Defining an Indie Game Developer

NinjaBee Games writes "A continual debate rages about the nature of making independent games. 'What is Indie game development?' This argument endures throughout the year, but it's almost never heard louder than right after the announcement of finalists or winners of an Indie game development contest. The debate currently is in full swing after Microsoft's recent announcement that they will be changing the name of the Xbox Live Community Games section to Xbox Live Indie Games. In light of this important debate, Brent Fox of Indie developer NinjaBee has written a blog post in which he claims he has finally found the 'clear and undeniable' definition of Indie."

Comments

Its like music

[FTWinston]

Indie music is music published independently. Indie games are games published independently. If an indie game is taken up by a big publisher, its no longer indie.

Re:Its like music

[Canazza]

Should an indepentendly produced and published game, released in January, that then gets picked up by a publisher in July, be exempt from any Indie awards for that year given in December?

Re:Its like music

[Anonymous Coward]

If an indie developer falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear them, are they still indie?

Re:Its like music

[tdvaughan]

Should an indepentendly produced and published game, released in January, that then gets picked up by a publisher in July, be exempt from any Indie awards for that year given in December?

Depends on when it was submitted to the award panel?

Re:Its like music

[jellomizer]

Yes. That guys breakdown had some things in It that think some people would find objectionable.

  Use of commercial software or big commercial game engines
Why can't Indie game maker use such a stuff. So lets say it cost $2,000 to license the software. That is about as much as a good computer. So he has a crappy computer and uses software that makes programming a bit easier (as he is just an Indie developer and doesn't have the money for programming staff (The last time I checked $2k fixed cost or even annually is cheaper hiring someone at $35k+ a year)

  Telling a story in a game
Um why if you game follows a story then it does. If it doesn't then don't. A lot of games have a really lame story anyways just enough to make you feel morally justified to kill everything in sight. It is not like you need a huge work force to come up with a story.

  Visuals that are too high-end and pretty
So the Indie developer is not an Indie developer if they are a talented artist? I found out I could come up with some really fancy stuff with tinkering with Pov-Ray for a day.

  Use of 3D
Yea the concept of the Z axis makes things so much more complex that you need a huge team of developers what is it the 1980's. I was messing with 3d drawing algorithms as a kid once I learned about some trig and the inverse square rule.

  Making a game that is mainstream and commercially viable (No first-person shooters)
So if an indie game is actually popular. Like in music and movies every once in a while an Indie title comes out that really catches on.

  Desire for financial success
Why can't you do what you love, and make money too?

  Lack of distain for authority and publishers
So you need to be a miserable bastard too?

  Not high enough quality
So you can't do things that can make you game high quality. However you need to make it high quality. Yea... I think I will write my TPS reports now.

Re:Its like music

[Anonymous Coward]

My 2c worth:

An indie game is a game developed by an indie game developer, reguardless of publisher!

An indie game developer is any group of developers that do NOT live from the income recieved from the games (engines) they develop (ie. not fulltime game developers).

So from MY definition:
1) A bunch of students would qualify as an indie development team.
2) If Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Lawrence Page meet up in the evening to develop a game, that would also be an indie developed game, as none of them are game developers for a living.

Re:Its like music

[HaZardman27]

I believe as long as the version of the game submitted for the Indie awards has not been altered since being picked up by a publisher, then yes.

Re:Its like music

[bsDaemon]

If an emo kid slits is wrists, and no one is around to cover My Chemical Romance at his funeral, did the world win or lose?

Re:Its like music

[Mr_eX9]

Except that in the music world, "Indie" is the "Alt" of the 2000s--it's a term so overused that it's well beyond useless.

Because of multi-platform games and digital distribution, the relationship between a game developer and their publisher is very different than the relationship between a signed band and their record label. I don't think the availability of games like Braid, Blueberry Garden, or The Dishwasher on mainstream platforms makes them (or their developers) not "indie."

Re:Its like music

[binarylarry]

No time for love, Dr. Jones!

Re:Its like music

[Chabo]

He was listing a bunch of reasons that people use to say that a game "isn't indie enough". Deciding whether those reasons are any good is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Its like music

[gowen]

Independently from whom?
What qualifies someone as a "big" publisher?

Rephrasing a question is not the same as answering it.

Re:Its like music

[ravyne]

I'd disagree. Something is indie if its *produced* independently, without external aid (such as advancements from a publisher, for instance) -- Whether it's later picked up by a publisher, big or small, has nothing to do with it unless they start demanding changes before its release. What "Indie" is supposed to mean is a product that is free of all the publisher/market-research/men-in-suits bullshit.

Re:Its like music

[Brent Fox]

I didn"t say I agreed with all of the items on my list. I just said that I have heard other developers use these things as a means of disqualifying other developers from being "Indie". My point was that I think they create this definition based on what they are or what they hope to be soon. They then want to exclude any comparisons that they think might be unfair. Not that I agree but I can give you some of the arguments that I"ve heard on these topics that may make them a "little" more understandable but, according to my theory, you will only agree with them if this is how you see yourself.

You didn't define independently or big

[tepples]

Indie music is music published independently.

