Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What Was the Greatest Age For Indie Games?

Posted by Soulskill on from the it-was-the-age-that-gave-us-star-control-2 dept.

jonyami writes: "Indie games have existed for as long as there's been something to play and something to play it on. From the humble Apple II to modern PCs, Xbox Live Arcade and the Kickstarter revolution, just what was the greatest age for indie games? A new article takes a look at the various eras, the top indie games and the future — which one do you reckon is on top?"

21 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by Ihlosi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Never before have documentation and good tools been so available to even indie developers.

    Never before has it been so easy to actually earn money with indie game development.

    And things might be getting even better.

    1. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by bluescrn · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But 'right now' is possibly the hardest that it's ever been to *make money* from indie development - simply because there's so many people making games (due to much-improved tools), it's incredibly hard to get noticed, and the bulk of the media attention goes to the already-successful 'super-indies'.

      And even with all the digital distribution options out there, there are new all-powerful middlemen controlling what has a chance of real success - Steam, Humble, Apple (featured content), etc

      Personally, I loved the 90s, when the technology was really exciting and evolving fast. The indie boom of the late 2000s was cool too, but now we seem to be facing oversaturation and race-to-the-bottom pricing (even beyond mobile).

    2. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by Lumpy · · Score: 2

      Absolutely! Shadowrun Returns, Kerbal Space program, etc... The indie games scene is starting to overtake the "AAA" games in quality and enjoyment.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by craklyn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Faster than Light Binding of Isaac Super Meatboy Kerbal Space Program Minecraft Rogue Legacy Fez Bastion (developed by an indie team, published by a big name) Papers, Please The Stanley Parable World of Goo Little Inferno

    4. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "make money" as in become rock star rich? yes, and That is a good thing. Sorry to burst people's bubbles but programming and game development is not the lottery, you dont get a big payout.

      Make money as in cover your costs and turn a modest profit? that is more reasonable, and if these Indie people are going into business without a business plan and fully researching the market as well as costs and other financials as well as research as to their lower price to sell at as well as what price that will not scare people away from their game.

      If you are an indie company and think you ca get $60 for your game you are insane, $16.00 to $29.00 for a professional quality game (as in better than the buggy untested crap from bioware) is easily achieved as can be seen by the success of a lot of indie games out there.

      But if a developer thinks they will get rich or start living the 6 digit income levels? They need to stop now and work on something else, as they have zero clue as what it's like to sell software let alone games.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    5. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by geminidomino · · Score: 2

      Bastion (developed by an indie team, published by a big name)

      Bastion was a pretty good game, but I think that calling it "indie" is stretching the term to uselessness. You get all the belt-tightening quality of an indie team, plus all the obnoxious customer hostility of a big-time publisher?

    6. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      6 digit income levels? $100,000 a year is a 6 digit income. That's not a huge amount of income to ask for as a developer. Then again $500,000 is also a 6 digit income, but that's actually a large amount of money to be making.

      Personally, I think that game programming is like the lottery. Notch basically won the lottery with Minecraft. There's nothing particularly amazing about the game, but for some reason, it caught on, and now he's rich. It's hard to pin down what makes one game sell millions, while other games struggle to sell in the thousands.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    7. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by Ranbot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You must be young. Almost all indy titles today are shovelware using asset stores for their code, art and sounds. Games are being thrown together by everyone with a view of creation lots of titles hoping one is a hit

      I used to scour BBS on my 14.4 modem looking for indy games to download, so I think I'm old enough to tell you to stop looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses. There was an indy PC game movement in the 80's and 90's that created some great things but there was plenty of forgettable shovelware too, you just forgot about that (go figure). Those old games also recycled plenty of their own code, art, and sounds. Also, 80's/90's indy developers were almost completely shut out of the console markets, but not so today. 80's/90's indy developers were also much more limited by the technology available, and not just graphics, but also the interface was mostly limited to keyboard/mouse and maybe a joystick. Today's indy developers has so much more available to them to use creatively. Graphics is obvious, but also things like Wii-Mote, Kinect, mobile phone capabilities (cameras, GPS, etc.), and new VR tech. Then you've got Kickstarter, digital distribution, and flexible pricing to get indy developer ideas/projects off the ground. Yeah there are going to be plenty of indy game turds, but there always have been.

