Why Indie Games Are Our Saviours

[mindcycle]

Do you believe that the big companies care about innovation, or – and here, I don my wank hat – advancing the artistic possibilities of the industry? Because they don't. Not deep down. It's an easy thing to do, or to pretend to do, when you're in a strong position, and occasionally we do see surprising glimmers of brilliance.

Then you look at Guitar Hero and Call of Duty and Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia and Need for Speed and Battlefield and Command & Conquer and every Sims expansion pack ever and just about every first-person shooter “with innovative multiplayer and/or a twist” and every third-person action-adventure “with an open world and/or a twist” and every new racing game “that's not just for the hardcore/that's not just for the arcade crowd/with a twist” and you die a little inside.

They're not bad games, and I repeat that there's the odd glimmer of brilliance. Battlefield was initially groundbreaking. Need for Speed Shift turned a series which had been careering off course for years on its head, and it's clear that EA wants the new Medal of Honor to revitalise that particular ailing series in the same way. Guitar Hero, despite being shat out so frequently it's starting to make compulsive laxative drinkers look like they're straining, is coming along in leaps and bounds. Again: they're not bad games, there's just a seemingly infinite supply of them - which is ironic, considering that most of them were something new and interesting before they became a series. In part, the repetition is probably because creating a brand in gaming is a difficult thing, and we're a rather fickle industry. In part, it's that making anything new is a big, big risk in an industry as expensive and tech-dependant as this.

It gets worse, though. We're at the stage now where even the oldest and most degraded series can be resurrected with a few new gameplay ideas, a big marketing budget, and a tug at your nostalgia with a line like “Your favourite series from five years ago is back with some new graphics!” (Yeah, okay, there's a reason why I don't write marketing copy.) I fall for this all the time, and honestly, I'm fairly torn; the announcements of Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4 made me simultaneously pray that the new games will be half as good as the old ones while wishing that the poor dead corpses of the series would be left unmolested. That's saying nothing of the utterly cancerous Altered Beast and Golden Axe “updates,” and the mortal terror I feel when I think about the upcoming Splatterhouse update has nothing to do with the game's horror stylings.

Until someone takes a risk in a big way, we're going to continue with the deluge of entertaining-but-generic games. To use a film analogy I like, we have a lot of summer blockbusters but not much else. All is not lost, though. Hope doesn't rest with the big boys, but with the indie devs and bedroom coders who make the games we really want to play.

The next time you start to feel like gaming is treading the same old ground, and that everything coming out is a rehash of what's been done before, spare a thought for the indie developers. In the end, they're most likely the ones to give us some of the next great innovations. After all, Portal came out of the student project Narbacular Drop...

Read the entire article here: http://www.incgamers.com/Columns/26/Why-Indie-Games-Are-Our-Saviours

 

[smackababy]

The thing is, all these huge development companies started off as indie developers. They just made something of themselves. If you really want to save gaming, get off your ass and do it. I wish people would stop waiting around for others to "save" something that isn't dying off.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

I'm calling BS.

Innovation comes from all sectors of the industry, in roughly equal proportion. Indie developers only appear to be more innovative because the highly derivative drivel that constitutes the bulk of indie gaming does not have a PR department - and thus, you do not hear about it.

And frankly, I've played one too many indie physics games to consider Indies as some kind of innovation Messiah.

 

[EvilComputer92]

I'm calling BS.

Innovation comes from all sectors of the industry, in roughly equal proportion. Indie developers only appear to be more innovative because the highly derivative drivel that constitutes the bulk of indie gaming does not have a PR department - and thus, you do not hear about it.

And frankly, I've played one too many indie physics games to consider Indies as some kind of innovation Messiah.

Agreed. Just like with regular games there is a gem in indie games once in a while.

 

[smackababy]

Agreed. Just like with regular games there is a gem in indie games once in a while.

The thing is, the indie games you hear about are the ones that are amazing. Small companies that make something huge (id?) get a ton of word of mouth advertising.

 

[AlgaeEater]

I like Indie developers for their ideals and usually close ties to their fan base, but I don't think their games are anything amazing to revolutionize. Gaming in general is stagnant across the board, it's not solely limited to the PC.

Remakes aren't that bad as long as they're proper. You have to realize games maybe made 10 or more years ago are as new to the next generation of gamers as they were to us when we played them. A lot of older games (outside of nostalgia goggles) did have more developed stories and gameplay due to the technology limitations, and that's what made them memorable.

If you live in Japan, the country is in a "gaming crisis" more than the rest of the world can ever be. People over there are finally getting tired of Dating Sims, jRPGs, and arcades are closing down left and right. As quoted from a friend "Even Dragon Quest can't save us now".

I'm always willing to shell out an Andrew Jackson to help support the indie community now and then for their games (especially those that are free), but that's just more or less a formality and a courtesy than a full blown interest.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Would Ironclad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire--GOTY winner) count as one of those "Indie" developers?

 

[mindcycle]

I think the last line sums up his article pretty nicely.

spare a thought for the indie developers. In the end, they're most likely the ones to give us some of the next great innovations.

He's not saying that a game is going to be innovative simply because it's from an indie developer. What he's saying is that innovation is more likely to come from an indie developer because they are more willing to take a risk and release something new. Basically, if you're fed up with the current trend of major releases being carbon copies of each other, then start looking at the indie games and support the ones you find interesting.

 

[mindcycle]

Would Ironclad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire--GOTY winner) count as one of those "Indie" developers?

He does list Stardock (the publisher of Sins) in his article. Basically how they have proven that smaller niche markets can generate a decent profit.

 

[smackababy]

I think one of the problems (and this is speculation) is that indie developers release something that does very well, then go into an agreement with some major publishing company to get the funds to make another game. Now, this is when the major players basically screw over the little guys.

