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>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" ca

>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
        > When you’re making a product Well, I'm pretty sure the games I enjoy and the spirit they were developed in is not compatible to just viewing them as a 'product'. So we're really talking about different things here.
        meheleventyone 3y ago
        Name a few and let’s find out! The entire games industry outside of some niche outsider stuff is very commercially driven, including indie games. When I think outside the commercial spheres its developers like increpare I think of… not From Software.
        nottorp 3y ago
        Aren't we on the usefulness of customer feedback and focus groups and whatever subthread here? Not on indie vs commercial any more.
- 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

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
      > When you’re making a product Well, I'm pretty sure the games I enjoy and the spirit they were developed in is not compatible to just viewing them as a 'product'. So we're really talking about different things here.
      - meheleventyone 3y ago
        Name a few and let’s find out! The entire games industry outside of some niche outsider stuff is very commercially driven, including indie games. When I think outside the commercial spheres its developers like increpare I think of… not From Software.
        nottorp 3y ago
        Aren't we on the usefulness of customer feedback and focus groups and whatever subthread here? Not on indie vs commercial any more.
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