4 ms·

Funding is a bit of a red herring since there are plenty of "indie" developers/studios producing games with funding of all kinds (kickstarter, presales, even VC

Funding is a bit of a red herring since there are plenty of "indie" developers/studios producing games with funding of all kinds (kickstarter, presales, even VC, etc). My opinion as someone actively working in the field is simple: an indie game is a game where the creator(s) of the game have full control over its vision. Funding is adjacent in that those who've funded are the most likely ones to be able to exert control over the finished product, but funding is the enabler, not the result. As soon as the creator(s) of the game start to sacrifice their vision of the game in favor of stakeholder demands, it very quickly falls out of that "indie" category for me.

rjbwork 3y ago
>As soon as the creator(s) of the game start to sacrifice their vision of the game in favor of stakeholder demands, it very quickly falls out of that "indie" category for me. I don't think that's really true. Customers are stakeholders and listening to customer feedback and making changes even if they conflict with your initial vision can be a good thing!
- nottorp 3y ago
  See the 'customers don't know what they want' discussion a few days ago here on HN. To bring out the massively overused example in gaming: would you have had the Soulsbornes if they relied on customer feedback?
  - meheleventyone 3y ago
    Listening to customer feedback doesn’t mean implementing features they want. It means understanding the issues they’re having within the context of what you’re making. For example all the soulslike games have been heavily patched after release based on player feedback, the most obvious recent case being the tutorial entrance in Elden Ring.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      What did they change about the elden ring tutorial?
      - meheleventyone 3y ago
        In the beta most players missed it or avoided it so they added a bunch of signposting and at launch that was still the case so they added a fourth wall breaking on screen prompt explaining that it was the tutorial.
        jncfhnb 3y ago
        Hilarious
    - nottorp 3y ago
      When you're talking about indie vs AAA game, you're generally talking about the overall design, not random bug fixes or very minor usability improvements like your tutorial entrance. In the case of soulsbornes, it's death as a game mechanic and adding a bit more difficulty [1]. [1] ... although they mostly have the most fair difficulty i've seen in video games.
      - meheleventyone 3y ago
        Sure let’s shift the goalposts. When you’re making a product you generally want to know you’ll get a return on your investment. Understanding the market viability of a game idea is important to a company like From Software. Including Demon Souls where they underestimated how successful it would be IIRC but still cared about the potential because they (plus probably a large amount from Sony as the publisher) were spending several million dollars to make it! My example of the tutorial is just refuting your point using your example by showing that the mentioned genre studios do listen to customer feedback. Another one would be the beta they ran for the game in the first place.
        nottorp 3y ago
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    Maybe not, but Hades was initially released as early access so that the developers could work with the initial players to polish the gameplay and change features around until it landed. And I don't think anyone's going to say Supergiant Games is therefore not independent.
- autoexec 3y ago
  One of the advantages of indie games is that devs are making the games they want, not games that appeal to customers and stakeholders. Indie titles can give us things we never knew we wanted, and can appeal to people in small niches whose voices would be quickly drowned out when effort is spent trying to make a game that will appeal to the masses. The mega-corps of the video game industry are already maximizing for widespread appeal/profits. Indie games are where we look to break free from that mold and explore something new and original.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    Indy developers are making games for customers and that will shape the game. Indie should be bootstrapped games.
- drusepth 3y ago
  Haha, I almost added a footnote explicitly excluding players/customers because this is way more of a grey area, but I didn't want to dilute the original message. However, you're right. Player feedback is arguably even more important for indie devs than big-studio devs, since they're often operating on what feels fun versus operating on player data (especially from previous games, industry metrics, their own industry experience, etc) and getting that raw feedback of "is this actually fun?" is vital. The big difference, however, is that the creators of indie games still have the "final say" on that game game. It's generally a Very Good Idea to listen to your players (and listen hard!), but it's rare that your studio will e.g. have its funding pulled if you _don't_ listen to them[0], unlike with (some) publishers and other stakeholders. That's a big difference IMO. [0] With the obvious caveat of equating funding == sales when you try to release a bad game after not listening to players
theLiminator 3y ago
Curious if star citizen should be considered indie then?
autoexec 3y ago
> My opinion as someone actively working in the field is simple: an indie game is a game where the creator(s) of the game have full control over its vision. Even if the mega-corp paying the dev team's salaries pinky promise to be hands off on creative decisions, the dev's themselves are going to be extreemly unlikely to do something that will piss off or threaten the mega-corp who pays their bills. That's why it's important that "indie" really means "independent" Kickstarter, patron, tip jars, and any other form of support where internet randos throw money at something isn't really a problem because it doesn't stop them from making games free from the constraints imposed by mainstream video game industry.
- CuriousCosmic 3y ago
  > Even if the mega-corp paying the dev team's salaries pinky promise to be hands off on creative decisions, the dev's themselves are going to be extreemly unlikely to do something that will piss off or threaten the mega-corp who pays their bills. That's why it's important that "indie" really means "independent" There are some publishers that I think have actually generally upheld that social contract to not interfere. There aren't a lot of them but they exist. One that comes to mind is Annapurna. They pick up in development indie games, more or less write a blank check, and offer their advertising/name recognition. I'd still consider them indie personally because the games are all fundamentally indie developers that got lucky and got bankrolled but otherwise don't get interference.
seba_dos1 3y ago
Are Portal 2, The Witcher 3 or GTA 5 "indie"? Are Disney movies "indie"? Why?
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Portal 2 might be... Witcher 3 and GTA 5 fail as they are by or backed by publicly traded companies. Once the company or parent is traded on public market they cease to be indie to me.
Buttons840 3y ago
Can you give an example of a game where the creators didn't have control?