Independently of what?

If an indie game is taken up by a big publisher, its no longer indie.

For one thing, define "publisher". If Valve accepts a given developer's game for Steam, does that make Valve the "publisher"? If Microsoft accepts a given developer's game for Xbox Live Commu^W Indie Games, does that make Microsoft the "publisher"? Now define "big".

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Canazza]

Steam is a store-front. That's like saying Gamestation/Gamestop/Amazon/Play.com are Publishers

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[FTWinston]

Independently of a 3rd-party publisher. A publisher being an entity that provides money up front in exchange for rights related to the game (sales money, IP ownership, etc).
big.
Big is probably irrelevant, I used this to distinguish between the dev's grandma giving them £10 for a pizza during one night of development and EA giving them £500'000 for the rights to the game. But its a needless distinction.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[crossmr]

a publisher also publishers the game..pays for distribution, packages the game, ships it, etc.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Anonymous Coward]

So if Microsoft releases a game and self-publishes it, it's indie? I think that doesn't fit into most people's definitions of indie (I would guess most people use "indie" as a synonym for "non-mainstream", which is practically impossible to formally define)

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[PyroMosh]

I would argue that Steam is both. Just because Valve is a publisher that allows for direct purchases, doesn't make it not a publisher.

Anyone can write an application, and put the compiled binary up on their website, and "self-publish". Steam gives exactly what a publisher does: direct access to a large distribution network. In this case, that comes in the form of a desktop client app that serves as a storefront. In the case of EA, it comes in the form of relationships with brick and mortars like Game Stop, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and others.

Either way, I'd say it's still publishing.

What's curious is that in the indie music world, "indie" just tends to mean independent of the "major" record labels (There are four, right? I'm not a big music person). It can still be published by a record company though. Epitaph Records has been cited as an example of that. But they publish for Bad Religion, NOFX Rancid, The Offspring, Pennywise, and other relatively well known artists. That doesn't seem to stop peoplr from claling them "indie".

The problem is that there is no direct analogy to the "Big Four" in gaming. The biggest publishers would probably be the three console makers(Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony), then a few dozen or so companies like EA, Sega, Konomi, Activision, Capcom, etc.

Oh, and throw a wrench into the works with Valve, and Steam competitors like Direct-To-Drive, etc.

I think the answer is to have different levels for these indie game competitions.

It could be by number of team members, or by dollar amount, or size of the publisher.

As for scenarios like the one someone else posited where a game is developed by a small studio in January, picked up by a major publisher like EA in June, and entered into an Indie Game Festival in October, I think what's important is what the level of support was when the game was in development. If EA funded the game, no way. But if EA only got involved after the team had a finished product, why not?

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[sammyF70]

Someone please mod parent up.

If you're develop a game (or, for that matter, create a music track/make a movie) without being paid up-front by a 3rd party for the rights to publish the final product, you're independent. As soon as you get money for the rights to publish the final product before it is even in a releasable state, you're not independent anymore, as this kind of money generally comes with its own set of limitations and set by the publisher. You are now owing a finished product for the delivered money, and it generally should conform to conditions set by the publisher ("look ... you can't show boobs! And could you please add some gore when you use a grenade?")

I would rant longer, but power outage, and my UPS is going to die soon.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Endo13]

Yeah, taken completely literally that is exactly what "indie" would be. However as it is generally used, I think that would only be part of it. The other part is the size of the developing company. So here is what I'd say is probably the simplest way to define "indie" as it is generally used:

1. The developer does the work on his own dime.

2. The developer is small enough that they only work on one or two games at a time.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Elektroschock]

It is just a new label. Microsoft is a the master of the astroturf.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[FTWinston]

But some very big studios only work on one or two games at a time.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Endo13]

Those are the games that we know of. Just because we haven't heard about it doesn't mean it ain't happening. Take Blizzard for example. We know that they're working on SC2 and Diablo 3 right now. But they've also been working on an original-IP MMO that we just found out about in the last few weeks. Do you really think they hadn't been working on that for quite a while before they gave us this tiny bit of info? I'd put money on it that they've got at least another half a dozen more projects that we know nothing about. Same thing for any other developer that can be legitimately considered "big". Some of the projects may never be finished and released; some may not be for 5 years. But they're working on them.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[FTWinston]

Ok, counter-example. NetDevil a small studio, and are only working on Jumpgate Evolution afaik. Even if they have another secret project, thats "1 or 2" ... and they're not indie.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Chris Burke]

Anyone can write an application, and put the compiled binary up on their website, and "self-publish". Steam gives exactly what a publisher does: direct access to a large distribution network. In this case, that comes in the form of a desktop client app that serves as a storefront.

Sounds like a virtual store chain that accepts products not made by a big publisher to me, not a publisher. Like if you could walk into Borders with your book in hand, and they'd sell it for you. Do it electronically where they can sell it in Border's nation wide and online, and you have Steam. Or its like a virtual Farmer's Market, where you use their storefront to sell your produce.

