Friday Roundtable: Indie Gaming: Clique, Sub-Industry or the?Future?
Posted by Declan Burrowes on August 6, 2011 ? Leave a Comment?
Ah, back in the good old days, my boy. Back then, we didn?t have your fancy ?cloud? gaming or your ?DX 11 tessellation?. No, no, back then, we had arcades with their lights and noise and coin-eating cabinets; the Atari 2600 and the NES were the best darned things we ever set our eyes on, and by Morelock?s?beard, we played them to death! There were no damned 13-year-old whippersnappers telling us to copulate with our mothers or questionin? our sexuality over the internet, either. You young folk with your big corporations and your? zzz? zzz? and your darned fitness games! Hell, my generation lived through the Crash of ?82-?83, but we still soldiered on, making games in our rooms just for the hell of it! That was a real time of innovation and creativity! We were a community! Back then, gaming was art!
Grandpa should chill the hell out and take his beta blockers. Or? does he have a point? Today, this sort of senior-citizen rage can?t really be chalked up to incontinence and ?character?. If E3 2011 was anything to go by, the industry has become something of a damp squib, afraid to try anything new, preferring instead to churn out sequels and play it safe, content in the knowledge that loyal gamers will cough up $60 every year for a new brown-palette shooter set somewhere in the Middle East. Smothered in DLC and pre-order bonuses, and with a penchant for Hollywood flair, has the games industry proper lost its way? If it has, is the solution to be found in an indie gaming sub-industry? Despite millions of dollars, are a few lone?hobby programmers slaving away in their bedrooms saving the soul of gaming by providing new, artistic, ground-breaking ideas, the stuff of which companies trading on Wall Street wouldn?t dare consider? ?Or, rather, do indies and their advocates embody an elitist hipster clique, the sort which might wear berets and scoff condescendingly because you haven?t played Dwarf Fortress?
Just what is it with indie gaming? Is it the key to our past-time?s future or will it forever be the stuff of wine evenings and dinner parties? In this week?s smaller-than-usual Friday Roundtable, Armand, Chad and Martin share their thoughts.
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Three million copies and one newly-made Swedish multimillionaire later, Minecraft is one of indie gaming’s biggest success stories.
Armand:
As gaming has exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry, development teams and publishing companies have grown from a few guys in a basement somewhere into massive corporate entities. Along the way, what was once people dedicated to producing content driven by their love of gaming have either evolved or been replaced by businessmen concerned more with the bottom line and appeasing twitchy investors, instead of (arguably) listening to their base consumers: the guys who supported these now monolithic institutions from the start, nourished them through the growing pains of the ?80s and ?90s into the rich and massive world of gaming we have today.
Now, in a gaming industry wrought with always-on DRM, a fear of new IPs, less modability, lack of meaningful customer service, release day DLC, and $60 price tags for 10 hours of sub-par gameplay, it has become hard for some gamers to continue to support games developed with the primary purpose of sucking our bank accounts dry. We?re asked to pay extra for content that used to come with the game. We?re treated like common thieves for legitimately purchasing games. We?re given the same gaming series over and over and over again because investors fear the risk of a new IP. And often, we pay far too much money for mediocre products that feel more like a slap in the face than the quality entertainment we seek. But what options does the average gamer have? Where can someone with a limited budget, a love for gaming, an interest in innovation, and a belief in the idea of games as art go to fulfill their gaming needs?
Indie gaming, of course! Be it the wildly popular and original Minecraft;?the quiet underdogs like Wolfire?s beat-em-up Lugaru;?critically-acclaimed games like Braid, Limbo, and World of Goo; under-priced Dungeons of Dredmor; beautiful Jamestown; simple yet exciting VVVVVV or Super Meat Boy; or even the (somewhat frightening) educational game Fate of the World (to name just a very few), indie gaming is more popular than ever. Often characterized by drastically lower prices, lack of DRM, highly responsive development teams that often individually address customer?s needs, and a heaping load of creativity and innovation, indie gaming proudly carries the torch for the idea of games as art. Indie gaming covers all genres, invites all gamers, and tries to create an open and friendly community: uncharacteristic of most things ?indie? (music, sub-cultures, so on).
Jamestown kicks it old-school, yo.
One need look no further than previously mentioned Wolfire Games for an example of this behavior. This small team, along with bringing us their own games, has hosted open source video game contests, championed open-source development, DRM-free gaming, and perhaps most importantly, brought us the ?Humble Bundles?. Each bundle has featured a series of excellent indie games with the most daring of price plans: pay what you want. Along with letting you name your price, the Humble Bundle lets you donate whatever percentage of your purchase price you deem adequate to children?s charities, features DRM-free games, and aims to build and develop a wonderful gaming community around indie games. Concepts and ambitions all but non-existent in the major gaming industry.
