Does indie even mean anything anymore?
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- Опубліковано 3 чер 2024
- The past few years, the lines between "scrappy indie" and "professional studio" have gotten more and more blurred. What even is an indie developer at this point? And does the term indie really matter? Or should you just adapt or die?
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Timestamps:
00:00 Gamedev is evolving
00:30 What was indie
02:48 Palworld and BG3 are not indie
04:22 The rise of Triple Indie
04:49 How does this affect us?
08:17 How will the future look
10:17 Adapt or die
11:49 My definition of indie
13:15 Market research
14:24 Closing thoughts
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"I found this cool website online" and shows wikipedia, got me chuckling.
You can see his smile too lol
Indie devs gotta understand that they are not only competing for player's money, they are also competing for player's time. If a game has the indie feel and appeal to the players that would generally play indie games, it doesn't matter if it's an actual indie game, the player's will play that and while they are playing that, they are not playing other "indie" games.
Most of players don't even know what means making a game...so this really makes more difficult to make a game competing with other studios...I think that devlogs may be a cool way to let people see what there is behind a game!
Just make a good game, and people will play it. I've played titles with incredible amounts of visual polish that just weren't engaging.
@@funasylumstudio but you played those games with incredible amounts of visual polish. How many goodgame™ you missed because they didn't appear to be good ?
Making a good looking game is part of making a game marketable. You can't play every game ever released to see if they're good or not, you gotta choose somehow.
Gamers like to pretend they aren't superficial and do not care about graphics, like it makes them appear smarter and not shallow. But on a marketing perspective, they do, they definitely do.
Looks makes you try the game, good gameplay makes you stay and suggest that game to your friends. But you would never do that if you didn't try the game in the first place.
People are done with most games in under 8 hours. It took YEARS to make these games. Most gamers revert to playing shitty PVP games while waiting for a next release. Stop acting like their time is such a scarce resource. It really isn't.
@@RockyMulletGamedev Well yeah, but in my opinion if a game is good eventually it will float to the surface and become successful, cause down the line someone somewhere will pick it up. I'm of the opinion that if a product is good you don't need to advertise it. However obviously you are correct, that a game has to have a certain threshold of visual beauty to be considered at the beginning.
I mean as indie devs were in the market of making 2D games which is both limiting as well as sort of appealing to people with lower end PCs. I don't even like playing high demanding games anymore simply cause I don't like putting strain on my computer since I bricked my old laptop running one.
This is a question I've asked too. There is actually two definitions for indie on the internet. You found one. The other definition has to do with how much budget does their most recent game have.
Iirc it was basically anything under $1m is indie. AA is $1m-10m. And AAA is over that. I suppose if we added iii indie to that it would probably be $100k to under a million. That's a guess though.
I think both definitions are valid, but the financial definition is probably more what people consider off the top of their head when they think indie.
"Oh another 2d mertroidvania? I surely hope its as good as hollow knight"
people don't buy indie games to support the devs, they buy it 'cuz it meets or exceeds the standards of expectation
hollow knight and its consequences have been a disaster for the indie dev race lol
😂 Ya that's the downside of being an indie dev, especially a solo dev like me. 'Oh you are making a so-and-so game? I hope it's as good as the best ever made game in that genre with a production budget of $20 million and a team of 30 devs!'
@@TESkyrimizer
They also buy Because its simply Cool or It could be They see it in their Face a Lot.
Even when it is! That 2.5d Prince of Persia Metroidvania looked good, and folks said it played great. But it didn't sell all that well, even at a mid-tier price. I'm not making a MV, but that hurt to watch.
@@TESkyrimizer Not really. The market will decide. Things will always be oversaturated, but the best games will always shine.
Definitely agree on the idea that indie means something completely different now. The whole triple I initiative left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth tbh. Nothing against the games or the developers that were showcased there, they definitely deserve their success but I just think the idea of having an elite club to further promote the games and developers that have honestly already "made it" goes against the idea of indie development in the first place and only hurts smaller developers for all the reasons you mentioned in the video.