A publisher is someone who pays to produce the work (or sometimes pays to get the rights to an already produced work), not simply provides an outlet to sell it.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Endo13]

They're also working on Lego Universe. (They also list three other "current projects" on their site, but it seems that info may be outdated, as they still list Auto Assault which IIRC has already gone belly-up.)

http://www.netdevil.com/games/lego.php

However, as I know next to nothing about the company besides what I found in a quick 5-minute perusal of their site, could you tell me why exactly that they're not "indie"?

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[fractoid]

1. The developer does the work on his own dime.

I don't know - I've always defined 'indie' for myself as being 'hobbyist with dreams of commercial success'. That's why Braid annoyed me so much - sure, the guy did it himself with the help of a hired artist, but if you re-mortgage your house and take a year off to build your dream game, you can't put yourself in the same box as someone who has to work full time to feed their family and develops games in the hour or two a night after his wife has finally stopped interrupting him and gone to sleep.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[darthvader100]

Independently of what?

Independently of having development funded by a big-house.

If you record a song at home, release it on your blog and sony starts sell it(or you take it to stores to publish)

You still funded it, on a much smaller scale than say Britney, who is churning out mass-produced songs that her agent tells her to

If you write a game from scratch(Plants vs zombies) then it deserves to be judged by different rules than if it is "Sims 3: Pets Yet Again"
Even if EA publishes it later, you still made it on an indie budget catering to a smaller audience.

I think the trouble comes when a song/game is produced by a major publisher. I mean by your logic if you walk into gamestop and buy an indie game(plants vs zombies) does that make gamestop the PRODUCER ? It is no different buying a game from a company that also produces games than buying from a store

Now define "big"

That one is easy, you are big if I say you are big...

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Golddess]

But Valve is also a publisher, right? To reverse the analogy, if EA opened up a physical store to sell their games, and they also sold games that they don't publish, that would be Steam. Here, it's clear that EA really isn't the publisher, as they probably have very little to do with the production of the content. But in the virtual it gets a bit more fuzzy. Valve basically is publishing your game for you, handling the distribution of it and the production of new copies.

Part of the problem seems to be that, historically, you'd have only one publisher, but now you can go to Steam, WiiWare, Microsoft's downloadable game thing, Sony's downloadable game thing, Direct-2-Drive, etc, and they can all publish your game for you.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Chris Burke]

But Valve is also a publisher, right?

Valve is a publisher, Valve's Steam is a storefront. Valve publishes games and distributes them through Steam, Valve accepts games they didn't publish to distribute through Steam.

Valve basically is publishing your game for you, handling the distribution of it and the production of new copies.

Distribution is not publishing; publishers often use a separate distribution company to handle that part. And in the digital world, "production of new copies" is meaningless. That's no more publishing than Google cache.

Part of the problem seems to be that, historically, you'd have only one publisher, but now you can go to Steam, WiiWare, Microsoft's downloadable game thing, Sony's downloadable game thing, Direct-2-Drive, etc, and they can all publish your game for you.

Not a problem at all, because those are all stores. The difference is actually that before, you'd need a publisher both to get funding to make your game, and to talk to make deals with retailers to carry your game. Now there are retailers who make it easy for you to talk to them directly about selling your game.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[Brent Fox]

The problem is that it gets tricky. According to this definition one could argue that internally developed games at EA are independent. The question becomes at what point does a developer become big enough to be considered the big developer them selves. There are all kinds of examples that are more questionable than this EA scenario. For example, Bizarre Creations made the game Geometry Wars with their own money, are they âoeIndieâ even though they are a huge developer that worked for MS on a bunch of big retail titles? My point in writing this blog post is to actually not to define what indie is but rather point out that there are a lot of different opinions and criteria that people use. The interesting part it that there definition is constantly tied to how they perceive themselves and how they compare to other developers.

Re:You didn't define independently or big

[YourExperiment]

As soon as you get money for the rights to publish the final product before it is even in a releasable state...

...you're 3D Realms.

why xbox XNA development fails

[Anonymous Coward]

OK Microsoft engineers put a LOT of very good effort into the XNA game development platform. And its a total failure. Let me explain why:

To buy a game from a indie developer is more difficult to find and choose then any xbox live arcade games, the xbox is not a simple devie designed for casual gaming, its a gaming machine. NOTHING drives them to look at the xbox XNA developers.

So theres no advertisements for you, no "hey here is the best", nada. If marketing was on the level of engineering then the XNA development would be helping the 360 sell like gangbusters.

Support. as I was working on XNA my console red lighted. the turnaround to replace the console was fast....but to get it to recognize my purchases? LITERALLY over 3 months, and over 12 hours on the phone. and god knows how many emails. By the time it got straightened out you know what they gave me? a month of free xbox gold. What the heck? If I had known what was going to happen I would have simply bought a new Xbox360.

So discouraged, and REALLY pissed...I canceled my XNA development kit.

So far the iPhone seems a lot better-the only complaint there is LOTS of competition. Which I am OK with.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[Anonymous Coward]

So far the iPhone seems a lot better-the only complaint there is LOTS of competition. Which I am OK with.

