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Gravity Head, and the rest of the Experimental Gameplay Project
Dada: Stagnation in Blue
Cloud
Katamari Damacy
Facade
Flow
Orisinal

Also, keep in mind that the movie industry is losing $$ to the videogame industry.

This oft quoted statistic actually only refers to domestic box office, not including DVD sales, TV sales, rental releases, etc, all of which add up to significantly more than the box office. Generally speaking, movies are still much bigger than games.

But other than that, I agree with what you're saying. One can waste a lot of time with a bad novel. One generally wastes a heck of a lot of time with Bad TV. But there are good examples of both, just as there are good examples of games.

If one were so inclined, one could make a list of games that could be considered culture-worthy. Mine would include:

Silent Hill
Zelda
Tetris
Pac-Man
Final Fantasy 3/6
Dada: Stagnation in Blue
Katamari Damacy
Maniac Mansion
Little Nemo the Dream Master
Eyetoy: Antigrav (*Cough*Cough*)
Street Fighter 2
My Food
Sim City 4
Xenogears
Metal Gear Solid
The Sims
Super Mario Brothers 3
Puzzle Pirates
Lode Runner

Anyone want to add to this list?

It seems like of the games listed, the majority are straight clones of existing games, and three are heavily genre pieces.

Indie games have to be bastions of originality! We need you guys to incubate the weird and wonderful ideas, like Facade, Dada, stagnation in blue, and most everything this guy does. Heck, subspace is still an original indie game, even though it spawned a ton of clones and fell into obscurity. Puzzle Pirates was a risky original take, and it rakes in the dough.

'come on, guys! If you think it is hard now, try creating original ideas and gameplay with a 100 toothbrush salesmen and bankers breathing down your neck. This is your time to shine. This is your proving grounds. Sure, Ambrosia has seen success through polish over originality, but where is the soul in that?*

*Note: I actually really like Ambrosia. I still think Chiral is one of the best puzzle games ever made.

• Torque2D - GarageGame's upcoming 2D tiling engine SDK. This looks promising, but is in its early-adopter release. Not yet ready for primetime, according to GarageGames.
• Pygame - Python-based 2D engine. My feeling is that Python is a great language to start game development in.
• Orbforms Designer - Why limit yourself to the PC? PDA games can give you a greater return on your time than Windows games do. (Per man-hour, our PDA titles bring us more revenue than our PC titles do.)
• Game Editor - For those who want to go even higher-level than an SDK.

• 3D Gamestudio - The engine of choice for our latest games. I love it, and hope they'll extend to the Xbox 360 platform when it comes out.
• Torque - Maybe the single most popular 3D engine among indies and hobbyists. Focuses, in part, on cross-platform compatibility (Windows/Linux/Mac).
• OGRE - An open-source package. Frequently updated. Some nice projects using the engine.
• DarkBASIC - A popular package among new developers and independents.

• Game Tunnel - Previews, articles, and reviews of indie games.
• DIY Games - Covering the latest independent/shareware titles.

Try some of these. Starscape from MoonPod is one of my favorites. :-)

Oh, and Cas would kill me if I didn't plug his awesome 2D Shooters. :-)

Three recent trends lend credibility to the image of those modest studios (indies) developing games: 1) the fact that many such developers are are coming from industry proper; 2) the actual nomenclature "Indie" being a positive term; and 3) small studios' newfound ability to create games that are visually appealing.

First: An interesting but not-well-known fact is that many members of the indie gaming community come from a background of well-known companies. Take, for example, the Moonpod team, which had experience at Gremlin and Infogrames before starting out on their own. Monkeystone is headed by none other than id's John Romero. I would argue that games industry experience is not a prerequisite for the development of a good game; but the recent movement of folks from big gaming companies to their own studios makes independents more credible. Put simply: if folks who have worked on shipped, big-budget games are now part of the indie community, there must be something to the indie community.

Second: The actual term used for smaller studios (Independents or Indies) is an important one. You could call many of the products in this category "Shareware Games," but there's a horribly negative connotation to that term. "Indie Games" evokes the notion of a small, dedicated team of professionals crafting out something new and interesting. By contrast, the term "Shareware Games" evokes the notion of some dude in his basement churning out a buggy arcade clone that looks like it was written for the Intellivision. To parahrase someone, (I want to say Chris Barrie): A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but may be less appealing if it were called "sewage-weed." The adoption of the "Indie" label has helped legitimize games made by smaller studios.

Fifth (20 years from now, we'll be those old farts still making Python references to people born in twenty-oh-one): Independents can make games that look good. It may be because indies now have access to tools that would have made Pixar cry during its formative years. (Maya, for example, can be had for about $2k, and is even free for personal use.) It may also be because there's great talent now available. Either way, I think indie titles, taken as a whole, have become visually appealing. During the '90s, shareware titles had a bad reputation for being ugly, because they lagged so far behind the cutting-edge. These days, titles like Starscape, Dark Horizons: Lore, and Wik & The Fable of Souls are (IMO) looking pretty good. And, while indie titles may not be as spectacular as those developed by a major studio, (our own Inago Rage focuses on bright colors, but doesn't quite outdo Tron 2.0, for example), decent sales suggest that gamers like what Independents are doing.

However, given the dearth of posts in this thread, I still believe we have a long way to go. :) So, if you haven't already, check out the DIY and Game Tunnel coverage of the 81 IGF entrants. You may find that precious diamond in the rough.
_____________________

Actually I believe "Independant" as far as the IGF is concerned, just means that the company hasn't had anything published by a game publisher.

Three years ago a game called Shattered Galaxy won four of the six awards from the IGF. It was a game created by Nexon, a huge game company in Korea (second to NCsoft). Shattered Galaxy had a budget of just under 1 million dollars. I know that because I worked on it. Last year Savage was entered into the IGF. Savage is a game developed with a multi-million dollar budget. I know that because I talked with some of the developers, but you can read about it, as well as some of the controversy here or here.

Whether you feel that these relatively high budget games should be considered "independant" is your decision. I'm happy that my game won the awards that it did, and I don't feel that the budget of a project should have an impact on its inclusion into the IGF. Small games with excellent gameplay, such as Insaniquarium or Bontago, have shown that they will get their deserved spotlight.

Haha! yeah poor guy

I love this pic from their visit to ECTS (is this in London?) and the comment: 'I wouldn't be so upset about the Audi if I had that...' Do you think he means the car or one of the girls? This is the best though (sorry, I realise this isn't hotties.slashdot.org, but I couldn't help myself...)

I can't blame Savage for trying to get free publicity, but I think there are more deserving people who could put the money to good use. Looks like a two tier system might be the way to go for the future of the IGF.

Haha! yeah poor guy

I love this pic from their visit to ECTS (is this in London?) and the comment: 'I wouldn't be so upset about the Audi if I had that...' Do you think he means the car or one of the girls? This is the best though (sorry, I realise this isn't hotties.slashdot.org, but I couldn't help myself...)

I can't blame Savage for trying to get free publicity, but I think there are more deserving people who could put the money to good use. Looks like a two tier system might be the way to go for the future of the IGF.

Haha! yeah poor guy

I love this pic from their visit to ECTS (is this in London?) and the comment: 'I wouldn't be so upset about the Audi if I had that...' Do you think he means the car or one of the girls? This is the best though (sorry, I realise this isn't hotties.slashdot.org, but I couldn't help myself...)

I can't blame Savage for trying to get free publicity, but I think there are more deserving people who could put the money to good use. Looks like a two tier system might be the way to go for the future of the IGF.

I think, if you look carefully enough, that a number of the articles posted at Slashdot Games aren't from the 'usual' sites, and there's plenty of interesting, alternate views out there.

How about Gamers With Jobs, GamerDad, Insert Credit, DIY Games, Terra Nova, Skotos, Curmudgeon Gamer, and GamesIndustry.biz? That's just off the top of my head.

And, of course the normal response applies - if there are alternate views and intelligent comment that aren't being covered here, then write it up, and send us the link - we'd love to include it.

Their Adventure Game of the Year is The Adventures of Fatman. Unfortunately, the link to the developer they provide doesn't tell you where to get it, only that it's been released as abandonware.
Naturally, HOTU has it, unfortunately minus the voices.

If someone managed to get the full (with voices) version, I'm sure HOTU would be grateful for a rip...

absolutely. go read lucky wander boy by d.b. weiss. all about a surrealistic nonsensical game. or try dada: stagnation in blue via netjack

This caught my eye over at diy games. It seems some of the developers (my guess!) who were missed of the list might have been a bit annoyed! I'm inclined to agree though: If I see that Bob Mandel has written a review a generally avoid reading it. Still, the man wrote over 20 of his own games (They were so great he didn't list them on his CV), so I'm sure he's more of an expert than I...

Too true, there's a sea of turds out there, with a few goodies trying to hold their head above water. Here's my tips for sorting indie games:

Ignore if:
looks like arkanoid
looks like tetris
looks like bubble bobble
runs in a browser
looks like mahjongg


Or just visit Diy Games they are about the only decent site I can think of for indie games.

GarageGames seems to be having a bad time of it.

If you want to have a look at what the shareware gameing world is up to you could try some of the others doing great games.

Dexterity
Mountain King Games
Retro64
Phelios

In fact, too many to list. All of those sites have links to others. You could spend days following them all.

Or you could try some of the new emerging quality shareware game news/review sites.

Diygames
Bytten
Shareware Gaming Magazine
GameTunnel