 

[PingSpike]

The sad truth is innovative, revolutionary games usually sell like garbage. They might obtain cult status and if you're lucky a sequel occurs, but there are far more examples where the company just went under.

The remaining few that survive and succeed are bought by EA and corpse fucked into oblivion.

 

[tviceman]

I've bought more games from "the smaller guys" (indie, really small, or upstart devs) in the past year than I ever have.

Darkest of Days
Trine
World of Goo
Braid
The Path
Braid
Droplitz
The Penumbra series

Of those, I didn't care for Droplitz or the Path, but together those titles only cost me $7.50. The rest of those games I really, really enjoyed - especially the Penumbra games.

 

[exar333]

I don't care who makes the games, as long as they are innovative and have high quality. Oh yeah, fun too.

 

[Kev]

The only thing more rehashed than video game series is discussing the rehashing of video game series.

 

[Kroze]

Everytime i heard indie game, i think of some indian making these games that's not culturally fit

 

[HardcoreRobot]

well duh. established companies take established ideas and milk em.

up and comers need to take more risks if they want to compete.


its not unique to just the video game industry by any means.

 

[nitromullet]

I think one of the problems (and this is speculation) is that indie developers release something that does very well, then go into an agreement with some major publishing company to get the funds to make another game. Now, this is when the major players basically screw over the little guys.

I kind of thought this was the hope and desire of most indie developers... I'm sure being 'indie' is cool and all, but getting paid for your work is probably cooler.

 

[CP5670]

The sad truth is innovative, revolutionary games usually sell like garbage. They might obtain cult status and if you're lucky a sequel occurs, but there are far more examples where the company just went under.

The game developers have realized this by now too. Most gamers today seem to want solid and polished but derivative games, of a kind they have seen before. I have played some very good games lately, but it's been several years since I've seen anything truly original and groundbreaking.

 

[Zenoth]

As long as gamers buy the "generic" stuff that gets released the only thing we're going to get is going to be more generic stuff, I'm not ready to blame the "big developers" at the first opportunity, gamers themselves are also playing one heck of a huge role in the video gaming's actual status of stagnation. The Indies are just trying to pave their way just as much as the big ones of today did in the past, usually (not always, of course) with some innovation or puffs of fresh air thrown in at times and they sometimes succeed, if they are lucky then I say good, leave them at the chance that they are entitled to in this industry.

And like someone else said, the big developers are the ones who could truly change things, not the Indies, it's like expecting the poor to give to the poor to change their situation, well, no, the rich can do it, so companies like EA and so on, are the ones who need to get up their arses and "do something different" rather than be content with generic gaming that they know all too well is going to sell anyway, why trying to do something complex when absolute simplicity sells well? They just go where the fishes bite and it works.

 

[bobsmith1492]

I'd like to see a modernized version of Xcom or Castles II... been replaying those and they're great. Castles II even has great history videos about the construction of castles. Who the heck would ever do that now?

 

[Dumac]

Indie games are great, but just because you only ever hear about the good ones. Unlike normal games, which are backed by marketing campaigns, I usually hear about Indie games due to their quality alone. It is like throwing a bunch of games into a barrel of water, and having the best ones float to the top.

 

[shortylickens]

I appreciate what indie games offer us, but the main problem they have is getting swallowed up by massive companies like EA. Then their game lineup gets crushed and so do 99% of their ideas and then we're out of luck again.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I'd like to see a modernized version of Xcom or Castles II... been replaying those and they're great. Castles II even has great history videos about the construction of castles. Who the heck would ever do that now?

Yea, I remember reading the manual for Their Finest Hour, and it was more like a history book than an instruction manuel.

 

[JoshGuru7]

What he's saying is that innovation is more likely to come from an indie developer because they are more willing to take a risk and release something new. Basically, if you're fed up with the current trend of major releases being carbon copies of each other, then start looking at the indie games and support the ones you find interesting.

Obviously, it's possible. Small developers can't afford the massive development time or investment costs and as a result need to have some sort of other selling point to get people to buy their games, such as a much lower price and/or additional gameplay gimmick. On the flip side, MW2 didn't need to reinvent the wheel to bring in $300 million and they would have been stupid to try.

What I disagree with is the starting assumption that the PC industry needs indie developers to "save us" from more expensively produced products, anymore than we all need knock-off cereal brands to "save us" from Cheerios. We're all better off for having both because of the added competition and choices that presents us as consumers, but there's no hero here.

If all we had to play were indie games, this just as easily could have been a discussion about large development companies saving us by pushing the technological boundaries forward with CryEngine3 and thus bringing up the minimum specs on computer systems and giving indie developers more hardware to work with.

Personally, I haven't found gaming generic at all lately. Assassin's Creed 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 were both very significant upgrades over their predecessors in the gameplay and locale departments. Dragon Age has an entirely original setting and story and improved the DnD party combat significantly with the addition of tactics. Borderlands is a pretty unique co-op RPG/Shooter hybrid, and I thought both Batman and Uncharted2 made significant advances in story and cinematic feel.

 

[JoshGuru7]

To use a film analogy I like, we have a lot of summer blockbusters but not much else. All is not lost, though. Hope doesn't rest with the big boys, but with the indie devs and bedroom coders who make the games we really want to play.

He shouldn't like this analogy as there are huge differences between a 90 minute movie and a 40 hour game. I liked The Road a lot more than I suspect I'm going to like Avatar, but that doesn't mean I would like watching The Road for 40 hours. It's a lot easier to turn a single gimmick or concept into a short form than a long one (see: why SNL movies suck). Assassin's Creed 2 starts out fun, then is fun in the middle, then is still fun towards the end. I can't say the same thing for most of the indie titles I've played.