Where has the indie game gone?
I’ve been covering the gaming scene for almost a decade. I started getting serious about game writing just before the Nintendo DS was announced and stuck to the handheld scene for years afterwards. Over time, I migrated across the mainstream and settled on indie and casual games as my subject matter of choice. Back then (the mid 2000s), freeware games were all over the place, and independent programmers were standing on wobbly legs as they set loose experimental projects on the public.
It was around this time I started writing the Weekend Download column at JayIsGames. It was the beginning of 2007, and even though we featured four or five games each week, there were so many to choose from it was an overwhelming task to narrow it down. Jump to 2012 and I have a very different story to tell: the small indie game, the small indie release, and maybe even the small indie developer, is almost extinct. With easy outlets to market games (XBLIG, PSN, iTunes Appstore, Android Marketplace, and even PC digital distribution sites), there’s money in the no-publisher route, and more and more game makers are stepping on this well-trodden path as a means to fund their hobby.
I love that the “little guy” has a way to stay alive in the corporate world, but it’s spelling the death of the creative basement programmer. Why toil away in obscurity when you can get a company to fund your project, start a marketing campaign, and release something on Steam, Desura, or Indievania? Money has become the motivating factor for many, and in my mind, this is the opposite of what makes an indie game “indie”.
Indie games are created for the love of the craft. That doesn’t preclude making bank, but it doesn’t mean this should be your goal. You don’t need to be on Steam to get people’s attention. You just need a good game. And a good game comes from hard work, new ideas, and a dedication to your passion. Just like everyone accused mainstream games of becoming heartless sell-outs, I am now accusing a massive chunk of the indie game development community of the same.
Just six years after we started the Weekend Download column, it’s becoming extraordinarily difficult to find a decent freeware indie game on the internet. There are some developers and websites who are still devoted to this, but indie has almost become another genre name by this point. A buzzword to throw into a press release so people think it’s hip and cutting-edge. Even my favorite indie gaming sites have sold out, doing little more than copying press releases and feeding each other news stories. Indie is now a business, which begs the question: where is the new indie?
The answer is right there, where it’s always been. Competitions like Ludum Dare are hotbeds of creativity (as are AGS game creators, Temple of the Roguelike people, interactive fiction developers, and others), but the only thing journalists (even the ones who work on indie gaming sites) report on is “LOOK AT THE NEW GAME NOTCH MADE FOR LUDUM DARE”, which is neither useful nor enlightening. We know who Persson is, we know he does things, we appreciate them, but it’s the undiscovered, unrecognized game creator we’re interested in. Please, do some actual digging and playing of games, then tell the world what’s out there. The people who used to sniff out secret gems now think they’re doing the same thing by following the “indie” scene. But since indies are no secret anymore, the sub-indie category has to emerge. Eventually, that cycle will repeat, just like it does with most mediums. But the time for it to begin is now, not later.
My message to anyone interested in creating a game: only do it you love the craft, if you love the art, and if you love the game. If you create something good, no one will fault you for seeking recompense, but if you lose passion, which I feel so many devs have done, your product will become a soul-less piece of… well, junk. If you wouldn’t release your game for free, you might be falling into this category.
My message to indie gaming websites: stop being just like every other website. Go out there and actually search for games, don’t just copy/paste press releases PR companies sent to your inbox. Don’t look to the other big gaming news sites for your stories. And stop being lazy writers. If you don’t love games, what the hell are you doing pretending to be an indie games journalist, anyway?
Games pictured, from top to bottom: One Final Trek (vandriver), Aeronuts (Abstauber), Farrokh (Doktor Ace).
Team Fortress 2 characters… for president!
Maybe this is a new thing, or maybe it’s months old and I just now stumbled across it. It’s the internet, nobody knows! *spooky hand gestures* Newness aside, I still think these TF2 “for president” posters are pretty darn good. They seem to be coming from Reddit, and it looks like there are only a few floating around, so not all characters are represented. I’d make some myself, but I like (modern-day) politics about as much as I like eating Rice Krispies with my feet. At the dentist’s office.