    8. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by Githaron · · Score: 3, Interesting

      While I don't know what made Minecraft initially popular, I think its prolonged success was a happy accident. Notch decided to write the Minecraft client and server in Java which is a relatively easy to decompile language. This encourage a few hacker types to make their own mods. This eventually evolved into third-party mod APIs like Bukkit and Forge which further encouraged third-party content. I don't know what the percentages are but I would guess there is a lot more people playing modded Minecraft than vanilla Minecraft. Since there is not an official modding API, I don't think Minecraft would be nearly as popular today if it had been written in C or C++ because there would much less likely be such a rich modding community for the game.

    9. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by Tronster · · Score: 2

      History disagrees with the sentiment that it was easier to "make money" as an indie in the 1980s, or 1990s than today....

      In the 1980s the distribution channels were being established which meant either you scored a deal with a bricks and mortar retail store, such as Sears, Babbages or Toy's R Us, or you ziplock bagged your PC game and tried to sell them at swap meets and computer stores.

      In the 1990s there were more direct retailers and amalgamations of bricks and mortar stores occurred. The shareware model emerged and ziplock bagging disappeared. If anything, the 1990's were a bit of a dark ages for indies as either you had a publisher to get into a store or shareware.

      From the 2000s onward we have an increased number of target platforms, and increased demographic of game players (from kiddos to those who grew up playing games for 30+ years... see: http://dmitriwilliams.com/will... (warning: Word doc)) , and increased number of channels (e.g., bricks and mortar persists (barely), online services like Steam, bundles, etc...)

      If you (have aspirations to) develop indie games, it may seem likely everyone is creating them and the market is saturated but it's the same mentality as a musician at a "Guitar Center" thinking everyone in the world is now in a band; no, it's just the community they choose to surround themselves in. The signal to noise ratio is such that indies can succeed if they spend time build a great game and heed the lessons of other indies in how to market it through these channels. (GDC Vault has many free videos on this topic, such as: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1... )

      I even have a personal example of a AAA dev who use to work with me, but left years ago to start his own 1-man shop. He was a graphic programmer who taught himself to become a better artist and has been making a living, creating games, for a few years now. Check out his studio: http://www.epacegames.com/ And can also site Discord games ( http://discordgames.com/ ); larger than a 1-man group but by making an awesome game and marketing it appropriately, have an opportunity to sell Chasm to eager players, an opportunity that would not have existed 20 years ago.

    10. Re:I'd say "right now". And it's getting better. by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      To me, Minecraft is a very dull game. Mining out raw materials, and combining them to make tools and then manufactured goods, in order that you have shelter before nightfall and don't starve. And all played in a randomly generated, rather than designed environment.

      Dull, dull, dull.

      Where Minecraft seems to have become popular is as a toy. A construction set somewhat like a virtual lego set. And that does indeed seem to be a happy accident.

  2. 1990s by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2

    Doom was "Indie". Command and Conquer was "Indie". Hell, compared to the modern AAA teams large enough to fill a city church, Super Mario World was "Indie".

    The difference between 1 guy in a bedroom making an ephemeral App, and 10-20 people in an office a timeless classic does not give the right to the former to be lauded as either innovative, avant-garde, or somehow good for the industry. Contemporary "Indie" developers are just as much of a cancer on modern gaming as AAA kilo-teams.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
    1. Re:1990s by ButchDeLoria · · Score: 2

      Yeah, indie is a 'state of mind' now rather than just meaning "not made by a pocket developer of a publisher."

  3. 80's and right now by SuperDre · · Score: 2

    The 80's were great as it was easy to create games as a single person (no need for a real graphics artist for a long time).. And Now because of the easiness of how people can find your game, but it requires more people to actually produce something top quality looking..

  4. What does indie mean? by Threni · · Score: 2

    I've been around, playing games at least, since the early 1980s. If by indie you mean `1 or 2 or 3 people making a living from writing and selling their games with more or less complete independence from bean counters and trend-mongers` then the answer has to be around then, up to around 1994 or so when powerful consoles took off, and the visual side of things was treated as more important (3d, video fmv, cd audio)...basically when it was seen that there was a lot of money to be made appealing to non-traditional gamers. The hobbiest side of things died more or less overnight, as you can't compete on those terms and there was (essentially) no internet for them to self-publish. It's possible again now, thanks to the internet, app stores etc but - perhaps i'm old and jaded - it doesn't seem as fun, or with as much variety now. But I suppose you could make the case that there's been a renaissance in the last, say, 4 years or so.

  5. Skipped over the mod scene by Fnord · · Score: 2

    Early 90s shareware was very different from late 90s and early 2000s mods. A bunch of eventually AAA titles and studios spawned out of mods for existing games. Things like Counter Strike, Team Fortress, the original DOTA. I'd put that in a completely different Era from the console scene and the shareware scene.

