EA Unleashes its "Indie Bundle"

[jimbob123432]

Dear EA,
About that word "indie"...

 

[xyrafhoan]

Shank and Shank 2 are from a studio founded by grads of the small animation program I'm attending right now. EA published Shank for them, but they are very much a small studio that works on games independently and then goes to a publisher to cover dev costs. They didn't go to EA as much as EA came to them. They aren't the smallest of studios but they aren't dominated by their publisher, either.

It's still not "indie" indie, but it means they get marketing dollars and someone else to put their foot in the door for mass distribution. And for Klei Entertainment, it's worked out for them.

 

[Rheinmetall]

All of the games are worth picking up, providing you can stomach the awful thing their publisher is doing to the English language.

What exactly did they do? This is interesting.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Technically if they were indie and EA bought them they are still indie games ownership has just changed. If EA funded their development then they aren't indie. It's weird but accurate... I guess.

 

[Rheinmetall]

In EA dictionary "Indie" means low badget and small scope games created by Indians. So..why not buy them out too? Ho ho ho ho!

 

[Storax]

*Gets headache*
Did I seriously just read that correctly?

 

[Innegativeion]

I suppose the issue I'm having is that even if it were ironic for the person, it's not ironic for Hell, so calling it "ironic Hell" is wrong (the irony is not describing Hell, but the situations people within Hell find themselves in). Particularly since my original statement arose from the OP saying "ironic as Hell," explicitly stating that Hell itself was ironic, not that the people in Hell were experiencing irony.

Okay now you're just arguing semantics.

If something is ironic, it has the quality of irony. No would argue that.

So what is, "the quality of irony"? People being punished in a way that inverses and mocks their preferred lifestyle is undoubtedly ironic. The hell dishes ironic punishments, so shouldn't that be considered a quality of irony?

You're basically saying ironic hell isn't ironic because the punished should expect to be punished in hell, in the same way a traffic cop getting a license suspension isn't ironic because he should expect to get a suspension for misconduct on the road.

To be absolutely clear here, I'm talking a melding of dramatic and situational irony, NOT the less-oft used definition "said but meaning the opposite".

 

[Azuaron]

Okay now you're just arguing semantics.

We were always arguing semantics. This is a semantics-based argument. :-D

If something is ironic, it has the quality of irony. No would argue that.

So what is, "the quality of irony"? People being punished in a way that inverses and mocks their preferred lifestyle is undoubtedly ironic. The hell dishes ironic punishments, so shouldn't that be considered a quality of irony?

You're basically saying ironic hell isn't ironic because the punished should expect to be punished in hell, in the same way a traffic cop getting a license suspension isn't ironic because he should expect to get a suspension for misconduct on the road.

To be absolutely clear here, I'm talking a melding of dramatic and situational irony, NOT the less-oft used definition "said but meaning the opposite".

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts!

 

[Something Amyss]

I wasn't lecturing you, so put your guard down and drop the pretense. I was simply explaining to you what indie means when referring to music.

Which is nice, but totally misses the point.

Besides, you're wrong. Indie has been a genre for quite some time. Words evolve. Indie refers to a style of music, just like "alternative," another term that seemingly defies itself.

I don't see any reason to deny this short of pedantry.

The point being, as "indie" has taken on such a meaning in music, so there's really nothing stopping the same in games. You can argue that's not what it means, but that's really meaningless since it has become a genre and there can be major label "indie" acts. Call it wrong, say it's been co-opted, say it's not true to the original meaning. That's all fine. But it is what it is.