One thing I disagreed on is the idea that you should focus on learning market research before programming even. There's no point in finding a niche in the market if you can't make a game anyways. By the time you learn the skills to make your game, the niche might not even exist anymore. You've said it before in your previous videos but your first few games are probably going to fail regardless of what you do. I'm not saying don't do any market research but definitely focus on learning how to make games, and then worry about making good, sellable games.
I don’t necessarily agree with the triple I comment, I don’t think it harms smaller indies and could actually help them. By lumping all those bigger titles into their own sub-category, you also lower the expectation for smaller indie devs since now they don’t have to make their games from the expectation of them being on the same level as these “triple I” games. Audiences get a better sense of what to expect from games if we start using terms like “indie” and “triple I” to distinguish level of quality (and quite frankly, money behind a title) and might be more forgiving if your game is not on the level of quality as Hades or BG3 if they aren’t in the same category. Categorization is just a way to better understand what type of experience a player will receive from a game. Someone might play BG3 and think it’s overbloated and the most dogshit game ever but obsessively play solodev created metroidvanias, 1 hour adventure games and asset-library visual novels. Categorizing these games in separate categories will help a player like that find more things that they enjoy as they can filter out the “triple I” titles while searching new games. Personally, I think even more of these sub-categories for indies could be extremely helpful to discover more games that feel similar in scope to other games a player enjoys, not just genres. Metroidvania, Puzzle Game, Dungeon Crawler, etc., these only inform broad gameplay concepts and not necessarily overall vibe, experience or scale of the team and budget that created a game.
@@handsoaphandsoapWishful thinking, my friend. We've had "AA" and mid-tier games for decades, doesn't matter. Players are just as shrewd as any other consumer - they all "care" about small, local artists/shops, but they'll still buy from whoever gets them what they want, how they want, at the right time & price.
Distinctions like AAA, AA, "triple-I", and indie are more for other devs, press, publishers, and others in the industry, since nobody makes their true budgets and team-sizes (incl contractors) public. It gives you a rough category & classification, maybe implies a certain workflow.
- "without financial"
- yes, I can definitely say that I am an indie game dev😂😂
I don’t think players care. They don’t buy or not buy, play or not play a game because it is indie or not. Maybe I am wrong, but as a player, I am like that. I buy a game because it looks good, because it looks fun, I don’t even check to see if the studio is big or small if it is an unknown studio or if it has the indie tag. If later on I find that a game I enjoyed was made by a single person or a very small studio, I tip my hat to them in admiration, more so because I am a developer, but that never affected my decision to spend money on it or not.
I think the biggest advantage indie games have is that they can set their game price lower to be competitive.
About 5 minutes in when the steam tagging was mentioned, I realized that this video was not what I thought it was about.
I have 100s of games, and not once has the size of the studio or the funding influenced my purchase decision. I don't ever search for the indie tag (or any tag associated with studio size) and only shop in that category.
I'm an idiot, I know, but if a game looks fun, that's all that matters to me.. It seems miserable to factor in anything other than fun for your options of games to purchase.
I think you guys are missing the inspiration step. What was your favorite game/genre as a child? What is your voice as a game developer? What do you have to say to players with your game that isn't quite being said already? Answer this and then dive into the market research to steer your development.
The thing I think is the hardest about market research for games that you need to predict for 6-18 month not see what's good now
And its even more challenging (or maybe near impossible) if the game you are making has a lot of new ideas, not in an established subgenre, or never been seen before. My game is like this, another recent one that comes to mind is Buckshot Roulette. If you are making something new and unique, you can't do market research for something that doesn't exist yet.
Imagine working on a game for so much time and while you are near to complete it someone publishes a game very similar to yours...
