4 ms·

Valve would not count as an indie because they are themselves a large publisher.

• kemayo 3y ago
  Yeah, but that's still not them being affiliated with someone else. We'd probably call someone who self-publishes an indie, for instance, and that's what they're effectively doing...
  • Jensson 3y ago
    To me indie means that there is no outside stakeholder that wants ROI, its all funded by the development team or customers. This would then also include every public stock company and every company where the owner no longer works on the games in addition to having outside publishers. This would disqualify almost every bigger teams. There are still some big indie teams, but very few. All the bad things that comes with a publisher also comes with having outside investors/owners in general, it means that now the game starts to be judges on ROI rather than the developers pride.
    • 0x457 3y ago
      Well, a publisher is essentially a very hands-on and loud investor. Private or public, many have 3rd party investors that expect ROI. The difference is how much say those 3rd parties have. Having EA as a publisher, for example, comes with having to use their engine and tools and in some cases it makes no sense (see ME: Andromeda and Frost Bite). Having some equity firm X as an investor comes with "you gotta make $$$"
• 0x457 3y ago
  Valve is absolutely indie since they're self-publishing. Great example of "indie" not meaning "small". CDPR is another example.