Its the apple-ness that I don't like. And the need of a mac. And the steve jobb(ie)s.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[dmbasso]

[...] I would have simply bought a new Xbox360.[...]

"you don't come here to hunt, do you?"

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[Canazza]

I was actually looking into mobile platforms to develop for, and while iPhone has the largest market at the moment it's also the hardest to break into, what with the needing of a Mac, and an iPhone (that's £500 just to start coding if you're not already a Mac owner).

Symbian and Android are the only other two worth mentioning.
Symbian uses a plethora of Development languages (C++ mainly, but you can use Java or C#.net 2.0 to make apps compatible with both Symbian and Windows Mobile. Signing up and using Symbian was quite easy for me to do.

Android is Java based, but is also quite easy to start using. I've not actually tried using it properly though so I can't comment on it much.

Apple are really shooting themselves in the foot by restricting the development platform

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[FinchWorld]

Apple are really shooting themselves in the foot by restricting the development platform

Really? What with alot of people having the "iPhone shiney good, must have, must have!" mentality, theres quite a growing iPhone userbase out there. If anything it seems to me Apple has worked out how to cash in on the people buying there iPhone, and the people making apps to make the iPhone more desirable.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[Canazza]

I'm not saying that the iPhone doesn't have the user-base. I'm saying that it's the hardest mobile platform to start developing for. It's detrimental to any kind of Indie movement.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[crossmr]

I think with any mobile platform you need to buy the mobile device, as well as have a computer of some kind to code on. You also need to get the SDK, etc. Apple's only restriction is that you develop on a MAC vs a Windows or Linux based machine. Its not a significant restriction and honestly if your business model is so tight you can't afford a mac, you probably aren't that serious about developing on the iphone as a platform.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[mlk]

Why not Windows Mobile?

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[Darkness404]

So what do you do? Take out a loan for a Mac? You would be laughed out of the bank if you tried to do that. And honestly a lot of really good coders have crappy machines. It doesn't take a hugely expensive machine to turn out good code especially when you aren't rendering much on the machine itself. And really Macs are different than Linux/Windows machines because they are way, way, way, way, way more expensive. The capabilities of a $500 laptop are higher or just as high as a $999 Macbook the only difference being that the Macbook might have a slightly faster GPU, slightly faster RAM, or HD, things that are totally irrelevant for coding.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[Canazza]

Windows mobile is a bit Meh, but you can dual-develop Symbian/Windows Mobile apps through C#.net (as I stated before) and therefore, I did mention it as a side.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[tepples]

Why not Windows Mobile?

Best Buy stores don't even sell Pocket PCs anymore. So I fail to see how Pocket PC owners are an especially viable market.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[Elektroschock]

Windows Mobile? Is that a competitor to the iphone?

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[Cornflake917]

OK Microsoft engineers put a LOT of very good effort into the XNA game development platform. And its a total failure. Let me explain why:

You can't call something a failure because your console RRoD's and you got shitty support. That has nothing to do with XNA. If you said XNA is a total failure because no one is playing the games, or no one is developing games with XNA (and then maybe provided some links), then I would believe. You just seem bitter that you went through some B.S. with your 360.

I've been trolling the XNA forums for a few years. There are hundreds of developers, and there is a thread where developers post how much money they are making. While very few are hitting it big, most people are happy making a little cash from doing a hobby that they enjoy.

So theres no advertisements for you, no "hey here is the best", nada.

That's changing.

So far the iPhone seems a lot better-the only complaint there is LOTS of competition. Which I am OK with

You're comparing apples to oranges. What if I wanted to develop an RTS or a multiplayer FPS? The iPhone's limitations with it's input, memory, and processing power, severely limit the scope of games that developers can create. Sure if my goal was to make maximum profit, I would try to make some cheezy time-waster and sell it on the iPhone. If I wanted to develop an original idea that pushes the limits, I would prefer developing for something more robust.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[mlk]

I don't know about the US market, but HTC alone has a reasonable market share here in the UK.
If you buy a top-of-the-range provider-branded phone from any of the mobile providers in the UK is is a rebranded HTC running Windows Mobile.

While PocketPCs are all but dead, Windows Mobile based devices are going strong.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[mlk]

The iPhone is a platform and a set of devices by one device manufacture.

Windows Mobile is a platform that runs on a set of devices by a number of device manufactures.

For developers they are competing platforms.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[tepples]

I don't know about the US market

In the United States market, if you buy a phone, you have a 2-year commitment to another phone line. And Google hasn't turned up a way to compile an application for Windows Mobile without the Windows Mobile SDK, which works only on the paid-for versions of Visual Studio, not the Express versions.

While PocketPCs are all but dead, Windows Mobile based devices are going strong.

I've seen a phone that runs Windows Mobile made by Pantech. It had neither a precise D-pad nor a touch screen, so how is the user supposed to control the game?

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[mlk]

Windows Mobile without the Windows Mobile SDK, which works only on the paid-for versions of Visual Studio, not the Express versions.

You can use sharpeDevelop. .NET CF is just .NET with some stuff missing, so I do not see why an application written with this in mind would need any particular .NET IDE.

