Indie games depress me.

[Monsterfurby]

Indie is a bit of a weird definition. Is Valve "indie" just because they have production, publishing and distribution all under one roof? Technically, yeah, they are.

The thing is, Indie no longer truly means "independently produced" (i.e. without influence from outside creative forces) - it has become a genre of its own, mostly defined by its experimental gameplay, minimalistic or highly specialized technical framework, little to no marketing outside the raw basics, and original (or retro) art direction. EA could produce a game like that and you could bet that the word "indie" would still appear whenever anyone talks about it (and be it in the sense of "indie-ish").

 

[lacktheknack]

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.

The most expensive indie game I can think of was Braid, which was about $200,000.

So in all practical terms, yes, it IS the case. Sure, an indie game could be made with several million dollars, but it hasn't happened yet.

But the point of the thread is, wouldnt it be awesome if an indie game could be made with millions of dollars?. And all I see are you people going "no because indie games are made with chump change". The point of the thread is to imagine what an indie game would be like with lots of money behind and everyone instantaneously poopoos it with retarded circular criticism

Fine.

Here's what an indie game looks like with lots of money behind it.

http://www1.on-mirrors-edge.com/screenshots/mirrors_edge_pcgames001.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/01/sporecreatjtm.jpg

http://www.flowxrg.com.php5-19.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/revelation_29.jpg

There you go, AAA games with "indie sensibilities". My issue with the OP is that he claims that the games industry is in a pitiful state right now, but can't see the dozens of AAA "indie-style" games that appeal directly to people looking for something beyond the familiar.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

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.

I want to say that what the original poster meant was that while he likes quite a lot of the indie games out there, if only due to the concept or idea behind them, he wishes that they didn't have to be indie to get made in the first place.

Now, in some cases, you are most definitely right: Less can be more, but that depends on the game. Sometimes, an indie game would have greatly benefited from more funding and more time so that the developers could really go all-out on their labor of love. And really, what are some indie games if not labors of love?

Still, it makes a guy wish that some publishers weren't so adverse to the new, strange, and exciting. The familiar can be nice and all, but there needs to be forward motion in the medium, and man am I sounding pretentious, artsy, and stupid.

Still, you get my point, you sexy wolfbeast of a man, Daystar.

Spoiler: I leave you all now with this:

Here's some Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff to even things out. Enjoy.

 

[EternalFacepalm]

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?

No, it really wouldn't. Amnesia was just fine, and it seemed fleshed out just fine to me. I don't see what a higher budget would improve.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Why is everyone sorta jumping down the OP's throat for being totally goddamn right?

Cos he's... not.

He's not 100% right because good games with crossover between aesthetic and conceptual greatness do, in fact, exist. But the general tone of his post doesn't suggest that it should be applied to all games forever, does it? You're harping on him the same way people do when someone has the audacity to give an opinion without mindlessly prefacing it with "in my opinion...". It's a deliberate obtuseness seemingly designed to give rise to needless conflict.

What did you say. "Most cases"? Do we really measure developmental properties based on the majority? It's like, hey! The majority of indie games are shitty 2D platformers with 8-bit graphics and chiptunes! The majority of AAA games are shitty Call of Duty or Gears of War clones with muddy-brown washed-out graphics and gravel-voiced characters! You can't write off or generalize an entire field of games development because the majority is shit. I mean, if we mentioned games like Braid and LIMBO you wouldn't argue that they're some of the most polished games of this generation. And if I bought up No More Heroes and Dark Souls you wouldn't argue that they're creative and unique and different and inspiring! But then you say, no... indie games aren't polished... and AAA games aren't unique and different...

Is this a real question? Of fucking course we measure stuff based on the majority. That's what makes it an issue for people like the OP. If there were enough games with the sort of crossover we're talking about, taking into account filters like genre preference, for the OP to sufficiently support his gaming hobby over the course of the entire release calender, this would indeed be a non-issue. But the games hitting that sweet spot are essentially outliers. If you can "survive" on outliers, more power to you.

...this is why we who play many, many, maaany games like to refer to games like this with a simple word: "good." Good games are good, regardless if they're made independently or not. Some indie games are really fun and engrossing and unique, and some are repetitive uninspired pieces of schlock. It is entirely a subjective analysis that is required on a game-per-game basis, not just for the whole genre altogether! It's like when people say, "ohhh, all anime is shit." ...that's really not true, because anime isn't a genre, and it's not even a medium. It's just a way of making cartoons. Maybe then you argue all cartoons are shit? And maybe then I call you out for being stupid.

This is completely missing the point of his post.

