IGN: "INDIE" IS A FAKE GAMING CATEGORY!

[Azaraxzealot]

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/114/1145924p2.html

i never thought i would find myself agreeing with an IGN article like this, but it seems very true to me. Calling games "indie" puts a glass ceiling on both the developers and the critique of such games. Just because a game was made by a smaller or larger studio does not mean we should judge their artistic merits any differently. I'm not saying we should just go hog wild on games that didn't have a multi-million dollar budget and call them out for ALL their graphical and technical shortcomings, but i DO believe that something like the artistic use of violence in Limbo should be fairly compared to how it is used in say... Alan Wake or Silent Hill or God of War.

one quote that really caught my attention was this:

One can say with a straight face, "What's going on with the 'indie' guys?" or "'Indie' game makers are saving the industry." I can only presume Destineer and Epic aren't included in this scene, even though, by every measure of the word independent, they should be. Like hipsterism, 'indie' is a state of mind better defined in terms of what it isn't. 'Indie' isn't Bobby Kotick, Wii Fit, Gears of War, or Nathan Drake.

here's another good quote

"The only reason we use 'indie,' honestly, is because there isn't a better word," Celia Pearce, Festival Chair at IndieCade and Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, told me. "When I started working with Stephanie [Barish, IndieCade Founder and CEO] she was using the words 'creative' and 'innovative.' Everybody kept saying to us, 'What do you mean by creative and by innovative?'"

which brings about a good point. yes. WHAT IS INDIE? WHAT IS CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE? DO WE ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT WE ARE DEMANDING OR PRAISING WHEN WE BLURT OUT SUCH TERMS?

 

[Circusfreak]

OH MY DOG! thank you so much for letting me know the existance of Hazard: the journey of life!

 

[omicron1]

IGN: "Let's be pretentious today."

There is definitely ground to stand on when comparing small-budget, small-team games to big-budget commercial enterprises using different standards. Most of the time, the score for a triple-A release is at least partially based on graphics, audio, and polish - things that can be very difficult for a small-time developer to pull off, let alone to the same degree as a AAA title. Yet in terms of gameplay and content, the small-time games can be just as fun as any of the big guys.

I don't know about you guys, but when I buy an indie game I'm buying a game, not an indie. They have lower technical standards than AAA games, sure, but taking into account their classification (as indie games) I can understand and accept that; whereas if they were put in the same category as the AAA titles and got a 2/10 on graphics and 1/10 on presentation, it would have an undeserved negative impact on their perceived value.

 

[Wuffykins]

Having lived through the musical genre labels of 'Indie,' 'Alternative,' and whatever term they used in the 80's, I can kind of understand the dislike of one general label being used to cover a myriad of different genres with the sole goal of separating them from the 'Mainstream.'

On the other hand, whenever I log on to Steam these days, the first category I usually end up browsing for titles is quite frankly the 'Indie' tab, and it's just about for the reason SteelStallion mentioned above. An 'Indie' game is usually made by a small group somewhere rather than by a large group of programmers following design rules that will keep management and shareholders happy. That said, there is a little more creative control involved, for better or worse (Will admit, not every title is gold). For me that's somewhat of an incentive to go looking for them labelled as such, if only as I grew up in the old times of PC gaming, where games where made by a couple of blokes in a garage somewhere, who did there best to fit out their creative design on 5 1/4 inch floppy disks.

Back on topic though, from a game review standpoint I'd prefer not to see them labelled solely as 'Indie' in the same reason I don't like browsing through 'Indie' sections of music stores, but a quick tag of "Independent Developer" or some other means to quickly find them in the Action or Platforming genres of gaming would probably be a good idea.

 

[veloper]

Let's compare $60 games to $10 games and hold them to the same standards. What else can we do? Graphics are all there is to a game.
IGN

 

[Wolfram23]

While I can understand the gist of it... "Indie is a fake category" makes zero sense. Where do categories come from? We make them. Do we all know what is meant by an Indie game? Generally, yes. So is it a genre/category? Yes. Does that mean that the category name is perfect, or completely true to what the name would imply? No.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

You know, when I think of indie games all I can think about are games that aren't AAA. It seems like a game is either a AAA or an indie. But I still think its better to call them 'Indie' rather than 'Game with low budget and made by less then an entire building of people with more artistic or gameplay value than the usual high budget game'.
As humans, we love to label things. Its just our thing. The reason Indie is a game category is because we made it that way. That's why we have terms like 'haters' and 'trolls' because it's shorter than describing them.
I will keep using the term Indie because most people know what I'm talking about when I say it.

 

[archabaddon]

I think, to many people, Indie defines something created by one guy, or a small group of people, who design games and programs. Trying to slough off the "Indie" moniker to unrealistically put Indie games on the same level of expectation as big-budget games is a bit absurd, IMPO.

One one hand, I can see the argument that one game should be judged on the same artistic merit as any other. On the other hand hand, it's a reasonable assertion that one expects less from a game developed by an indie group, in terms of game depth, QA, etc. On the other hand, it's also reasonable for one to assert that a title published by a big name should be of the highest quality, with little to no bugs, deep gameplay, and other qualities indicative of an entire corporation pouring hundreds of thousands of combined man hours into a title (am I right, Fallout: New Vegas and Black Ops? )

IMPO, it's pretty unfair to compare a title created by such small groups to those backed by millions of development dollars and an army of developers and programmers. Indie developers mostly make these games for fun and to get noticed, whereas big-firm developers make games for a high profit and to keep shareholders happy. That's a big difference in mindsets and development goals.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Bro, didn't you, like know, that IGN has never known what it's talking about?