  6. Re:Timeline by Goaway · · Score: 2

    And when did people actually start playing real games on the PC?

    In between, you had all kinds of home computers. Commodores, Ataris, Spectrums, a million things besides. That is where most of the action always was. The PC was very later to this party.

  7. Now is the time, seize the day... by Tronster · · Score: 5, Informative

    What constitutes indie is one questions (and AAA is even harder to come to a consensus, even among my work peers) but that said...

    As a child of the 80's, who adamantly played video games (e.g., Apple ][, arcade, 2600, NES, etc...) and got into professional game development over 10 years ago (I work for a AAA studio and my have my own gig for nights/weekends) I'd agree with those who say now, 2014, is the best time for indie game development.

    Powerful engines and Middleware tools are accessible with licenses that fit indie budgets (e.g., Unity3d, Unreal4, etc...) as well as a swatch of free software for development. (e.g. Phaser: http://phaser.io/ Blender http://www.blender.org/ Love https://love2d.org/ Flixel http://flixel.org/ Haxe http://haxe.org/ )

    The internet, as-is, provides indies with a way for
    - distance-collaboration (Skype, E-mail, Groups, etc...)
    - community building (Twitter, CMSs, Facebook, etc...)
    - fundraising (IndieGogo, Kickstarter, HumbleBundle, Paypal, custom web-based donation system, etc...)
    - advertising (game communities, news outlets, etc...)

    Organizations, such as the International Game Developer's Association (IGDA, http://igda.org/ ) and events like the Global Game Jam, PAX (IndieMegabooth), and MAGFest also contribute to the community of indie game developers.

    It is a great time to be an indie game developer in terms of accessibility and ability to achieve a sustainable income.

  8. late 80s into the 90s by crossmr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Say what you will about all the access devs have now, but it was that time when things were greatest.

    People were still experimenting. Not just with concepts but core mechanics. Interfaces, everything. It was the wild west.

    People weren't yet dumbing things down to make them more "Accessible", when you got a game there wasn't going to be another one in 5 minutes. The internet wasn't everywhere. People still had slow connections when it came around. You read magazines, hunted for games and traded with friends.

    The early days were really the best for the entirety of computing. Sure, things are flashy, we have such powerful machines now. Those were the days of great games and great indie games.

    1. Re:late 80s into the 90s by Tronster · · Score: 2

      tl;dr: Accessibility has always been a concern and, there is more innovation happening today than 30 years ago.

      I also miss the (video game) days of my youth; learning about games from friends, or by going to an arcade and seeing what new machine was front and center...later making ANSII ads for BBS's so I could obtain a high enough credentials to get access to their warez section and learn about the latest games.

      That said, I chock my emotions of those days as nostalgia and recognize an indie in the 80's/90's had a much more limited set of options than today. From middle school to college my options went from Applesoft Basic with the Beagle Bros compiler to Turbo Pascal/C++ with the XMODE library. That's it. Innovation in game design, and mechanics was regulated to a task that could be accomplished only after you figured out how to get a framebuffer up, sounds playing, and all the other nit picky things required to build a game.

      Don't mistake accessibility with complexity. I make games for a living and some of my co-workers have been doing this for 30+ years; accessibility has always been at the front of the games developers build. When 4k of memory was a lot, the best games could do was have paddles, a ball, and text written on an arcade cabinet to describe how to play. Later on we introduced demo mode and how-to-play screens, which worked particularly well with most games as they didn't scroll and limited play modes and/or mechanics to demonstrate.

      And when games became more complex (powerups, scrolling screens, etc...), the games people played were the ones that continued to innovate on how they were accessible. A great example that codifies this early push for accessibility by design is in "Sequelitis - Mega Man Classic vs. Mega Man X" https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      If games haven't always found a way to be accessible, demos, tutorials, etc... they wouldn't be played because only a handful of us die-hard geeks are willing to read through the manual. So as awesome as it was making games in 320x240 with 256 colors with my own game engine, I know what I was able to produce then pales in comparison to what an eager indie can create today.

      To see this innovation just poke around Newgrounds or go to any global game jam site or just look at the entries from one of the quarterly Ludam Dare's ( http://ludumdare.com/ ). At the Game Developer's Conference this year there was a whole section of alternative input games ( http://www.gdconf.com/news/gdc... ). And there are plenty of other sources showing innovation game play mechanics, some fun, some not, but plenty of experimentation.

  9. nethack by ThatsDrDangerToYou · · Score: 2

    I always sucked at FPS games. OK, I'm gonna cast my spell of Getting Back to Work now. Good thing I'm wearing my +2 gloves of typing..