rjbwork 3y ago

>As soon as the creator(s) of the game start to sacrifice their vision of the game in favor of stakeholder demands, it very quickly falls out of that "indie" category for me. I don't think that's really true. Customers are stakeholders and listening to customer feedback and making changes even if they conflict with your initial vision can be a good thing!

nottorp 3y ago
See the 'customers don't know what they want' discussion a few days ago here on HN. To bring out the massively overused example in gaming: would you have had the Soulsbornes if they relied on customer feedback?
- meheleventyone 3y ago
  Listening to customer feedback doesn’t mean implementing features they want. It means understanding the issues they’re having within the context of what you’re making. For example all the soulslike games have been heavily patched after release based on player feedback, the most obvious recent case being the tutorial entrance in Elden Ring.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    What did they change about the elden ring tutorial?
    - meheleventyone 3y ago
      In the beta most players missed it or avoided it so they added a bunch of signposting and at launch that was still the case so they added a fourth wall breaking on screen prompt explaining that it was the tutorial.
      - jncfhnb 3y ago
        Hilarious
  - nottorp 3y ago
    When you're talking about indie vs AAA game, you're generally talking about the overall design, not random bug fixes or very minor usability improvements like your tutorial entrance. In the case of soulsbornes, it's death as a game mechanic and adding a bit more difficulty [1]. [1] ... although they mostly have the most fair difficulty i've seen in video games.
    - meheleventyone 3y ago
      Sure let’s shift the goalposts. When you’re making a product you generally want to know you’ll get a return on your investment. Understanding the market viability of a game idea is important to a company like From Software. Including Demon Souls where they underestimated how successful it would be IIRC but still cared about the potential because they (plus probably a large amount from Sony as the publisher) were spending several million dollars to make it! My example of the tutorial is just refuting your point using your example by showing that the mentioned genre studios do listen to customer feedback. Another one would be the beta they ran for the game in the first place.
      - nottorp 3y ago
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  Maybe not, but Hades was initially released as early access so that the developers could work with the initial players to polish the gameplay and change features around until it landed. And I don't think anyone's going to say Supergiant Games is therefore not independent.
autoexec 3y ago
One of the advantages of indie games is that devs are making the games they want, not games that appeal to customers and stakeholders. Indie titles can give us things we never knew we wanted, and can appeal to people in small niches whose voices would be quickly drowned out when effort is spent trying to make a game that will appeal to the masses. The mega-corps of the video game industry are already maximizing for widespread appeal/profits. Indie games are where we look to break free from that mold and explore something new and original.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Indy developers are making games for customers and that will shape the game. Indie should be bootstrapped games.
drusepth 3y ago
Haha, I almost added a footnote explicitly excluding players/customers because this is way more of a grey area, but I didn't want to dilute the original message. However, you're right. Player feedback is arguably even more important for indie devs than big-studio devs, since they're often operating on what feels fun versus operating on player data (especially from previous games, industry metrics, their own industry experience, etc) and getting that raw feedback of "is this actually fun?" is vital. The big difference, however, is that the creators of indie games still have the "final say" on that game game. It's generally a Very Good Idea to listen to your players (and listen hard!), but it's rare that your studio will e.g. have its funding pulled if you _don't_ listen to them[0], unlike with (some) publishers and other stakeholders. That's a big difference IMO. [0] With the obvious caveat of equating funding == sales when you try to release a bad game after not listening to players

theLiminator 3y ago

Curious if star citizen should be considered indie then?

autoexec 3y ago

> My opinion as someone actively working in the field is simple: an indie game is a game where the creator(s) of the game have full control over its vision. Even if the mega-corp paying the dev team's salaries pinky promise to be hands off on creative decisions, the dev's themselves are going to be extreemly unlikely to do something that will piss off or threaten the mega-corp who pays their bills. That's why it's important that "indie" really means "independent" Kickstarter, patron, tip jars, and any other form of support where internet randos throw money at something isn't really a problem because it doesn't stop them from making games free from the constraints imposed by mainstream video game industry.

CuriousCosmic 3y ago
> Even if the mega-corp paying the dev team's salaries pinky promise to be hands off on creative decisions, the dev's themselves are going to be extreemly unlikely to do something that will piss off or threaten the mega-corp who pays their bills. That's why it's important that "indie" really means "independent" There are some publishers that I think have actually generally upheld that social contract to not interfere. There aren't a lot of them but they exist. One that comes to mind is Annapurna. They pick up in development indie games, more or less write a blank check, and offer their advertising/name recognition. I'd still consider them indie personally because the games are all fundamentally indie developers that got lucky and got bankrolled but otherwise don't get interference.

seba_dos1 3y ago

Are Portal 2, The Witcher 3 or GTA 5 "indie"? Are Disney movies "indie"? Why?

Ekaros 3y ago
Portal 2 might be... Witcher 3 and GTA 5 fail as they are by or backed by publicly traded companies. Once the company or parent is traded on public market they cease to be indie to me.

Buttons840 3y ago

Can you give an example of a game where the creators didn't have control?