Indie games depress me.

[Clive Howlitzer]

This has been coming up more and more lately. Most recently while playing FTL and also browsing the list of items on Steam Greenlight, among other things.
Basically, whenever I end up playing some indie game(Which isn't that often), I am always left wishing it had a full budget behind it. It is always some great idea, innovative concept, or bringing back some classic one but yet it is always made on a shoestring budget. Therefore the actual content tends to be...pretty lacking.
I know this doesn't apply to all indie games but it applies to a lot of them. So yeah, playing indie games depresses me because I know that most of them will never ever see any kind of serious launch with a real budget because the video game industry today sucks.
This makes me sad.
-Edit-
I am not talking about graphics, yeesh.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

How exactly would a huge budget make indie games any better?

Half the charm of indie games is their simple presentation and doing the most with the little they have.

Can you guess what we call indie games with a huge budget behind them? We just call them games.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

How exactly would a huge budget make indie games any better?

Half the charm of indie games is their simple presentation and doing the most with the little they have.

Can you guess what we call indie games with a huge budget behind them? We just call them games.

Right, I think you are missing the point. Generally, I play them because they have an idea that is something you'd never see made into a legit game because it is too risky, or niche. The idea that less money, less content, lower quality everything, somehow makes it more "appealing" just doesn't do it for me. Also, a bigger budget doesn't just mean flashier graphics/sound. It can be as simple as adding more onto the premise, and having more content and meat to the game, instead of something that is only good for a couple hours and you've seen it all.
I am probably in the minority there, but that is how I feel.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

With kickstarter you can expect a few big budget indy games comming like wasteland 2, dead state and shadowrun returns

Yeah. I am a big fan of what Kickstarter has been able to do. Also, some other games that are getting pushed forward that are surprising. I've been making sure to support them. I threw a grand alone behind Path of Exile.

 

[Scrustle]

I find usually when indie games have some kind of innovative idea they bring a lot of potential out of it. Usually the kind of ideas they have, or the way they do them at least, would outstay their welcome if they were in a huge, long big budget game.

Take Braid, for example. It's a great game with an awesome mechanic and brilliant design, but I wouldn't want to play a 20 hour version of the game. It would get very tedious. As would something like the original Portal (not technically indie, but whatever), Bastion, or Fez. They do a pretty good job of staying around just as long as they need to, but if they were much longer they would get old and repetitive.

There is of course the danger that with a big AAA budget and a big studio behind a game it'll get watered down as well. I don't mean in the idiotic way most people say that about games, but more in the "too many cooks spoil the broth" kind of way. Ideas will get buried under all the different voices working on the game, and risky, unique things are likely to get neutered.

 

[krazykidd]

You do know why they are called indie games right? Please tell me i'm not the only one that finds this thread silly ...

How exactly would a huge budget make indie games any better?

Half the charm of indie games is their simple presentation and doing the most with the little they have.

Can you guess what we call indie games with a huge budget behind them? We just call them games.

Exacly this . Also how the hell does daystar manage to always be the first to post on everything .

 

[Pink Gregory]

^ what he (scrustle) said

I guess stretching out an indie premise to AAA length/budget could work, but consider how much time and testing it would cost to make that much content and keep it all up to the standard of a great indie game (ie Braid, Limbo etc. Doesn't really apply to roguelikes)

A significant part of the appeal of the indie games that use it is the sort of lo-fi aesthetic, no need to bring that up to 'modern standards', because as we can see with the reaction to AAA titles, it doesn't make *that* much of a difference.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

What you are actually saying is that big budget games depress you because they don't have the quality of indie games.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

How exactly would a huge budget make indie games any better?

Half the charm of indie games is their simple presentation and doing the most with the little they have.

Can you guess what we call indie games with a huge budget behind them? We just call them games.

Hmmm how would more money make something better... hmmmm Im wracking my brain here, what is money again? Little pieces of paper that make talented and untalented people alike do things you tell them to... hmmm nope cant think of any way

Yes.

