Capntastic
Community Friendlord
Administrator
Level 10
******



View Profile WWW
« Reply #57 on: May 05, 2012, 04:08:21 AM »

I think what Eres is wondering mirrors my thoughts in the general "pollution" thread, where I basically figured the Valve Handbook to be a conscious leak, designed to aid in headhunting employees-- that some new hire isn't going to really have the ability to start making new games on the company dime because of unwritten social pressures.  I'm sure that Valve's heirarchy-less system is better in a lot of ways than, say, EA, but it's going to fall prey to some problems due to invisible chains of command, lack of defined borders in interpersonal office conflicts, etc.  Sure beats most jobs though, by far.
Logged
moi
Level 10
*****


DILF SANTA


View Profile WWW
« Reply #58 on: May 05, 2012, 04:23:20 AM »

I'm sure the nazi party looked pretty cool and laidback in its time
Logged

subsystems   subsystems   subsystems
Capntastic
Community Friendlord
Administrator
Level 10
******



View Profile WWW
« Reply #59 on: May 05, 2012, 04:27:05 AM »

Yeah I've seen Springtime for Hitler too.
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic