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[Lurk]

 

I just think it creates unneeded division to say, e.g., that casual developers or shareware developers aren't real indie developers because they don't make games out of passion, etc. It's just a weird and divisive way to categorize things; do you also apply this categorization to indie music and indie film? If an indie band sells an album with their music on it from their website, are they no longer an indie band?

I don't see why that matters, frankly, what meaning a single person attributes to a non-pejorative term. Who defines the band as 'indie'? If they're that insecure, that they need the label to define their character, fine, I don't care. I never implied people who do things for money only do it for money, but in my experience, it has a lot of influence on the decisions they make along the way. For example: if you have a game, it's not polished up to your own personal standards, but your finances need it, you'll release it, and swallow your pride. That's it, it does'nt mean it's a bad game, it's just not what you really wanted to do.

but I do think that by defining indie in this way you are applying it to others.

Have'nt you been trying to apply your own definition of indie on me? Like I said, it's not very important to me, this label is one I use very loosely; what counts most in the end is the heart and soul that is poured into the work. Nothing is ever perfect, but that does'nt mean we dont strive to achieve it everytime. There is only division if people see it that way. It's like trying to describe how something taste. If I said 'your turkey tastes like pork', would you be insulted? How would you know how I figure the taste of pork?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't think it's necessarily a sign of insecurity. As an example, let's say I define a human as a white male. I could then say that a lot of people aren't human. It wouldn't be a sign of insecurity if they were offended by that.

I've actually found that doing games that are intended to be sold makes them more polished rather than less. I think it's generally true that commercial games are more polished than freeware games, although there are exceptions of course.

I think it's fine to apply a definition on someone as long as that definition is objective and clear. There's a difference between a definition which relies on empirical facts and a definition which relies on guesses about a person's motivation.

[Lurk]

As an example, let's say I define a human as a white male. I could then say that a lot of people aren't human. It wouldn't be a sign of insecurity if they were offended by that.

No, that would be racism, because saying only white males are human, I would imply that the other races are something lesser. By saying 'I think games made with passion with little regard for profits are indie', I did'nt say 'games made for profits are made by soulless troglodytes who should not be in contact with the all-superior indie devs.'. I see my own experience with commercial games as very depressing, but I can say that I enjoyed working with some of the best pros in the industry which helped me progress a lot, and gave me a comfortable lifestyle in which I can moonlight passionately on more underground type games that I find interesting but would probably be big duds on the open market.

Well, let's agree to disagree then. I believe I can define the world as I perceive it, and that most of my perceptions will be quite murky until I am old and very senile. Then I will enjoy unyielding labels about things, and you better stay clear of my lawn.

edit:ps, to muddy the water a bit, I myself am thinking going more or less this road when I make the jump http://www.the-underdogs.info/scratch.php
I have a soft-spot for those grandiose declarations, even if in the end they fail, it is still very awe-inspiring.

[Movius]

Haha, I was exactly thinking about this one . Maybe it's because my definition of indie developer is someone who makes weird artsy games for the hardcore audience. I don't consider the casual market indie. I know "Make product, sell it for more than it cost you to make*." is the usual model, but I think something like a loose network would work better "make product, contribute it to a collective, get your equal share of the profit made by selling the compilation". I might be wrong about this though, I kind of failed every economy class I took during my student life (I was too busy drawing in the margin to take notes)

So you keep all the bad points of independent development (working in isolation, lack of quality control, etc.) but replace the good points (no need to co-ordinate with many people for release dates, little overhead, etc.) with collective organisations subject to diseconomies of scale.

The only reason I would join such a group would be if it there was significant benefit to me personally. The only way this could happen would be if I contributed poor quality work that would sell much less otherwise, or if the organisation was a well run business, which would make it identical to most existing publishers/labels.

short version: you're describing a near identical scheme to that mentioned in the first post.

[Lurk]

So you keep all the bad points of independent development (working in isolation, lack of quality control, etc.) but replace the good points (no need to co-ordinate with many people for release dates, little overhead, etc.) with collective organisations subject to diseconomies of scale.

No, because as a collective, I assume there would be a vetting process to what goes in the compilation. As a group of mature individuals who are aspiring to make great games would be able to communicate well enough to help each others reach a satisfying quality level.  And I am not so sure that these bad points you describe can be applied to everyone's way of working as independent entities.

The only reason I would join such a group would be if it there was significant benefit to me personally. The only way this could happen would be if I contributed poor quality work that would sell much less otherwise

I don't think that kind of organism would be well-suited for you then

I have some friends who created their own freelance illustration/concept studio, they offer services similar to the way MassiveBlack works. It's only about breaking away from the monolithic hierarchy you find in big studios. They work a lot, and have day jobs to be able to build up their dream while retaining a financial security. At some point, some of them will leave the day job, and replace that time with whatever they want to do.

[ZombiePixel]

Isn't there already a thread on TIGSource somewhere trying to define "indie".  This thread was about the mainstreams studios conspiring to create a salary cap and how that's an indicator that it's a good time to go indie.

To continue that discussion, I think it's a symptom of when management has no connection to the product.  The industry is divided between "creatives" and "management" and they don't communicate very well with one another.  Creatives lament the stupid management decisions that are forced on them while management continually questions the expense of maintaining creative staff at all.  To put it bluntly the average relationship is adversarial so it's not surprising to see management conspiring with one another.

AAA development was a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to make my living there.  In retrospect it's kind of funny all the crying indie developers do about portals taking 70% of the earnings when that's being treated like royalty compared to what they'd get as a studio-for-hire.

It is a good time, maybe the best time, to go indie.

[ShawnF]

In my experience, most of the management at developers (not so much publishers, though) actually ARE quite passionate.  They just don't know much about games.  It's kind of a messed up situation... You have all these very talented people in the front lines that get pissed off at the inane design decisions that management imposes, and they're right to be upset.  A lot of time games are ruined basically because some idiot at the top ignores the team underneath him and shoehorns his own ideas in.  But the reverse is also true to some extent - a lot of creatives that are very good at what they do end up getting promoted because of those skills, but end up lacking the management / organization skills needed to run a big company.

Really, I think it's just an industry that needs to be more clear about areas of expertise, and respect the specializations of the people they hired.  If a programmer says something is a bad tech decision, listen to him.  If a designer says something won't be fun, listen to him.  And if those guys keep making bad decisions, they shouldn't be overruled, they should be FIRED.

But yeah, as everyone's pointed out, indie development requires a very different skillset.  And temperment.  I'm constantly seeing AAA devs try to start indie projects and fail, largely because they just can't wrap their head around the differences.