You can also download the emu for nought.

It had neither a precise D-pad nor a touch screen, so how is the user supposed to control the game?

No touch screen is rare in a Windows Mobile device in my XP. And then only on the low-end shit competing with your just above basic Nokia device.
Every time I hear about the US phone market is seams a little bit more broken.

At the end of the day your target market is all that counts. From the sounds of it your market is US and Windows Mobile does not have much a hold.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[tepples]

You can use sharpeDevelop. .NET CF is just .NET with some stuff missing

I've read reports that .NET Compact Framework might be fast enough for Solitaire but not for real-time games.

You can also download the emu for nought.

How accurate is the emulator, especially in terms of which operations are fast and which slow? This matters for games more than it might for business applications.

No touch screen is rare in a Windows Mobile device in my XP.

Perhaps Windows Mobile Professional is more common where you live, but where I live, Windows Mobile Standard is more common. And Windows Mobile Classic devices are nowhere, even for people who already have a phone and don't want another phone line. (Naming conventions)

From the sounds of it your market is US and Windows Mobile does not have much a hold.

For one thing, I live in the United States, and I don't know how I'd promote an application outside the United States. For another, I speak English, and 2/3 of the population of developed[1] countries whose official language is English live in the United States.

[1] I doubt that India counts as "developed" enough to be a viable market for video games.

Re:why xbox XNA development fails

[mlk]

How accurate is the emulator

No idea sorry, from memory it is an actual hardware emulator running Windows Mobile. But that does not mean it emulates it well.

For one thing, I live in the United States, and I don't know how I'd promote an application outside the United States.

(Disclaimer: I follow the games industry, but don't really participate in it.) A IGDA event I attended a few years back covered mobile games. While the potential is large in the US they don't (or did not at the time) buy game for mobiles. Europe was a better market (but you would have to translate your game) as they are more willing to buy games.
This was before the iPhone thou, so the market might have changed a fair bit.

The other thing from that even that I found interesting was the number of companies that used middleware that could target the bigger platforms.

In this case..

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case.. it is nothing more than Microsoft MBAs trying to jump on the trendiness of a new word.

MBA #1: "Oooo, all the kids are into this indie stuff with music and things."

MBA #2: "how can we capitalize on this? how can we sound hip and with it?"

MBA #3: "I think we need to fit this word into our product somewhere!"

MBA #1: "The kids like xbox, let's use it there!"

MBA #2: "I have no idea what indie is, but sounds great!"

MBA #3: "Yeah, this will be EPIC!... right?"

Re:In this case..

[jellomizer]

You do realize that MBA's are people with a Masters Degree in Business Management. And a lot of them have very different Undergrad Degrees, Including Computer Science, Engineering, and all those other geeky areas of study. Heck some of them have advanced degrees in those areas too. But got an MBA to further their careerer, as it says on your Resume I am not just a whiny geek.

Most of the stupid management like that happens around the middle say with a team of sales people (with undergrad business degrees, or just "real life experience") who are trying to fight their way up the ladder.

Re:In this case..

[Chris Mattern]

You do realize that MBA's are people with a Masters Degree in Business Management.

Which is why they're called MBMs.

Wait, what?

Re:In this case..

[Dunbal]

Agreed. My wife has a degree in economics, followed by an MBA. Yet strangely she's the head of market research for a fortune 500 co, reports directly to the board and manages about 30 marketing teams - roughly one per country in her region. Her job is primarily to STOP this kind of bullshit from happening. This usually spawns in the local teams that don't have anyone with an advanced degree, and primarily consist of "buddies", "pals", and "girlfriends" who only got their jobs because they know how to suck up to their boss and not because they're actually good at it. These are the people who think they can re-invent marketing, have no idea what the studies and research they call for actually mean, manipulate and misinterpret statistical data in their favor, and generally waste resources making the company less efficient. However the few times they manage to pull together in the same direction make it worthwhile.

GP should revisit what an MBA actually means. I'm proud of my wife, even if I beat her out with a doctorate of my own :)

need more categories

[corey.abshire]

Seems to me that to really be "fair" based on the rough criteria outlined in the article, you'd almost need a kind of weight system like in boxing.

Independent, not "indie"

[DNS-and-BIND]

If you're an independent game producer, then call yourself that. Calling yourself an "indie" has little actual meaning and tons of cultural meaning. It's a word like "hyper" or "nexus" that, in some people's [small] minds, makes words next to it look better. It's like how menus in China always have English on them: it's not for native speakers to read, it's so the locals will look at the English and say, "ah, English - this restaurant is international and therefore better." The quality of the product is irrelevant.

And now, you're upset because a big corp came in and sat on your made-up word. Ha-ha! What, they changed its meaning? It didn't have any meaning in the first place, other than to make words next to it look better to easily-impressed insular twits. That's what the brouhaha is all about here - not that MS is going to have a new game channel, but "they stole my cool saying! All the other hipsters at Starbucks won't think I'm cool any more!"

Re:Independent, not "indie"

[Chris Burke]

And now, you're upset because a big corp came in and sat on your made-up word. Ha-ha! What, they changed its meaning? It didn't have any meaning in the first place, other than to make words next to it look better to easily-impressed insular twits.

They're called "instwits", and I was one back when it meant something. You kids today don't know anything about self-congratulatory myopia, you think you can just blindly state that yours is the only pure form of artistic expression unsullied by corporate soul-sucking and that makes you a real instwit. Please. I was bouncing the idea of how unique and on the pulse of the times I was around an echo-chamber of like-minded pretentious blowhards while you were still battling with Suzie Stinkypants over who got the "special" blue carpet square to sit on for story time. But it wasn't special, you only thought that because a cadre of corpdroids* at the carpet factory calculated it to be "daring" and "edgy" while also not violating your burgeoning sense of conformity. That and all the others were either red or yellowish-beige.

* Now there's a word that used to mean something, too. Nowadays anyone thinks they can show a little slavish devotion to a soulless entity at the expense of their integrity and respect for their fellow man and it makes them a corpdroid. Why in my day...

Re:Noun

[cliffski]

Really?
I must have somehow been paying my rent all these years with pixie dust then. Me and the other indie devs who do game development full time all manage to pay our rents and our food bills.
Explain to me how we are not economically viable, but companies like EA who often make a net loss somehow are?

BTW, most fulltime indies do it because they have seen how badly most 'proper' companies are run. By your definition I do not have a job, nor will I ever have one again, having seen how much more efficient it is to work for yourself.

Indie Developer Definition

[Anonymous Coward]

An indie developer is the guy that says "Hey, I can code. I like video games. I should make my own video game! I have no visual or musical artistic sense, but that's just filler toward the end of the project!"

500 hours of coding later, the indie developer comes to realize that their game will fail miserably due to the fact that they underestimated how hard it would be to come across free graphic, music, and sound effect assets that reflect what the game is supposed to be.

That same indie developer then spends another handful of hours learning Blender to realize that the best they can come up with artistically is a sphere that's had its centre punched in that they euphemistically call a "bean bag chair" and try to completely retool their gameplay around that. Grand Theft Auto 5 becomes Beanbag Jumping World.

1,000 hours, many Blender exports, recording sessions in the bathroom bashing a plank of wood with a hammer to re-create the sound of wood cracking without buying some $100+ sound library and a crappy public domain tune later, they release their game on their webpage and over the next five years, approximately 3 people not related to the author check it out.

Re:Indie Developer Definition

[bobasaurus]

Having been through most of that cycle myself, you really nailed it. I've been sticking to 2D game development recently, which is a bit more manageable. Once you realize the difficulty involved, the fun is sapped out of it.

Re:Indie Developer Definition

[elrous0]

I really wish there were a concise video on Youtube that would dramatize just that scenario. I could send every teenager to it who has ever told me "I'm thinking about making videogames" when asked about his career aspirations (with him assuming that making them will be as fun and easy as playing them, of course). I would also like similar videos for "rap star," "sports star," "actress," and "model."

Re:Indie Developer Definition

[nexex]

http://mediacast.sun.com/share/ChrisM/BeAGameDesigner.mpg

Re:Indie Developer Definition

[eison]

Plenty of people have ended up with great careers in computers because of a desire to learn how to make videogames.
Very few people end up with fantastic careers because of a desire to become a rap star.
I would avoid discouraging the programmers.

Small labels distributed by the majors

[tepples]

Anyone can write an application, and put the compiled binary up on their website, and "self-publish".

Not without a jailbreak, if your game's genre is one best displayed on the living room TV. As of 2009, video gaming on home theater PCs is still commercially insignificant, in part because most of indie game developers' potential customers aren't aware that PCs can be connected to TVs.

What's curious is that in the indie music world, "indie" just tends to mean independent of the "major" record labels (There are four, right? I'm not a big music person).

Even the smaller record labels tend to be distributed by the big labels in North America.

The problem is that there is no direct analogy to the "Big Four" in gaming.

There's a Big Three of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Without their digital signature, your game is confined to the desk.

Re:Small labels distributed by the majors

[selven]

A modern TV is just a big monitor. You can hook it up to a computer if you want.

XNA vs. iPhone: It's almost a wash.

[tepples]

while iPhone has the largest market at the moment it's also the hardest to break into, what with the needing of a Mac, and an iPhone (that's £500 just to start coding if you're not already a Mac owner).

Not everyone owns a recent Mac. But not everyone owns a recent PC running Windows either; it may be older hardware that still works, or it may have come with something other than Windows. Let's do the math: in addition to the signing certificate (99 USD per year on both platforms), iPhone development needs a Mac mini (600 USD) and an iPod Touch (220 USD), while XNA needs a recent PC running Windows (I'll say 400 USD) and an Xbox 360 (300 USD). It's almost a wash.

Re:XNA vs. iPhone: It's almost a wash.