Of course 'Indie' is a category, it's games that have been made on the fraction of a budget of AAA titles by very small companies. You can't hold games like that to the same standard because they were not made in the same way with barely any of the resources of bigger companies.

 

[Amphoteric]

IGN: "Let's be pretentious today."

There is definitely ground to stand on when comparing small-budget, small-team games to big-budget commercial enterprises using different standards. Most of the time, the score for a triple-A release is at least partially based on graphics, audio, and polish - things that can be very difficult for a small-time developer to pull off, let alone to the same degree as a AAA title. Yet in terms of gameplay and content, the small-time games can be just as fun as any of the big guys.

I don't know about you guys, but when I buy an indie game I'm buying a game, not an indie. They have lower technical standards than AAA games, sure, but taking into account their classification (as indie games) I can understand and accept that; whereas if they were put in the same category as the AAA titles and got a 2/10 on graphics and 1/10 on presentation, it would have an undeserved negative impact on their perceived value.

Graphics depend on what you are going for. Super meat boy, limbo and world of goo for example had perfect graphics for the look they wanted.

 

[Entreri481]

I look at the price, if bungie makes a game for 10 dollars, then I judge it in that category, if an indie game wants to charge 20 dollars, then they better be able to show the goods, with a decent amount of polish.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Depends on how you look at it. It can't be from a creative or innovative standpoint because not all the games are. A studio that works without a publisher, or a small studio running on their own money would be independent.

 

[Patton662]

WHAT IS INDIE? WHAT IS CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE? DO WE ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT WE ARE DEMANDING OR PRAISING WHEN WE BLURT OUT SUCH TERMS?

What is creative and innovative ? The opposite of Call of Duty I guess.

 

[Tzekelkan]

Uhh, sure indie is a category. I probably wouldn't say, "I like indie games" the same way I say "I like RPGs" but still, it's a category.

Torchlight is an indie action-RPG, but Diablo 3 is an action-RPG. Limbo is an indie platformer, but New Super Mario Bros Wii is a platformer. To me, all that "indie" stands for is low-budget, low-price, although "low-budget, low-price" doesn't necessarily stand for indie.

It's all just arguing semantics, who cares? As long as a game's fun, everything else is the same for me.

 

[USSR]

Well..
Uhm..

Your face is a fake gaming category!
Yeah. I went there.

 

[Bad Jim]

IMPO, it's pretty unfair to compare a title created by such small groups to those backed by millions of development dollars and an army of developers and programmers.

It is a comparison which must be made though, because we have to decide how to spend our money. Is it better to buy an indie game, a budget game, or put the money towards an AAA title?

I don't think it's bad to judge them together. What's bad is judging games largely by their visuals, in spite of the fact that they don't have all that much impact on how enteraining a game is. It has a bad effect on the way AAA titles are made, as a lot of money is spent on art that really should have been spent on scriptwriting, playtesting or fixing major bugs.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

The idea is that if a publisher isn't paying the salaries and setting the rules then developers have more freedom to be follow their own path when it comes to creative decisions.

I'm not so sure that the games should be in a separate category but it sort of works for marketing reasons. If you think your time and money is better spent on publisher titles then independent games don't get a free pass. But if some games are called "indie" and they compete with the publisher games by offering something different then for marketing reasons it makes sense to adopt the cool indie brand when releasing a new game and you can expect the major publishers to try to use the indie brand as well if it works.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Uhh, sure indie is a category. I probably wouldn't say, "I like indie games" the same way I say "I like RPGs" but still, it's a category.

Torchlight is an indie action-RPG, but Diablo 3 is an action-RPG. Limbo is an indie platformer, but New Super Mario Bros Wii is a platformer. To me, all that "indie" stands for is low-budget, low-price, although "low-budget, low-price" doesn't necessarily stand for indie.

It's all just arguing semantics, who cares? As long as a game's fun, everything else is the same for me.

Going by that, the word "indie" would be a descriptor, or an attribute. It is, of course, still important to have, as it generally allows potential buyers to gauge the product they are about to purchase; not-so-shiny graphics, lots of creativity, and innovation.
'course, I don't give a rodent's posterior about what IGN writes. It's a simple fact that I've had more fun with Minecraft than with inFamous, RDR, Nier, Arkham Asylum, and NV combined (and I've had more fun with Nier than the other four combined), so I'm kinda biased here...

 

[EricBC]

"Indie" is more of a reason to do something. If you're making a game hoping to make money on it, then you're probably not in the "indie" category. If you're making a game because you love the act of making games and hope that maybe somebody plays it, then yeah, congrats, indie.

Consequently, when you make a game for yourself, a designer will tend to do outlandish things. Since they aren't afraid of having their project canceled the developers can try innovative concepts. This is one of the reasons that we see so many new mechanics and innovation in the so called "indie" movement.