5 ms·

Its weird, because the quality of the product has fairly low correlation to the production costs associated with the product (including even the marketing budge

by yifanl 5y ago

Its weird, because the quality of the product has fairly low correlation to the production costs associated with the product (including even the marketing budgets!), whether it is distributed as a cartridge or 2 DLLs over Steam.

bspammer 5y ago
Pretty much all my favorite games of all time are indie games. Video games as a medium seem to be really, really well suited to passion projects, and I can’t explain why. None of my favorite movies are indie movies. Very little of my favorite music is indie.
- account42 5y ago
  > I can’t explain why. I think one reason might be that being interactive lets the player contribute to the enjoyment themselves, which lowers the bar for what the developer has to achieve. Give people blocks and ways to move them and some will have endless of fun building something creative whereas with a movie the author is responsible for making sure the blocks are arranged in an interesting fashion. For me though I think a large part is also simply that I am more into games than movies/music so have spent a lot more time looking into the indie scene there.
  - bspammer 5y ago
    > I think one reason might be that being interactive lets the player contribute to the enjoyment themselves, which lowers the bar for what the developer has to achieve. I really disagree with this, I think it's underselling the quality of indie games. It explains Minecraft, maybe, but there are so many incredible indie games that look gorgeous and have tons of interesting content, that aren't just relying on the player to entertain themselves. Braid, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Limbo, Inside, Frostpunk, FTL, Outer Wilds, Spelunky 2, Rocket League, Darkest Dungeon, Disco Elysium, The Witness, Terraria, Return of the Obra Dinn, Papers Please, The Stanley Parable, Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons, Hotline Miami, Undertale, Firewatch, Dustforce. I could honestly double that list if I thought for long enough. > For me though I think a large part is also simply that I am more into games than movies/music Maybe. It still feels like indie games punch way above their weight compared to other forms of media, but it's true I could be biased there.

by yifanl 5y ago

bspammer 5y ago

Pretty much all my favorite games of all time are indie games. Video games as a medium seem to be really, really well suited to passion projects, and I can’t explain why. None of my favorite movies are indie movies. Very little of my favorite music is indie.

account42 5y ago
> I can’t explain why. I think one reason might be that being interactive lets the player contribute to the enjoyment themselves, which lowers the bar for what the developer has to achieve. Give people blocks and ways to move them and some will have endless of fun building something creative whereas with a movie the author is responsible for making sure the blocks are arranged in an interesting fashion. For me though I think a large part is also simply that I am more into games than movies/music so have spent a lot more time looking into the indie scene there.
- bspammer 5y ago
  > I think one reason might be that being interactive lets the player contribute to the enjoyment themselves, which lowers the bar for what the developer has to achieve. I really disagree with this, I think it's underselling the quality of indie games. It explains Minecraft, maybe, but there are so many incredible indie games that look gorgeous and have tons of interesting content, that aren't just relying on the player to entertain themselves. Braid, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Limbo, Inside, Frostpunk, FTL, Outer Wilds, Spelunky 2, Rocket League, Darkest Dungeon, Disco Elysium, The Witness, Terraria, Return of the Obra Dinn, Papers Please, The Stanley Parable, Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons, Hotline Miami, Undertale, Firewatch, Dustforce. I could honestly double that list if I thought for long enough. > For me though I think a large part is also simply that I am more into games than movies/music Maybe. It still feels like indie games punch way above their weight compared to other forms of media, but it's true I could be biased there.