[Anonymous Coward]

To develop for the XNA platform, it is NOT necessary to own an Xbox 360, nor is it required that you purchase a subscription to the Creator's Club. While not having a Creator's Club subscription does, in fact, limit what you can do (I.E, no Xbox 360 development), the iPhone dev kit requires that you pony up the $99 to gain access to the dev kit itself. Also, even if you were to purchase the subscription level required to develop for XNA on the 360, you still do not necessarily need an Xbox 360 - if you buy an Xbox 360 controller and hook it up to your PC, you can test games designed for the 360 without the console itself.

Re:XNA vs. iPhone: It's almost a wash.

[tepples]

To develop for the XNA platform, it is NOT necessary to own an Xbox 360

To get a game onto Xbox Live Indie Games, you need to make absolutely sure that your game runs smoothly on an Xbox 360.

if you buy an Xbox 360 controller and hook it up to your PC, you can test games designed for the 360 without the console itself.

I haven't used XNA yet (old PC is old), so I don't know whether or not there exist implementation differences between XNA for Windows and XNA for Xbox 360, in the sense of the "write once, debug anywhere" of Java. A game might work on a PC but end up unplayable on an Xbox 360. Besides, the 19" monitor connected to your PC probably isn't big enough to fit four play testers, each holding an Xbox 360 controller.

Re:XNA vs. iPhone: It's almost a wash.

[fenderized]

the iPhone dev kit requires that you pony up the $99 to gain access to the dev kit itself.

I don't believe this is correct. I haven't paid paid $99 yet I have access to the dev kit. Among other things, the $99 allows you to sign your app so you can install it on real hardware. According to your description here, it really does appear there isn't much difference, including having a simulator to test your code in.

How do I raised capital?

[tepples]

honestly if your business model is so tight you can't afford a mac, you probably aren't that serious about developing on the iphone as a platform.

If one's business model is so tight, such as being on summer break from school, what should one do to raise $1,000 to buy a Mac + iPod Touch + certificate or a Vista-capable PC[1] + Xbox 360 + certificate?

[1] XNA Game Studio runs on Windows XP. But don't try running it on a five-year-old hand-me-down PC; as I read the requirements, acceptable performance requires a machine otherwise capable of running the Aero interface in Windows Vista.

Re:How do I raised capital?

[somersault]

If you don't can't muster a thousand dollars to buy your initial hardware, I don't think you're in a good position to consider working for yourself.

Re:How do I raised capital?

[tepples]

If you don't can't muster a thousand dollars to buy your initial hardware, I don't think you're in a good position to consider working for yourself.

I know that. The question was: how does one get into such "a good position to consider working for yourself"?

Re:How do I raised capital?

[crossmr]

Go back to school first if you can't figure out how to make $1000.
a basic ipod touch and an xbox 360 have similar price points, so really you're only talking the difference in price between a mac and a pc sufficient to code on.. probably not $1000 price difference. If you already have a kick ass PC, then go develop on the 360. If you have neither and really want to develop on the iphone, find the extra few bucks and make it happen.

Re:How do I raised capital?

[bsDaemon]

The same way as most everyone else that does -- rich parents set them up with it. Like that Bill Gates guy. Walking into a multi-million dollar trust fund is the sort of thing that enables one to drop out of Harvard and do weird things. Even if he "failed," he wasn't going to end up on the street or flipping burgers.

That or you work for someone else for a while, save diligently, and gather as much knowledge and experience as you can before striking out on your own with some street cred under your belt. I hear that's worked for a few people, too.

Re:How do I raised capital?

[somersault]

That or you work for someone else for a while, save diligently, and gather as much knowledge and experience as you can before striking out on your own with some street cred under your belt. I hear that's worked for a few people, too.

Exactly.

The other way is to take out a large-ish loan, but you'd have to very sure of your business plan, or very stupid, or both. Thankfully for software development you don't really need much money unless you are going to employ others.

Personally if I was really serious about starting my own software business I'd probably work at least 3 days a week on a 'real' job to keep earning enough to get by (with current savings there as a buffer), and work on my own software the rest of the time.

Indie Developers

[GearheadX]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Team Shanghai Alice yet in comments.

A one man development studio? Can't get much more independent than that.

The definition is not rocket science

[UnknownSoldier]

Nor is it even comp.sci. The definition is really simple:

If your paying job is NOT game development, then you ARE an indie if you do game development on the side.

If your day job IS developing games, then you're NOT an indie (you are a professional!)

Who publishers your game doesn't change your status of how you got the game made.

Re:The definition is not rocket science

[Chabo]

I disagree. "Day job" vs "on the side" is professional vs amateur, not whether you're indie.

Indie just means you're independent; take that as you will, but to me it means that you answer to yourself. Both amateur and professional developers can be independent, depending on how much control they have over their own project(s).

Re:The definition is not rocket science

[UnknownSoldier]

Yeah this morning I was thinking what distinguishes between indie and non, and amateur and professional.

Before I would of argued, Amateur = Indie, Professional=Non-Indie, but you have a certain point. I'd say that yours is a little better of a definition, but it is still a little loose.

The reason I say its not exactly correct either is because with your definition most professional game developers are NOT indie either! UNLESS they self-publish as Most publishers will tell you what you need to change. So itt looks like we have 2 orthogonal axises. Job and Control.

