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Indie Games Go Retail
Via GameSetWatch, an AP story about a boxed edition of several IGF entrants. The Independent Games festival has attracted a number of creative designers, and the results are now available on the retail shelves. From the article: "Indie games aren't commonplace outside of the World Wide Web. Despite that, Moondance successfully wooed Best Buy to stock 'IG: Independent Games' on their shelves beginning last fall. The disc features such casual games as the engineering sim 'Bridge Construction Set' and the popular robot battle game 'Dark Horizons Lore Invasion.' 'Our strategy is to have games for all kinds of gamers: traditional gamers, family gamers and now independent gamers,' says Chris Koller, merchandising director for video games at Best Buy."
Dark Horizons has a pretty robust fanbase. They even had their own convention last year somewhere in PA. I know the devs are proud of their game and participate in the community a bit. I've also heard good things about bridge constructor set. There also is a demo of Gish, which was a prime example of a solid indie game. I cant really speak for the rest of the collection, but at least some interesting indie titles are making it to retail.
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
In our case, the money is in downloadable games, but retail opportunities do bring in some additional money, and in any case, seeing your game in a box feels amazing :) For example our Wild West Wendy was published in Germany and Russia - see here
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Back in the day, indie games were called "Budget games" and came on an audio cassette. And if they were crap, we'd tape music over them. I can still remember c64 software being broadcast over the radio in the early mornings... but that is another story. If indie game developers are smart, which they no doubt are, why would they want to lose money on a publisher (which only spends it on a box and a disc) One of my indie game developer friends just sell his game on his site and it sells remarkably well. (no ferraris yet) With indie games your in a completely different market, and a good game will sell itself eventually.
...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
It usually sells as a standalone for 20-30 Euros. Very popular game among those who play it. Kids love Legos, this is even better because it's just hilarious to watch the ways you can exploit the physics. A bridge that is only held together by three girders after most of the support structure broke away and holds only long enough for the train to pass the prerequisite number of times?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.