Accompanying threads, with some nice commentary:
* Engineer for President
* Pyro for President
* Heavy for President
* Demoman for President
* Spy for President
Notch, Tim Schafer, Twitter, and Psychonauts 2
When Tim Schafer, creator of Psychonauts and co-creator of Day of the Tentacle, speaks, the internet listens. When he says things like “no publisher seems interested in Psychonauts 2″, the internet cries. When he says things like “I’d love to do [Psychonauts 2], but I’d have to convince someone to just give me a few million dollars.”, we wish we had millions of dollars to give him. You see, we love Tim, and we love the games he makes. We just can’t seem to help him and his studio become the cash cow it deserves to be.
When Markus Persson, creator of Minecraft, speaks, the internet also listens. And when he sends a very public tweet to Tim that simply states “Let’s make Psychonauts 2 happen.”, there is a collective hush followed by an uproar of glee. Early in the morning on February 7 this did occur, and now, no doubt, hundreds of people are sitting on both men’s Twitter feeds, hoping for the best news since Beyond Good and Evil 2 was revealed.
This is an in-progress situation and it could go either way from this point. Maybe the lawyers will step in and shake their oily heads, or maybe something like aliens or semi-sentient scorpions will stand in the way. Who knows. But Persson said he was serious about the offer, and we know his studio’s got the cash to do it. Now, if you’ll all join me in a collective breath holding while we await more news. 3… 2… 1… stop breathing!
Neo Geo Portable Device is kinda cool
I’ll start by saying this: I’m more interested in the new portable Neo Geo device than I have a right to be. I mean, it doesn’t really do anything new or amazing. The Dingoo works perfectly as a portable gaming device (though it’s a hassle to actually play Neo Geo games on it), and between my iOS devices and 3DS, I’ve got plenty of handheld gaming systems to keep me occupied. So… why does this look so cool?
Nostalgia is the best answer I can come up with. Countless hours of my childhood were spent staring at images of the Neo Geo Pocket (and Neo Geo itself, for that matter) in print magazines. Color graphics! Amazing games! ZOMG look! So, having an attainable portable resource for Neo Geo games in my adult life is very neat. Plus, it’s a very handsome system with a 4.3 inch screen, 2 gigabytes of storage, and 20 classic Neo Geo games built in. What else can it do? Dunno. How much does it cost? Dunno. When/where will it be released? It’s a mystery! But… look! It’s shiny and it has Samurai Shodown!
Miner Wars 2081
It’s been a long time since I originally wanted to write about this game, but after a year of tooling around with a pre-alpha release, I think it’s time to put words on the screen. Miner Wars 2081 is an in-production sci-fi game that, in many ways, could be more epic and ambitious than Minecraft. It’s described as an action survival space simulation, but never have I played a space-based video game that gives you this amount of freedom to explore and control your environment. Not only can you fly freely through space, you can also blast, mine and drill your way through a fully-destructible world, all in a post-apocalyptic solar system where Earth is gone and survivors fight for food, oxygen, and fuel. Tense!
The studio behind Miner Wars is Keen Software House, a company staffed by ex-2K Games folk along with the former producers of Descent and Red Faction: Guerrilla. Translation: they know what they’re doing. In addition to the usual battery of skill, ship, and equipment upgrades, Miner Wars features large scale battles and gameplay that isn’t focused on grinding. There’s also looting, labyrinths to explore floating freely in space, and incentives to go out and mine materials on your own instead of sticking with battles.
Currently, Miner Wars 2081 is still in production, but you can pre-order the game at a heavy discount and gain access to the pre-alpha download. There’s not an awful lot to experience at the moment, but I guarantee what you see here will excite you beyond imagination, especially if you’re a sci-fi fan. The release is slated for Q1 2012. The team is also planning a Miner Wars MMO, which is one game I’ll be there to play on day one.
* Go get Miner Wars 2081!