If you are satisfied with just the mechanics of your games, again, more power to you. Some people are stimulated by the aesthetics, design, presentation, polish, etc. - and these things are undoubtedly more apparent in AAA releases really by definition alone. The OP is describing the dream scenario by which a great concept (story, mechanics, etc.) is married to a budget capable of generating an equally great presentation or aesthetic. This does happen from time to time, and such games are typically held up as the very best each year. But the number of games taking such "risks" is definitely decreasing over time, and that number looks to plummet even further with the release of new and ever-more-expensive (development-wise) hardware.

There are a lot of people who associate "indie" with "cheap," and then "cheap" with "bad". So they associate "indie" with "bad". ...I mean, I don't really care. It's not my problem if they don't play good games because it's labelled with "indie" or because it doesn't have a publisher or budget behind it. It's not my problem that they associate indie games with poor quality. And it certainly doesn't effect me that they're "depressed" with "indie games".

...it's still fucking stupid though.

Why is it so hard to understand that the vast majority of indie games, from a presentation standpoint, are objectively and precisely "cheap"? You don't care what a game looks like or how necessarily polished/refined the play experience might be so long as the concept and mechanics are interesting to you. That's fine, but it doesn't invalidate the opinion of someone who craves such benefits of indie gaming AND the presentation of a big budget production. That's the OP. That's me. We're not stupid. We want it all, and we know it's possible. It's just becoming increasingly rare, and that sucks.

 

[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?

No, it really wouldn't. Amnesia was just fine, and it seemed fleshed out just fine to me. I don't see what a higher budget would improve.

I loved Amnesia, so much so I bought it about 5 or 6 times so I could give it to friends but it was very obviously limited by the budget of the development staff. They almost didn't even get the game out there. You can't tell me the samey level design doesn't start to show over the course of that game. I think a lot of you are really unaware of how important money is to the development of a game, publisher or not. I am sure if you ask the developers of Amnesia what was cut from the game, or what they wanted in there but couldn't because of money. They would have a list for you.
I understand the whole art from adversity and if they had all the money in the world, the product could suffer but you can't say that would be the case with every game out there. Money is not the root of all evil everyone seems to think it is.

 

[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.

I want to say that what the original poster meant was that while he likes quite a lot of the indie games out there, if only due to the concept or idea behind them, he wishes that they didn't have to be indie to get made in the first place.

Now, in some cases, you are most definitely right: Less can be more, but that depends on the game. Sometimes, an indie game would have greatly benefited from more funding and more time so that the developers could really go all-out on their labor of love. And really, what are some indie games if not labors of love?

Still, it makes a guy wish that some publishers weren't so adverse to the new, strange, and exciting. The familiar can be nice and all, but there needs to be forward motion in the medium, and man am I sounding pretentious, artsy, and stupid.

Still, you get my point, you sexy wolfbeast of a man, Daystar.

Spoiler: I leave you all now with this:

Here's some Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff to even things out. Enjoy.

This is mostly what I was trying to get at in my post.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well then you should shake the "glass half empty" view, and you won't be getting more depressed with each sip as it's getting emptier but rather appreciate every last drop of goodness.

Most indie games don't really have an idea big enough to make a triple A title, they have this neat little concept that they can pack into a nice bundle of tasty pleasure and you get to experience it without anything overstaying it's welcome.
Portal for example came from a simple flash game that on it's own wasn't that great to play, but marry it with a sci-fi mystery story and elevate the gameplay and you got one heck of a game, that still mostly worked because it was so tightly packed.

Stuff like FTL is only the first step, the concept needs years of growth before even the mechanics are figured out and then you bring it to a team that can do large scale sci-fi stories, it takes a whole lot of good ideas coming together for a large whole not just big bag of money.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

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?

No, it really wouldn't. Amnesia was just fine, and it seemed fleshed out just fine to me. I don't see what a higher budget would improve.

Not to single you out in this thread unfairly, but what exactly do you think they did with the money they had? If you liked what was in the game, how would it not benefit them to have even more money to include/create even more things along those same lines?

Specific to Amnesia: maybe if they had another million dollars, they might have had the resources to create monsters that didn't look so low-poly, simplistic, and almost silly next to the far more polished and detailed environments.

 

[Starik20X6]

I thought this was going to be about why so many indie games seem to be so damn depressing.

Now that I think about it though, why do we even still have the terms 'indie' and 'AAA' when they're starting to become pretty damn meaningless? There have been some phenomenal games made by one-man teams, and some utter shite made by big studios. I don't base my purchasing decisions on the size of the dev team. It just seems like a weird kind of marketing thing. It's not like there's some kind of measurable ratio of dev-team-size-and-budget vs quality-of-game.

 

[Norrdicus]

The most expensive indie game I can think of was Braid, which was about $200,000.

So in all practical terms, yes, it IS the case. Sure, an indie game could be made with several million dollars, but it hasn't happened yet.

Well, Trine 1 was made with a budget of 800'000 euros

 

[shrekfan246]

It is always some great idea, innovative concept, or bringing back some classic one but yet it is always made on a shoestring budget.

