Comments on: The Difficult Definition of Indie Game Developer

By: Anthony Thomas

Anthony Thomas — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:29:47 +0000

stumbled here recently looking about peoples definitions of “indie” as far as games. Why the seperation between financial independent and “indie” what are “indie” independent from then? I guess you could argue creative independents but that stems alot from financial independence.

By: Test How Indie You Are (Version 1) at Game Producer Blog

Test How Indie You Are (Version 1) at Game Producer Blog — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:46:35 +0000

[...] quite difficult to define indie game developer, since there’s no black or white answers in saying who is a real indie, and who [...]

By: ZeHa

ZeHa — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:06:43 +0000

Under the 4th headline, you seem to make a difference between “casual” and “indie”. Though words and definitions aren’t very important to me as well, I’d like to hear what you think about that difference?

By: University Update - Video Games - The Difficult Definition of Indie Game Developer

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:01:02 +0000

[...] The Difficult Definition of Indie Game Developer » This Summary is from an article posted at Daily Game Development, Business and Production [...]

By: Toaster

Toaster — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:22:19 +0000

Labels aren’t very important and lines are getting especially blurry now, because of the large amount of small developers making casual games and publishing them on portals. Are they indies? I wouldn’t say so, because to me an indie is someone who doesn’t *work for* a publisher. As soon as you start relying on a publisher as your primary source of funding, which of course also means you have to do what they say, you’re no longer an indie in my book. However, like I said above, labels aren’t important. You don’t have to be an indie to be successful, and you don’t have to be successful to be an indie. :-)

Anon said: “Some people are seeing portals like the devil. They are stupid, they should see them as big massive mall – supermarket – what-ever-you-call-them and use them accordingly.”

I wouldn’t call them “the devil” but there are good reasons for avoiding them. If you intend to make a game that would sell well through a portal, you pretty much have to sell it through one. They have the casual market in their pockets, and at this point they’re the gatekeepers. If you try to self-publish a casual game, you probably won’t get far. Yet depending exclusively on a portal means that your financial future is linked directly to them. If they go down, you go down with them.

By distributing your game through a portal you also can no longer build much of a customer base (since most sales would be through the portal). This is probably the most important thing to an indie, if you intend to make a full fledged business rather than just a development studio. Repeat sales are MUCH easier to make than initial sales. By giving up the customers to the portal, you lose the opportunity to market future games to your existing customers. The portals will also take some 60-70% or more of the net profit. Sure, you could make perhaps even a large amount of money in the short term from a portal (if your game is very popular). But you’re not building a brand, not building a customer base, and your long term future depends solely on the portal wanting to publish your future games (assuming the portals will be around for a long time). Not a great long term business model in my opinion.

Technically one might argue that you can use a portal as a secondary source of income. Perhaps in some cases that’s true, but I’m still not sure if the lost customers and brand mindshare are worth it. Selling anywhere outside your own web site would in my opinion dilute your brand. Perhaps it’s silly to worry about brand dilution for us small indies, since you kind of need a brand before it can be diluted. :-) But the loss of customers that can potentially be repeat buyers is a real issue, unless you’re making a game for the kinds of customers that would seek out the actual game developer despite buying it form a third party. Casual players (the main target of portals) would not fit this category however.

By: Juuso - Game Producer

Juuso - Game Producer — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:09:18 +0000

Good post.

I liked Gish – it was pretty innovative and quite successful.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:34:26 +0000

> Iâ€™ve seen retro cames brought to life by indies.
May be, but in what way can you call that innovative?
I am always laughing when I see people saying they are original because they don’t do the same things as the current trend. They call every body cloners (and other words) and they call themselves innovative and creative. You take a closer look and these guys are working on breakout-games and space invaders.

Is cloning a retro game not cloning but innovative? I don’t think so, all the same for me.

All so, who said that Indies should be innovative? Can you name some truly successful and innovative Indies games, which donâ€™t get strong inspiration from an existing game? Even Darwinia is not that innovative. I really like the style but they ended like that because they didn’t have any artist (really cool programmerâ€™s art). I will call Nintendo innovative.

Most people publish themselves because their games are not good enough.

Some people are seeing portals like the devil. They are stupid, they should see them as big massive mall – supermarket – what-ever-you-call-them and use them accordingly.

Personally, I see myself as a game dev. I worked in the “retail” industry for many years and produce a couple of truly AAA titles. I am also working on my own games at home. I can tell you that there is difference obviously but at the end off the day, we are all doing the same things: creating entertainment.