• She/Her

I have become so gay I have gained the power of mecha!


MOOMANiBE
@MOOMANiBE

Was reading a 2012 article on indie stuff and, in it, someone says that winning igf would "get someone more press coverage than they've ever received in their life"

That sure was a time, huh? These days, IGF winners are lucky to be a footnote in the nonstop AAA coverage of the 2.5 gaming news sites that remain. The early 2010s were, in hindsight, a moment of incredible optimism; when it felt like indie was finally getting the cultural recognition it deserved.

And yet. And yet.

It's funny, because even as that press coverage and that recognition has mostly receded, saved for a few high-budget darlings and anyone who goes viral after the fact, the indie space has... become so much more accepting.

The early 2010s were also a time where people would attend the IGF awards and almost everyone at the tables knew each other already, had often worked with each other. That version of indie was very small, defined primarily by those who already had money, and those people's friends; it's not a coincidence that most of the people featured in Indie Game the Movie were ex-AAA programmers using their nest eggs to self-fund. The dream of "some person coding away in their bedroom" was mostly a dream that existed because the inconvenient aspects of "you needed a lot of money and a lot of games expertise to stand out" were being swept behind the curtain.

That being the case, I think it's wild how much the space has expanded now. The former "two classes" of basement indies and 'ex-AAA indies' are... those classes of people have exploded into a sort of fuzzy space where you have anything from giant studios like Klei who've built their identity on niche genres and aesthetics, to tiny passion projects from brazilian and chinese devs going turbo-viral and getting sales beyond anyone's dreams. Bluntly, I don't think the kind of stuff we saw this year like Venba or Thirsty Suitors could ever have existed in that space. In 2012 the biggest concern of many indies was the idea that a single group of successful devs - the "indie illuminati" - were running the industry or gatekeeping people out of events. That being relevant anymore feels almost laughable now. A single event or city or continent can no longer contain - or define - what indie is.

I think that's a really good thing, honestly. I know that generally this is a rough time for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. But I strongly feel that indie as a whole continues to grow in a more diverse direction, for its better. We've seen an ongoing persistent narrative since only a few years after the period I mention of "there's too many indies! No one can get noticed!" but honestly..... I think that growth has provided more opportunities for marginalized devs, for weird, creative concepts, etc, to find success than it ever did in the period where a few stars seemed to have it all.

In that context, even with everything going on right now, I've never felt more optimistic about the future of indie.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @MOOMANiBE's post:

oh wow I'd actually completely forgotten about the "indie illuminati" thing until now lol

perhaps the first gamedev topic to actually leave the cyclic discourse wheel

This is just my experience but in the last 10 years more and more of my time has been spent with indie games compared to AAA games. There are just so many interesting and unique games made by one or a handful of people whose identity can be felt in the games they make, and I feel like this has increased and become even more diverse in terms of background, gameplay, aesthetics, and intent in these last few years. I took a look at my Steam and Itch purchases and there was definitely an uptick for me. Also I can play a lot more indie games (which are usually cheaper and shorter) than I can play a single AAA game lol. Flood me with games! I am happy that so many people are doing this and I hope they can succeed.

What's really interesting to me about that era is how it was largely wrong about so much to come. How so many of the the devs behind big "important" games of that era have gone on to be kinda just weird conservative curmudgeon or turned out to be terrible bosses no one wants to work or associate with rather than the heralds of a new era.

But there has been a new era and a massive movement of independent and hobbyist devs that sort of existed back than, that sort of always existed to some degree, but didn't have the culture or maturity of today. Like in a lot of ways, it's not that it's worse than it was but rather it kinda evened out. Like it's worse for people that would have had an easier time but much better for people that wouldn't have had a chance.

Heck, Unity shooting themselves in the foot kinda got me thinking about trying actual game dev, due to how many resources and engines were put in the spotlight to fill in that creative gap. And I haven’t done any game dev since college!
I’ve never been one to purposely keep up with news, but with that explosion of recognition of these resources… It seems like now is a stellar time for indie games.