More like 5-7yrs. Better keep that crystal ball polished 😅
@@eloctopusmakesgames it happens all the time to me but as I cancel nearly any game I start it be mix between I wish I published this game before them it would be successful and thank god I didn't make a game there is many like it now
@@gameboardgames exactly that and that I don't understand it much I always go with what game I really want to play and there isn't any or like this game is awesome if just ... and so on
You're not the only one thinking like that man. I've been thinking the same thing for the last ~3-4 years. Thank you for calling out Palworld. I've gotten into arguments with gamers thinking Palworld is an indie game. But it's too late to argue, basically all gamers have a warped perception of indie and it's embedded deep. Honestly I think the root of their warped perception comes from hating AAA and huge publisher corporations like EA and Activision. They don't actually care about indie games, they just hate AAA.
Valve is my favorite indie studio.
They even publish their games on their own store, that's how independent they are.
😂 "Oh, I made an indie game! Called it Counter-strike, 'cause we're stickin' it to the Man" LOL
Coming from 3D art and music, it's not just games but all media everywhere is insanely saturated. I wish i spent more time doing bronze sculpture or something that wasn't digital
Who is actually playing all those 2D platformers? Seems to be a favorite genre to make. But is the customer base big enough? Or are they just made because they are relatively easy to get started?
I mean 2d platformers are some of the bestselling indie games of all time, such as Fez, Super Meat Boy, etc.
@@funasylumstudio 2D platformers are pretty much the genre with the lowest mean revenue for a game on Steam. Tons of games. For every Super Meat boy, there is 100 games barely anyone buys. Its unlikely to make back the money invested into making the games, unless you get really lucky.
@@vast634 Probably hobbyists then who have nostalgia for those types of games.
@@funasylumstudio I thinks its much more trivial: tile based 2D games are easy to do for a solo developer due to an abundance of tutorials, assetpacks and generally a limited amount of mechanics and required content compared to other gengres.
But thats also the trap: the gengre is dominated by so many other game already, that its not really making sense from a business side to pump out another one.
Platformers, rougelikes, and basic FPS games are the go to when starting out as they teach you a lot skills that carry over into other projects.
Making them for profit is usually a bad idea, however. You need to make a far more unique game to get any attention in a sea of hibbiest/student projects.
People call a 20 man studio with a publishing contract also Indy... kind of a nebulous term.
We should definitely have some better terms. 1-5 people with no real budget (
i would say the term indie has gotten blurry over the past years.
back in the 2000s, if you wanted quality triple a was pretty much the only way go to.
there was hardly any decent games made by small independent studios or solo devs for that matter.
the problem was that there wasnt even free and good software to begin with (at least for game development).
with unity, unreal, gimp, blender etc people have now the tools to make basic games.
you no longer need advanced calculus and what have you to make something unique.
that said, if i had to define indie i would say
-small team
-mostly comprised of beginners
-no more than a couple of titles published
-no big funding
-smaller scope games
-with a focus on specific niches.
Console, yes, PC, no. In the US/UK/JPN at least, PC commercial shareware and fan-made indie-games have been around since the 80s on home computers, and even earlier on mainframes, esp at universities. Magazines used to come with whole discs of demos (floppy, then CD/DVD), and trading games at LAN parties was an entire thing. Didn't use engines, but coding in Assembly or C was free.
Even on consoles, there were lots of folks who learned to code for Atari or ZX Spectrum or Famicom/NES in the 80s into the 90s. And then by the 00s you're heading into the Flash & web-games era. Think the heyday of XBA & XBox Live Arcade came after that, but I can't recall the years.
I don't think its much easier or harder to make indie games now compared to like 10 or 15 years ago.
At that time before, making games was a hard thing to do, and making good game was real hard, information was scarce and game-ready assets were a rarity. But since market wasn't saturated yet, if you made a good game - you could probably float to the top and succeed on your own without much marketing effort.
Now making games is much much easier with all the feature-complete engines, loads of tutorials and courses, whole asset marketplaces. You can throw together a game that plays well, looks and sounds good, in no time. And all the difficulty of making a commercial game shifted to actually selling it. Now you have to do all additional game-adjacent things like - do market research, choose a good niche, get wishlists, advertise your game, participate in fests and sales, grow your community and communicate with it.
So in general, making games is easier, but making money from your game is about the same difficulty, the difficulty just shifted to skills you have to learn in addition to making game.