Now think hard, where would an indie studio get so much money?

The defining feature of an indie dev is that it's either funded by itself, or by the public.

Getting huge amounts of cash from a publisher kind of contradicts the whole point of being an indie dev.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

How exactly would a huge budget make indie games any better?

Half the charm of indie games is their simple presentation and doing the most with the little they have.

Can you guess what we call indie games with a huge budget behind them? We just call them games.

Hmmm how would more money make something better... hmmmm Im wracking my brain here, what is money again? Little pieces of paper that make talented and untalented people alike do things you tell them to... hmmm nope cant think of any way

Yes.

Now think hard, where would an indie studio get so much money?

The defining feature of an indie dev is that it's either funded by itself, or by the public.

Getting huge amounts of cash from a publisher kind of contradicts the whole point of being an indie dev.

But in your snarky reply you suggest that any game with aaa funding automagically makes it dependent when this is not the case.

Indie devs are independent from publishers, that's the whole point.

You may go to a publisher to help you sell your game, but you can't accept money from them and still call yourself an indie dev.

By its definition, indie devs can't have AAA funding unless it comes from their own pockets.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

I don't see how more money could improve the indie games that I love to play. Only thing that makes a game great is passion and time.

 

[TrevHead]

Well normally we would see more niche & risky stuff coming from the mid tier market, however with the retail market gone the way it is it's all gone to pot.

I'm mostly talking about consoles here, as PC does have Steam going for it.

 

[mronoc]

I haven't played FTL, but I've never played an indie game I felt would have benefitted from a larger budget. Even from a visual perspective, I feel that the best looking indie games (with their hand drawn, minimalist, or decisively retro styles) actually look significantly better that most big budget games that feel the need to pour all that money into things that make a game look shinier and more impressive, while doing very little for the games actual aesthetic value. Sometimes they fall short in terms of play time, but it usually tends to come from eschewing the unnecessary padding that so many AAA titles go in for.

 

[Ranylyn]

What you are actually saying is that big budget games depress you because they don't have the quality of indie games.

This.

Why is it that games with no budget and "bad" graphics are soooo much better thanh the mainstream multimillion graphics budget that the AAA devs insist the game industry is doomed without? Simple: Because if a game wouldn't be fun in 8-bit, why would making it all HD and super pretty make it any better!? Stupid AAA devs can't understand this. They want to make movies, not games.

Case in point: Scott Pilgrim. It's literally an 8 bit game. But it looks phenomenal and plays amazingly for a 9 dollar game because the team cared about the project.

I really wish the mainstream would pull their heads out of their asses. It's a poor substitute for the sticks they pulled out in order to shove their heads in (and being beaten to death with those sticks is no fun either.)

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I think there is a confusion between an independent game and games that are trying to be retro. I mean, look at Amnesia. Wouldn't it have been great if they had more money behind this game originally so it could have been more fleshed out than it was?
I think a lot of you are having a hard time separating the idea of money with publishers.

 

[ResonanceSD]

,

What's wrong with FTL?

Also, check out Castle Story!

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

,

What's wrong with FTL?

Also, check out Castle Story!

Nothing. I thought it was a pretty great game, albeit rather short and I wish there was more to it. I think the concept was amazing though.

 

[ResonanceSD]

,

What's wrong with FTL?

Also, check out Castle Story!

Nothing. I thought it was a pretty great game, albeit rather short and I wish there was more to it. I think the concept was amazing though.

So basically, the right kind of games aren't getting AAA budgets?

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

,

What's wrong with FTL?

Also, check out Castle Story!

Nothing. I thought it was a pretty great game, albeit rather short and I wish there was more to it. I think the concept was amazing though.

So basically, the right kind of games aren't getting AAA budgets?

Not saying it has to be a AAA budget. I just meant more money. I just meant, a LITTLE more money. You know, instead of forcing the developer to go hungry for a year just to do it heh heh.
I guess I can't really say the wrong games are getting the budgets, since obviously some people like them and are buying them. Not my cup of tea mostly though, yeah.