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TIGSource ForumsPlayerGeneralWhat do you think of modern independent game development.
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himesgoli59
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« on: December 28, 2020, 04:07:14 AM »

There seems to be a sentiment among many modern players that indie games are, for the most part, lazily thrown together projects that should be avoided, yet in the past indie games were seen as adventurous and daring. How did this change in mindset come about? Has there simply been too many similarly themed indie games released?

As for the second part of my question, do you believe it's fair to judge an indie game, oftentimes a developer's first game, and a project of incredible personal motivation, by the same standards in which we judge a big studio release that more often than not belongs to an already established franchise, and is arguably created to make money for a publisher?
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Sarah Boeving
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« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2020, 07:38:47 AM »

I kinda get the impression that indie game development is a bit more respected now-a-days? But I may be wrong?

I remember my early experience with indie games was RPG Maker stuff like Yume Nikki, Space Funeral, OFF, IB, Misao, Witch's House, Middens etc.

I think there was definitely a sort of underappreciation towards flash and rpg maker stuff for a while. But I think more people are open to trying indie games, not minding the format/engine. I definitely know more of my friends like to play indie stuff rather than exclusively triple a titles. Whereas several years back that wasn't really the case.

I believe whats even more helpful for indie titles is that more of them are showing up on consoles etc. Like all the ones I mentioned playing in the past were all PC based, so that cut out a broad audience of players.

I pretty much take every game with a grain of salt and give a bit more leeway towards indie devs. People that judge indie games too harshly are kinda out of the depth of the industry? (ie. or may not be the target audience, who knows?) I feel like people gotta look at indie games as sort of passion projects.

Honestly the way I look at it is kinda like the two cakes comic lol

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« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2020, 10:06:05 AM »

There seems to be a sentiment among many modern players that indie games are, for the most part, lazily thrown together projects that should be avoided, yet in the past indie games were seen as adventurous and daring. How did this change in mindset come about?

People got exposed to more indie games, and Sturgeon's law of 80% of everything being kinda bad has been generalized to the whole field.

Look at the term "Indie Games" on Google Trends. It reached its peak in June 2013. Nobody really cares now, and everyone is fighting for mindshare in the giant ocean of content that is the Internet.



To stand out now, you've got to be truly exceptional in at least one, but hopefully more than one dimension. We had a similar discussion to this in the Can Video Games Be Art? Thread
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@doomlaser, mark johns
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« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2020, 10:30:59 AM »

Steam Greenlight was 2012, Steam Direct was 2017, itch.io started in 2013. Indie games had more mystique and seemed more glorious back when the only ones you got to see were the ones that had been carefully selected by the Landed Elite as representatives of the greatness indie games have to offer. Nowadays when you look for indie games you can actually find most of the ones that are made, which means you see all the ones that really were lazily thrown together projects (which take the least time to make and thus proportionally easily fill up the bulk of all indie games), and also all the games where there's "incredible personal motivation" but no great knowledge of how to turn that into a delightful gaming experience.
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ThemsAllTook
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« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2020, 11:03:27 AM »

Oops, I thought I had deleted this thread earlier. The original poster is a spambot copying a Reddit post from 2 years ago, and has been preemptively banned before they can edit in their spam links. Unfortunately, there's no human to interact with here.

...but hey, if this is a jumping off point for an interesting discussion, then great!
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michaelplzno
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« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2020, 01:55:18 PM »

Hi mr bot, not to have a rhetorical conversation or anything but here is my take:

I always saw indie games as meaning "part of the scene" this is because I'm bitter and jaded and always wish I was cooler even though irl I'm awkward and abrasive.

There are some people who claim to be indie who are clearly not, the biggest example is a game like Journey which is a massive AAA budget game with a publisher. Not to get into semantics (I wrote the definitive book on the subject of semantics at some point in the future.) but I agree with this forum's superstar Derek Yu when he says indie games are small and independently made.

But some so called indie games are totally part of a collaborative process designed by either explicitly or implicitly looking at what other indie games are doing as a jumping off point. Some "indies" are actually sending builds of their games to each other and so on quite "independently."