The biggest shift I've seen is the triumph of aesthetics over gameplay.
Re: market research data - There are loads of resources, some free, some paid. Mobile takes it more seriously than the PC indie crowd, with entire analytics and demographics/profiling firms publishing free excerpts online to entice you to contract them. Statista is the gold standard IMO, as they gather statistics from sources around the world, and offer "big-picture" down to very specific market "slices". Old data is often free, subscriptions for recent data & forecasts is pricey. But you might have access through libraries, universities, or any local small-business support entities (like the US SBA).
You can also find good info from government, industry, and non-profit sources. Unity, Facebook, and Google offer big reports every year or so. Found a free report from the German gov't on the gaming industry in Germany once, and the AARP (US lobbying group for retirees) had a series of research reports on American gamers over 50! Google is your friend 👍
I agree with the oversaturation of the market, but I also am a firm believer of quality always coming out to shine in the end and attracting buyers. It honestly doesn't matter what you charge, if the quality is good, eventually people are going to play the game and buy it.
You caught it right. Pro marketing appropriating word/title 'indie' as an another way to put label on the product and reach new audiences. Setting a criteria for what is and isn't indie game (or dev) is almost impossible, as different geographies mean enormous differences in economics and management. So, at best label yourself 'indie' when it works for you, otherwise claim upcoming AA (when going to the bankers and publishers).
Market research... How I did it :
First Chris Zukowsky talk was a good start, steam DB and stuff. That gives you all early indication on what genre does not sell.
Then I looked in games that are challenging to make because the more challenging, the less competition and potentially a big underserved audience.
Then I looked at what feature stream players like.
Then I got an idea of the game I want to make.
Then I went in forums that talk about that game genre to see what people say about this genre... Are there people looking for games like this.
Then went on UA-cam watching videos that talk about upcoming game of this genre and I noted how many views those video have.
Checked the revenue of games with this tag and compared it to other tags
I also studied games that went viral just with the trailers and paid attention to what people were saying about those games....
Ect....
Now I have a clear but if the game I will launch.
Oh and I forgot, I did not wait to know what type of game I will make before starting working on it... I knew from the start the settings, the environment so I started making game assets est before I even start to think about the game genre
Lol the version control on PalWorld killed me
Edit: I think it is based on the game basis at this point. Because on all the store fronts there are tags on the games, not necessarily the studio itself so the consumers (gamers) just associate a game with whatever genres that are on there. What prevents I still think if a AAA studio would make a small console adventure or whatever, small platformer, it can still be categorized as an indie game despite the studio itself being AAA (not that this will ever actually happen). I think this is more a game-by-game kinda thing at thing point, but that is my two cents
Haha, that was a troll interview translator, they used Perforce. Though the team had no Unreal engine experience besides one guy.
What? Nothing's wrong with my method of version control. NOTHING.
@@CrybabyTsuna To their credit, it is only their 2nd or 3rd game. I played their previous title Craftopia before it was cool.
3:33 They're not indie because they had funding? But the lion's share of that founding came from its founder and CEO who was independently wealthy. If the studio isn't affiliated with a major publisher or incubator firm, I don't see why it should fail to meet the definition lol.
But "do like pal world" is still not advice anyone can follow. 99.99% of us don't have 7 million dollars to fund our company.
I agree, that's not the same as controlled by an international publishing company, or publicly traded.
But it's clearly in a category of "companies with large funding".
Great topic! I was just discussing this with my friend the other day
Independent game developer.
In reality, the word means very little because it can be applied to a lot of different studios. Including ones that make highly acclaimed blockbusters with 400+ people on the team. They just have to be an independently owned studio.
The feeling that "Indie game dev" gets associated with, however, is what a lot of people latch onto.
"Dose it feel indie" is the question people who enjoy these games ask when they play them. It doesn't matter the team size or who paid for it. Just that it reminds them of that special feeling.
Same gose for AA or even AAA. They mean nothing. They only promise the user a familiar feeling.