(Control Game Direction)
                    Indie
                    ^
                    |
(2nd job) Amateur <--+--> Professional (Primary Job)
                    |
                    v
                  Non-Indie
        (Don't control Game Direction)

--
WoW (TM) is the McDonalds (TM) of MMOs. Quantity != Quality.
  -- Michaelangel007

Re:The definition is not rocket science

[Chabo]

with your definition most professional game developers are NOT indie either!

Well, I think that's kinda true... as someone above said, if you're paid for your work before you have a finished product, then whoever paid for the product likely has a decent amount of control over it.

I agree it's not a perfect definition, as I'm sure there will be a counterexample somewhere. Think of Valve though; despite their success and relatively large size (for a "small" game company), they are a fully independent game company. Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded the company with their own money, and they're still privately owned. They essentially self-publish their games through Steam, so even though EA handles their retail publication and distribution, EA doesn't really have any veto power for their content like they might for other developers.

Under many other metrics, Valve may not be an "indie" company, but in terms of control over what content goes into their games, I don't think they can be beat.

Re:The definition is not rocket science

[Brent Fox]

I will need to add this professional and armature reasoning to my list. So, to confirm my theory, do you have anther job and make games on the side and do you feel that itâ(TM)s unfair for the guys who get to spend all of their time making games to be directly compared to your games? It sounds like you may hope that you game gets published by a big publisher but you donâ(TM)t think that should change your âoeindieâ status. Is this correct?

Does it matter?

[Opportunist]

Come not near to me, for I be indier than thou...

Why is that important? For the air of being not one of the "big studio" products, so it's morally (more) wrong not to pay for my game? To be excused for creating mediocre games because, well, I'm just indie, I can't produce tripel-A games (which is a lie, btw, a lot of 'indie' titles offer way more enjoyment than any big studio touted triple-A titles)?

Seriously, what's the big fuss?

Re:Does it matter?

[tepples]

Seriously, what's the big fuss?

It has to do with the console makers' qualifications for developers. Nintendo, for one, states on its web page that it requires developers to have a leased office and previous published titles on some other platform. This means a smaller studio might not be able to port even a finished PC game to a Sony or Nintendo console or a Sony or Nintendo handheld. So I'd almost venture to define "indie" as "not qualifying for a PS2, Wii, PSP, or DS SDK".

Re:Does it matter?

[Opportunist]

What? I may not own my office?

Sounds like a deal only for minor studios that can't afford real estate...

Re:Does it matter?

[tepples]

What? I may not own my office?

The actual rule is that your office and your home must be on separate lots. But it can be even more expensive to own an office building than to lease one, especially for a smaller studio.

Including the DS and PSP?

[tepples]

I'm not saying that the iPhone doesn't have the user-base. I'm saying that it's the hardest mobile platform to start developing for.

Are you including the DS without jailbreak and the PSP without jailbreak? Nintendo states on its developer application page that it won't even sell you a DS devkit unless you have a leased office and a track record on some other platform.

Why do you always call him "junior"?

[Tetsujin]

Pah! Everybody knows that Indy was the dog's name!

In other news...

[denzacar]

"A continual debate rages about the nature of color blue. 'What is blue?'
Thanks to RGB and CMYK and other color models and scales we know what exactly means Cyan or 0.0.255 or 0000FF, but the common "blue" remains elusive."

Re:Noun

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense troll, but although I'm not a fan of cliffskis games, calling them civilisation clones is just laughable.
Democracy is absolutely nothing like civ. Take your trolling elsewhere.

Non-modern TVs still outnumber modern TVs

[tepples]

A modern TV is just a big monitor.

For one thing, non-modern TVs still outnumber modern TVs, and most of indie game developers' potential customers aren't aware that adapters to let a PC display on a non-modern TV exist. For another, a lot of people don't have a spare PC to put next to the TV.

The how to guide

[Miamicoastguard]

An indie game developer can be defined in a sense as "broke". It is very hard to make money with indie games but is it also very rewarding to be able to make games as you would like to be able to play them, no content is overlooked or disregarded due to deadlines. So often, games developed independently will show a great deal more depth and cerebral captivation than those developed in a big team corporate environment. However of course there are many exceptions on both sides. I still love to play Capitalism 2. They seemed to really do well with that one.

Re:Noun

[rohan972]

Explain to me how we are not economically viable, but companies like EA who often make a net loss somehow are?

We know that you are not financially viable as an indie developer because someone put your games online for download. Due to your incessant whining about this kind of thing, we know that this is theft. Therefore, due to the constant loss of your inventory that this theft would cause, your business would not be viable.

I didn't download it, BTW. I don't care about your games.

Re:Noun

[Brent Fox]

My point in writing this blog post is to actually not to define what indie is but rather point out that there are a lot of different opinions and criteria that people use. I donâ(TM)t necessarily agree with all of the items on the list and most people donâ(TM)t. They can even have some decent arguments for some of these items that sound crazy to you or me. The interesting part is that I think they create this definition based on what they are or what they hope to be soon. They then want to exclude any comparisons that they think might be unfair.