As a long time gamer, it brings me nothing but joy and a sense of admiration to see these sorts of small developers and publishers continue to create the kind of games that inspire imagination, innovation, and build communities the likes of which the bigger gaming world can?t be bothered with.
Are indie games the future of gaming? Probably not, as profit is the driving force in the majority of the games industry. But I do believe indie gaming is a highly valuable and necessary part of gaming, and I for one will continue to support the indie industry with the bulk of my gaming dollars.
Chad:
As Armand said, imagination, innovation, and experimentation are commonplace in the indie development scene. Whereas behemoths like EA and Activision are constrained to what is safe ? that is, what they can make the most money off ? independent developers are free to try new things. In addition,?it?s also the only way some older, less popular genres get to market at all.
The wargame genre, a dying breed saved by the indie industry?
Since the big wargaming?houses TalonSoft?and SSI folded, anyone interested in traditional wargames has probably found their way into Battlefront.com?s catalogue. This has led to Battlefront as a company finding quite a bit of success, particularly with their acclaimed Combat Mission series.
I?m of the opinion that indie developers have everything in the world to gain and nothing to lose. They?re going to be the ones taking the risks, carrying the standard of niche genres forward, and doing the experiments that the big boys will borrow from.
Martin:
I think it might be a little unfair to paint all large development houses as these evil corporate entities ? they may stick to the safe and narrow, but that?s because consumers are either too stupid or too scared to try something new. ?And it would be incredibly irresponsible for a company like EA to not put business first.
Which is where I find myself in a similar boat as Chad. ?Indie developers have a lot less to lose (I doubt very few indie devs remortgage?their houses in order to support their games), hence why they probably make more creative, unique games. ?I don?t agree with Armand?s statement that indie developers are some sort of torchbearer for games as art; I feel that this is shared between both indie and large developers. ?Titles such as Osmos and Portal both possess artistic aspects, albeit largely different ones.
Osmos. Say it with gravitas and you’ll sound like a wizard. OS-MOS!
Furthermore, the indie games market is, just like the larger videogames industry, littered with a ton of terrible software. ?This is no doubt fuelled by people?s unrealistic desire to make a ton of money through something like Apple?s App Store.
One thing I do really love about indie gaming is the more realistic pricing scheme. ?I don?t buy into the baloney that we should all ?want? to pay for more ?premium content?. Premium content died last generation, before DLC became a mandatory business practice and the average game length dropped to 6-8 hours. ?Although I?ve disagreed with Armand on a couple of things, I think he and I are very much a part of the same group when it comes to this, and I?m hoping an influx in (and an improvement in the quality of) indie gaming will change prices so that they actually reflect the amount of content supplied.
Armand:
I agree with Martin that we can?t paint the bigger guys as ?bad? or unimaginative. Just like most things, there exists a nice gradation of larger developers out there, both taking the safe and?easy road, and trying some really creative things. Not to mention the big guys can bring us the type of games the indies by-and-large just can?t do. Examples would include Bethesda and Rockstar, who both create massive worlds that most indies just can?t budget.
As for Portal, I would like to remind people that it was based on Narbacular Drop, an indie project developed by students.
Some name Braid one of gaming’s greatest.
Finally, to say the indies have little to nothing to lose is unfair on a lot of these guys. Many indie developers are people who worked or still work in the mainstream industry, but set aside their relatively safe jobs to really take a risk, both design-wise and financially, banking on the?success of their personal project to pull them out of a hole they dug with their credit cards to develop it. For instance, Jonathan Blow, the developer of the award-winning game (and work of art) Braid spent over $200,000 of his own money to create his masterpiece. If Braid hadn?t taken off like it did, that money would have been lost.
Martin:
While Braid?is the perfect exception, I feel you?re missing the point by personalising it. Yes, indie developers can lose out, and there is a small percentage that do, but what you?re saying is in no way comparable to a big studio having a flop. If EA invests $30 million in a new IP and it only rakes in $1 million back, that?s a tremendous loss. Yes, in ratio terms you could work that down to an indie equivalent, but the larger companies have far more at stake: studios and employees to fund, investors to provide a return to, not to mention all the other costs that come with it. The scale of the operation is so much bigger and complex that it?s easy to see why the big players are no longer the risk takers they were.
And would John Blow?s money have been lost? If he?s truly the non-corporate champion of gaming art, then surely $200,000 wouldn?t have matter to him because he was doing it for the love of making creative games?
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Share Your Thoughts 
BnB writers have shared their thoughts, and now it?s your turn. What do you think? Are big-name corporations doomed to erode gamers down to sequel-craving, unimaginative zombies? Or are indie designers mere wannabes not worthy of our attention and support?
The table is yours.
Source: http://bnbgaming.com/2011/08/06/friday-roundtable-indie-gaming-clique-sub-industry-or-the-future/
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