Definitely my worst fear is that what I'm making is about to get tons of releases in the exact same genre. My only comfort is knowing how hard it is to make an open world action RPG life sim: most people will definitely quit before releasing.
I just know that I'm going to let store-bought 3D assets sell the game for me. That's my secret sauce for how I'll do marketing; lighting, shaders, decent quality 3D assets, and an apparently unique idea. Again, the idea is probably just unique because I picked the single hardest game to make possible, in hindsight, I can't think of a single harder genre. Even though I'm back in the valley of despair where I'm crawling through the current assignment because of hiccups everywhere I'm 100% going to make this game.
Side note: Just had a FUN little bug where you can't detach actors if hit detection is set to true, no I don't understand the logic behind it, but evidently it's the case, yet another thing to add too my list of "things you cannot do in Unreal."
What's the game right after Hellspresso at 3:33?
It's not a real game, just a Unreal prototype for a combat mechanic. -M
@@bitemegames oh, that looked very interesting
Love your videos man. I agree with you points
Good video, thanks!
IMO Indie perception is just pricing.
$5-10 is Indie range
The game you mentioned (Dave the Diver), things like Dredge, maybe others like uh... V-rising, are all around the $30 mark which is double A.
Dave the Diver nor Palword looked indie to me, and I knew nothing about them. I did think Dredge was though. Is it?
Small time, 1-2 person teams, can afford to list games at $5.
Nothing makes me more irrationally angry as a solo dev than when people consider AA games as indie games. I've heard people call Helldivers 2 an indie game. Ah yes, I love those very small 100 person indie studios.
No, I don’t think indie means anything, but really I’m not sure it ever really did to anyone outside marketing department who figured out people reacted to it. That’s ultimately what it comes down to in my opinion is getting reactions from players. Over saturating the market right now with popular genres seems to be the indie MO at the moment does not feel any different from any other game business decision, and it’s not ‘indie’. Similar to the Larian example, I remember Bungie breaking from Microsoft to be Indie for a period before Activision and Destiny. These labels are ultimately not that important. Finding ways to make games you can both enjoy making and players can enjoy playing should be the goal on both ends.
To me indie can also mean going with some artistic or gameplay vision first, and doing it even if it's not the most profitable course available for marketting and commercial success like AAA / fornite player farming to me it's more about this than about funding budget, if a huge funding bduget would be given by sony to developpers to express their creative vision, then thumb up .. but then of course big monney from publisher need something with good marketability and commercial study;
Market research is not that easy, I know many games that are very popular but I would never play them ... even if they are for free.
I don't understand why people like games like: Fortnite Battle Royale (I have play it and was bored after 1 hour), Among us, Minecraft, League of Legends, Overwatch, Visual Novels, RTS games, 16Bit games, games with Voxel graphics, new games that looks like Playstation 1 games, building games, .... and most of the first person games.
You sound like a crpg guy, which I am myself, hehe.
@@AlexGorskov I like rpg's and I got concepts for some great roleplay games ... but I think many people would not like them. lol
I think the whole rpg genre needs to change, more to adventure and fantasy .... and away from all the numbers and skilltrees.
When you are paying for the development and doing the development yourself then you’re independent. If someone else is paying the bills and you’re doing the development then you’re not independent. People seem to confuse being independent with being small scale or low budget and it’s common place, but that shouldn’t be considered, the key indication of an independent production. And the world of films if we look back at the Empire strikes back that was an independent movie not because it was small because it wasn’t because Lucas was paying for the production and doing the production.
Isnt pal world self funded ? Thought that this studio just raised money themselves from previous projects and own momey ? Can someone confirm ? Couldnt find a direct answer on google
They made Craftopia first and used some of those funds for Palworld, but I couldn't find exactly where they got the funds for Craftopia to begin with. -M
Some people take indie to mean "small team, small budget" rather than "independent controlled, not funded by and controlled by shareholders or publishers". The term is kind of muddy at this point.
I think we need a new term for "small team small budget".
"Solo Dev" is good for single man operation, but it doesn't even cover a three man team self funding development, which is possible as well.