That's kind of the entire point behind 'indie' games. They build up and focus on one concept because they don't have the budget of a 'full-fledged' game. Why do you think there are so many indie platformers? Because it's simple and with an easy 2D plane the art assets are easier to make and can take on any number of different tones. The simplistic nature of a 2D platformer then allows the game to take whatever new concept it might have and build the entire game completely off of that.

Obviously they're not all like that. You get games like FTL or Amnesia, but they're still basically built around one core concept. Games with more budget behind them are basically amalgams of multiple genres. They rarely focus on any particular thing, and thus can feel more homogenized with the more you play. Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, God of War, and Darksiders all have the same basic core concept (hack&slash adventure game), but they all control and play out significantly differently from each other. But if you're just looking on the surface, you're just going to see combo-driven action games. Er, sorry, I'm not sure where I was going with that, I'm still pretty tired.

The point I'm trying to make is that indie games have great ideas or concepts because they have to have that. If they don't, they're no different from every other 2D platformer, or 3D Horror game, or side-scrolling shooter, etc. etc. Would they be better if they had larger budgets while still staying focused on their one concept? Maybe, maybe not. Limbo was pretty good the way it came. Amnesia was probably the best horror game I've ever played, though I suppose the story/writing could've been better. Super Meat Boy is an absolutely astounding exercise in massive frustration. I'm not sure I'd actually want to change any of the indie games I've played, because they might lose the charm that makes them unique in the first place.

 

[lacktheknack]

The most expensive indie game I can think of was Braid, which was about $200,000.

So in all practical terms, yes, it IS the case. Sure, an indie game could be made with several million dollars, but it hasn't happened yet.

Well, Trine 1 was made with a budget of 800'000 euros

They had a publisher. I'm still fuzzy on the details of what makes "indie", but I'm pretty sure that having a publisher wrecks it.

 

[Tsukuyomi]

I understand the OPs opinion, but like others I think the AAA-status of length and budget wouldn't really help some indie games, and even for the ones that it would, if you were to actually pull the trigger I think the factor is not just money and exposure, but more importantly picking the right people to continue to build the title. Portal 2 could have been very poorly handled indeed had Valve not had the nigh-legendary teams they do. As has been said the things that make the game good or unique could be buried or discarded under the sheer amount of other, non-related but still good to the designers ideas. I think that could be the LEAST of the problems if you were to throw an indie game to the people within the AAA-industry.

Essentially I think not only might you loose what makes them good, but you may also ruin a game completely by taking it to that level. Choosing to expand the team would need to be done with care and to ensure everyone is unified on enhancing the game instead of breaking it to pieces and making a completely new one with just enough old elements to rope the nostalgia of those who played it when it was indie. You'd need good people with good vision and good skills, and even with a AAA budget you might not be able to get that.

Plus...it's kinda like some movies that have sequels: the sequels aren't bad. They may even be good. But somewhere in the back of your mind there's this creeping notion that if they had stopped at the first one, if they hadn't decided to go off the deep end trying to make a franchise instead of just one really good film, everything would have been WAY better. Like a film that would have been talked about for decades for being just that damn good is now forgotten because it was just part of another crummy trilogy that every studio of this era is trying to pump out left and right if possible.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

They depress me too

Different reason though

"Oh look, yet another 2d platformer..."

Just because the IGF like to put the spotlight on overrated stuff like Fez it doesn't meant that there isn't variety out there. IGF is the worst for having cliques and fads in terms games they promote but the blogs report on it like it is the only authority on "indie" games.

 

[Norrdicus]

They had a publisher. I'm still fuzzy on the details of what makes "indie", but I'm pretty sure that having a publisher wrecks it.

Publisher funding wrecks it. Publisher disc distribution is whole another matter.

 

[lacktheknack]

They had a publisher. I'm still fuzzy on the details of what makes "indie", but I'm pretty sure that having a publisher wrecks it.

Publisher funding wrecks it. Publisher disc distribution is whole another matter.

Well then, we have a $1,500,000 indie game.

Still not even close to a standard AAA game budget, though.

(Unless AAAs have gotten cheaper from when I last checked.)

 

[False Nobility]

The benefit of Indie games is you get to take risks. Our little medium isn't established enough to turn Braid into Bioshock. Hell, Bioshock itself is a very rare occurrence all things considered.

As we grow, we'll see more weird, unique stuff in the mainstream. Have patience.

 

[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.

Money is condensed time, therefore you contradicted yourself

I was going to explain myself better, but I realised you probably don't care. Harharhar.

 

[Woodsey]

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 .

Indie doesn't = small budget, it just means that it's made creatively independent from outside forces, often times tied to big bucks but not exclusively so. Anything made by notch is an example. So before you start berating others, you might want to check if your words are tolerable. IMO they arent

Indie might technically be short for independent, but that's not what the "indie" in "indie developer" really refers to.