So in the end, its all a bunch of marketing and buzzwords. I would love to be part of a principled movement with explicit values and so on. The idea of being part of a community of people who love games is what attracted me to the indie world to begin with, but I guess due to my dorkish/abrasive nature the way I approached things meant I rubbed people the wrong way. The more I interact the more clear it is that I have my own issues, but I'm trying to be better at it.

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Mark Mayers
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« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2020, 01:43:41 PM »

Don't really care if this is a bot or not lmao.

There seems to be a sentiment among many modern players that indie games are, for the most part, lazily thrown together projects that should be avoided, yet in the past indie games were seen as adventurous and daring. How did this change in mindset come about? Has there simply been too many similarly themed indie games released?

I think due to the proliferation of free development tools, as well as platforms such as Steam Direct, a lot amateur developers entered the game development scene.

There's nothing wrong with this, I think it's great games are becoming more accessible as a medium. However, the consequence of the influx of unskilled labor is there are many many low quality games out there which has saturated the market.

I still believe genuine quality will sift to the top, but I think 'indie' is now more synonymous with amateur, where it may have meant previously 'small commercial studio.'

Additionally, those former small commercial studios now have evolved into ostensibly AA productions because of the money they made in that 2008-2013 boom.

For example, would you consider Jonathan Blow an indie? Is the Witness, which costs $10,000,000 USD to make, an indie title?
Even something like Spelunky 2, probably had a budget upwards of $2,000,000. (Look how many people worked on the game!)

As for the second part of my question, do you believe it's fair to judge an indie game, oftentimes a developer's first game, and a project of incredible personal motivation, by the same standards in which we judge a big studio release that more often than not belongs to an already established franchise, and is arguably created to make money for a publisher?

No. AAA games have thousands and thousands of people who work on them, with tried and tested gameplay loops and designs which very slowly have iterated over the years.

If you're looking at an independent title, especially if it's original in mechanics, theme, art style, etc. you have to view it in a different lens.

You can't both expect AAA production values and innovation at the same time, the two are not necessarily compatible because the production risk is too high to justify for many studios.
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michaelplzno
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« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2020, 06:32:00 PM »

I agree with you Mark that if you are spending 10 mil or have a team of 10 people working on the project it is not really an indie project.

Also its super hard to make a new kind of game loop that isn't just a cookie cutter copy of something that already exists. Even The Witness was a riff on Myst that didn't even take it much further than the original game. And wasn't there some game that was pretty similar to Spelunky before it came out? "La Masomething" or something?

Anyway the more a game diverges from established systems that work the more gingerly they should be judged imo.
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« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2020, 07:36:47 PM »

lamulana also is a 2d platformer about indiana jones but that's really where the similarities end
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« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2020, 10:21:46 PM »

Spelunky was the first "action roguelike" because Derek Yu was intentionally copying the game loop of Rogue.
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michaelplzno
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« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2020, 11:21:00 AM »

I don't think anything that is too different from established norms is ever gonna catch on in a big way. I mean technically isn't Among Us an independent game too? But its not very original at all, there are a lot of versions of that game that exist based on the old party game werewolf.

I agree that 80% of everything is crap on a good day without a structure to filter out the bad stuff. The fact is that I should probably try to optimize my game making to turn out a crappy game every month and see if anything catches on instead of trying to spend time making some perfect Madonna of the future.
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Mark Mayers
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« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2020, 03:36:02 PM »

The fact is that I should probably try to optimize my game making to turn out a crappy game every month and see if anything catches on instead of trying to spend time making some perfect Madonna of the future.

Ehhh, I disagree. There are no easy victories, and by making 'crap games' your skills won't grow as fast, or not at all, because you never challenged yourself.

There is nothing wrong with being ambitious and taking a while to ship something, as long as you continue to gain skill and respect in the industry.

Focus on putting the hours in. Ship games, don't ship games, whatever, just put calendar time and hours into working. You'll grow older and better and be able to make something with higher quality as you gain real tangible skills.

Don't focus on particular games necessarily, but focus on your career. You'll get there eventually.

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Mark Mayers
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« Reply #12 on: December 31, 2020, 03:43:35 PM »

I don't think anything that is too different from established norms is ever gonna catch on in a big way.

If you look at it from a 20 or 50 year perspective, you can establish your own norms if you're good enough.
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