So indie dev is becoming even harder.
The void has answered:
42
Nice video 👍
Making and finishing a Indie game is a goal already. 99% start and give up after some time. I did gave up too in the past, my problem was wanting to make something perfect but thats not doable alone, not even with 100 people ... Think big, but scratch everything that is not worth the time it takes to make. Focus on the important stuff. Focus on a solid gameloop and have a somewhat unique idea and thats it. Never forget Tetris is still the most sold game out there, people even playing it today. Does it look insane? No, is it a super complex idea? No. Think about it and you will realise you don't need a new GTA 5 to be succesful.
Aaaand that's why I'm working on an NSFW game now 🤣
the whole problem with games today is that is money first game 2nd. just make the game you think is fun and if it catches it catches.
Its easy to tell who is at either end of the scale. Stardew valley is without a doubt an indie game. and fortnite is without a doubt AAA but what about Minecraft, It started out as an a indie, but now its definitely AAA. but at what point did that change? What about No mans sky. That started as an indie, then got funding from sony. Did it stop being indie? Did it go back to being indie after the funding dried up and they went back to funding themselves. I think money is a bad way to categorize these things.
If the studio doesn't answer to anyone but the developers, It's indie. If it has a publisher, a board (corporation), or answers to a parent company, it's not indie. Nothing wrong with using a publisher. It may be a great idea. But it's not an indie game then. Devs want the "indie" title but they also want benefits of having a publisher. So they try to stretch the definition. Nothing wrong with having a publisher. It's probably the best way to go. But a real "indie" is their own publisher and that work can't be discounted.
indie dev ❌
independent dev ✅
When people call published A title games as indie games.. That's not what the word means.
Wen Japanese Fountain Girls Dating Sim tho!!!!! ⛲️🧖🏻♀️
So just make a good game. gotcha
Indie is indie, why change the definition, it seems a cope small solo devs have to justify their low quality product when compared to big indie developers. It's fine having a low quality product so long as you improve but having delusions about words meaning is bad.
Generally speaking most people like to call themselves indie, they like the glamour of being part of this mystic society of small to solo devs, the reality of the word and world we live in is that indie means and will always mean independant.
Doesn't have to mean "low quality" can also just mean "smaller scope, shorter game". Still likely means targeting a lower price point though.
"Indie" is technically just a means of categorizing at this point.
To be fair, it also sounds better than calling them a "C" or "B" game as well.
fuck indie tagging, I make games 😎
9:55 "I need more office lady demon girls in my life"
What has happened to your left eye man?
First!
Never has been. Minecraft started as indie as well.
Dude let's be real here. We gotta aim to fight AAA industry :D
Indie just means 'not AAA' at this point. SoloDev doesn't mean anything either. If you're the only programmer/designer with 250K+ worth of funding and you hire 5+ artists, apparently you are still an indie solo developer. Saturation is real, and it's reached the point where even hardcore simulation games need good art in order to stand out.
The customer is always right in terms of taste. All people want is a cool game to play and they don't really care about how you made it. And when I wear their shoes, it's not like i'm any different with my taste either.
Yeah, I was originally planning this video to include the recent stuff regarding Manor Lords and it being a "solo dev" project, but ended up cutting it from the video since it didn't really fit/add much more to the conversation. -M
If you have version control you're not indy💀
Underrated, I hate git so much it's unreal.
bruh this is a Z-tier take 💀even first year CS students use version control
this is like the equivalent of saying people who wipe with toilet paper are 1 percenters
@@TESkyrimizer "bruh" it was a joke.
🤣… good point… and I just saved a backup to a USB stick.. am I indie now?
@@Ihasfinger911 You should've put /s or something, couldn't tell
great video
I thought Dave the Diver is indie game because it looks incredibly low budget.
But hey, given how shit games from big companies are, no matter how big budget they have.
Larian is AA studio, who got investment for Baldurs Gate (still great company)
Palworld was financed by huge margin by their previous game. Its still small studio with no publisher.