Edit: As pointed out in a post by @lotus, the blogpost with this definition in it was only linked to in Thunder Lotus' newsletter, no other studios involved with the Triple-I Initiative have specifically cited this definition.
A few days ago I wrote a post about how the people selecting games for the "Triple-I Indie Showcase" must have a bizarre definition of "indie," but I deleted it as I felt like I was being a little rude about something that didn't really matter all that much, and because I wasn't quite able to articulate what I didn't like about the choices beyond "these feel like the sort of games that wouldn't even consider releasing on GoG at launch, let alone Itch.io" and "why is there a Ubisoft game in this???"
After seeing what their definition actually is, I kinda regret deleting it, because it's utterly ridiculous.
We have fewer issues with the traditional definition for III than for AAA as it’s based on quality, something each person can judge for themselves without having to sleuth through investment calls and press releases. (...)
In order to count as III a game needs to score 7 or more points out of a possible 10.
- Have no more than 50 employees in the core development team (Required)
- Have a budget for development and marketing exceeding $1M (2 pts)
- Receive a Metacritic score of at least 70 (2 pts)
- Exhibit a "high level of polish" and "few bugs" (2 pts)
- Have at least 20 hours of gameplay (1 pt)
- Make use of the latest technology and push technical boundaries (1 pt)
- Use hyper-realistic graphics at launch (1 pt)
- Not owned/funded by a large studio or publisher (1 pt)
"I want longer games with hyper-realistic graphics that cost at least $1M to make" is pretty much the antithesis of what I personally think of when I think of "indie," lmao.
@johnnemann put it well here:
All of the problems of gamer consumerism are on full display here - 'quality is an objective measure that we can all easily agree on', 'quality equates to fidelity and hours of play', and 'numeric scores are a good way of evaluating art'. I hate this so much that my respect for the studios involved has dropped significantly.
@lotus has a good article going into more detail about this, which you can read here: https://cohost.org/lotus/post/5421313-hi-my-previous-ram
Also, check out @bruno's reply to this for a much better critique of this than I was able to put together: https://cohost.org/bruno/post/5566284-yeah-a-lot-of-the-l
i can't really add much here that hasn't already been said but i can tell you that im definitely not looking at indie or even well established small studio spaces for hyper-realistic graphics and pushing the boundaries of cutting edge technology
catering to the widest possible audience by having the flashiest, shiniest product with all the rough edges filed off is literally what AAA is for
❌ shorter games
❌ with worse graphics
❓by people who are paid more to work less
this really feels like big companies trying to gentrify the space that indie devs carved for themselves
