one of the other golden rules of indie game marketing is "give press an easy way to reach the interesting parts of your game." for example, SNAKE FARM has a secret cheat code that lets you unlock all packs instantly rather than unlocking them via achievements. sure, it might not be the precise play experience you want people to have, but streamers only have so many hours to devote to your project; make them count as much as possible

This is great for event judges, too! In IGF, being able to provide judges a way to see different parts of your game's intended experience is a way to make sure more judges actually experience what you're expecting them to experience.

on waypoint radio a few years ago @austin was talking about the kellogg’s factory in venezuela that workers seized bc the company abandoned it

and that conversation is generally great but specifically there’s a part where he’s talking about randos on twitter losing their minds, not out of concern for the livelihood of these ppl, but over the thought that they might be selling Corn Flakes without changing the branding.

“what about the rooster? isn’t that a trademark?? isn’t this illegal???”

austin says, i think a couple times:

you can’t even imagine a world.

and i’ve had that phrase, in austin’s voice with that specific inflection he puts on world, stuck in my brain ever since.

a few months after that episode aired i started transitioning and i told this story pretty much every time i came out to someone. it’s given me so much strength.

(also i was looking into this again recently and it sounds like “Socialist Kellogg” is still going strong, at least as of late 2021)

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.

the half-life anniversary update is reminding me of The Chart, aka what i break out anytime someone tries to talk about first person shooter game engines to me. i had to find this when i worked at Activision to understand why one of the things i helped bug was marked as "Will Not Fix, it's a bug that's existed since the previous quake engine" (it later got fixed anyway).