Back in the 1980s, when gaming was just beginning, there was no "independent" development scene. If you wanted to make a game, you had to cut out your soul and serve it on a silver platter to the company of your choice. Hundreds of games were produced in this era, and although a great many were good, it's impossible to guess how many good ideas never came to fruition.
Later on, as the market diversified, it became easier for developers to make the games they wanted to. With more competition, companies like Nintendo had to lower the bar for making games for their consoles. Still, most of the games that had any kind of success were produced by burgeoning companies that would soon be known as 'triple-A studios.' The 'indie' market still didn't exist, and wouldn't for a long time.
Things changed drastically when Microsoft created Xbox Live, a videogame marketplace where developers could make the games they wanted and widely release them without being sucked up by a larger company. We started to see games like Limbo and Bastion, and it became clear that, like movies, now an independent developer could make his mark in the games industry. Unfortunately, the problem soon arose that, with more people able to make games, a large quantity of terrible games began to emerge, but most of them ended up safely walled off behind 1-star ratings.
Nowadays, almost anyone can make a game. Creation tools like Unity are widely available, and services like Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter make it possible to receive a wide release based solely on the idea that you're selling a good game. The bad news is, now games like Guise of the Wolf and Dark Matter make their way into the mainstream, terrible and unfinished games disguised as interesting concepts. How distant those indie smash hits seem when games like War Z come forth every day.
My question is, where should this have stopped? How easy should it be to make a game? Is there some kind of happy medium between giving everyone the chance to make a game and maintaining some respectable amount of quality in the process?
EDIT: Guise of the Wolf, not The Wolf Among Us. Thanks to Legion for catching that.
Later on, as the market diversified, it became easier for developers to make the games they wanted to. With more competition, companies like Nintendo had to lower the bar for making games for their consoles. Still, most of the games that had any kind of success were produced by burgeoning companies that would soon be known as 'triple-A studios.' The 'indie' market still didn't exist, and wouldn't for a long time.
Things changed drastically when Microsoft created Xbox Live, a videogame marketplace where developers could make the games they wanted and widely release them without being sucked up by a larger company. We started to see games like Limbo and Bastion, and it became clear that, like movies, now an independent developer could make his mark in the games industry. Unfortunately, the problem soon arose that, with more people able to make games, a large quantity of terrible games began to emerge, but most of them ended up safely walled off behind 1-star ratings.
Nowadays, almost anyone can make a game. Creation tools like Unity are widely available, and services like Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter make it possible to receive a wide release based solely on the idea that you're selling a good game. The bad news is, now games like Guise of the Wolf and Dark Matter make their way into the mainstream, terrible and unfinished games disguised as interesting concepts. How distant those indie smash hits seem when games like War Z come forth every day.
My question is, where should this have stopped? How easy should it be to make a game? Is there some kind of happy medium between giving everyone the chance to make a game and maintaining some respectable amount of quality in the process?
EDIT: Guise of the Wolf, not The Wolf Among Us. Thanks to Legion for catching that.
