In my opinion there are really two types of indie games, the dime a dozen shovel-ware games sold cheaply in portals and the art-like, experimental and edgy ones

In my opinion there are really two types of indie games, the dime a dozen shovel-ware games sold cheaply in portals and the art-like, experimental and edgy ones. I think the key is for the latter to avoid competing with the former. This type of distinction is made all the time in different areas of life. Gourmet food targets a different market segment than take away food, they do not compete directly against each other and as such they are priced independently. If indie developers make a game that is trying to take a new direction and has some depth then they should be bold and market/price the game accordingly. What is great about our current environment is that the barriers for developers releasing and marketing their own games are much lower. There seems to be a real shortage of original games and thus good independent games tend to stand out. Braid is of course the pinnacle example of this but there have been others recently. As with all kinds of development you really need to find and target the right market. If you do that then you don't have to compete on price with the 'casual' games where it is very hit and miss. If your game is a delicacy, a fine wine, then I think you should not hesitate to price it as such. Of course the upper limit to pricing is the price of AAA titles. Jeff has really succeeded in finding the right under-serviced niche and focusing his efforts on it. I really enjoy his blog posts and he has actually been part of the motivation behind my decision to quit my job and start an independent game development studio instead (I do have games industry experience before you think that I am completely crazy!). I really hope that the indie scenes continues to grow, strengthen and keeps taking those risks that the big guys are too scared of taking, especially in the current economic climate. In order for this to happen though, they really have to make sure that they don't price themselves out of existence.