Another of my quandaries...

I just had a game submitted to me. Battlegrounds (http://www.omf.com/whatis/index.html)

Is it an independent?

The question is occasionally hard for me to answer. If the game isn't available in stores, then it is an independent. If it is in stores, but not under a major publisher, or not taking up mainstream shelf space it is an independent...or at least it likely is.

Then it gets harder.

Consider Wild Earth, the IGF winner. Is it an independent? Right now the answer is yes. Small studio. Small project. Online presence. No store presence.

However if you have seen this game, you know that it will get picked up by a publisher. Having played it, I really see Microsoft or another company pushing it to the major market and doing really well with it. Assuming I am right, and the game goes to the major market, does it lose its independent status?

Big question then. If the IGF winner goes to the mainstream audience, then what is the definition of independent? I know this has been rehashed in several of my posts that disappeared in the crash, so I want to focus on just the game in question. I would typically say it is too mainstream. However, if my guess is right, and the IGF winner is MORE mainstream than this game, then I have to say they are both independents.

I have no problem with independent games getting moved to the mainstream. I don't think it really takes away from them being an independent. However, it can make it harder to categorize.

IIRC, OMF:BG is an Epic game (or licensed by Epic). That kinda rules out independent, doesn't it?

So would you also agree that if Wild Earth is released by MS or some other company it should forfeit it IGF Grand Prize and money? It seems along the same line of thought to me, but I definately disagree with Wild Earth no longer being considered an independent if someone like EA publishes it.

Somebody needs to scrap that term .... 'independent'.
It makes no sense at all.

Whats the difference between an 'indie' and a 'non-indie' title?
There isnt any really. I challange anybody to define it.

Do we become non-indie if we release console games?
Do we become non-indie because a publisher puts our game in a box?
Do we become non-indie because we managed to secure some kind of development funding?

Looking at the word 'independent' in the dictionary doesnt clear anything up at all!! ;)

In fact, the more I think about it, surely the issue is development scale more than anything.

Sub $100k ( dev costs, not sales ) titles are what we 'generally' call independent?

Maybe game tunnel needs to change the focus from Indie games, to Small scale, budget, development?

Who knows? Like I said, its a silly, confusing, term.

Independent = now owned by a publisher or parent company... Many high profile companies (Lionhead for example with Black & White) ARE independents. It doesn't matter if you send the game by email or diamond box...

As Bong said, CUT the indie/independent mentality status quo, it really doesn't help you (noone really cares) .

As far as I'm concerned, any company that makes their games without funding from, or is not a subsidiary of a major publisher is an independant.

You might want to try defining it in terms of where the capital came from to develop the game.

As soon as someone fronts it for you, it's not independent; you depend on an external source of capital. So even if Wild Earth or whatever ends up in Virgin Megastore in a box with Activision stamped on the side it's still an independent game because they did it off their own backs without being told what to do.

<edit> Good old OLR lag ;)

Cas :)

Having worked at a dependie company (as many of you have too), I can tell you, Indie means a LOT.

Indie means simply this: you (the developing company) got to make ALL decisions as to how the game was built. Then when it was done, it could be sold by any method - a publisher (including Microsoft), online shareware, direct distributors, doesn't matter. The fact is, you made it independently - you paid for it, nobody told you how to make it. This can get a little fuzzy if it does get published though, as even once it's finished, the publisher may say "well, it'd be nice with a little of this or that...". Ideally, an Indie says "here's my game, take it or leave it".

Dependie means: a publisher funds the development, and thusly has his slimy hand all over it. They come in and make absolutely MORONIC decisions (first hand experience), then reverse those decisions 24 hours later. The end result is garbage, as it always is when suits think they can get involved in a creative process. Okay, lots of dependie games are great, but it's in spite of the suits.

The distinction is really simple, and works exactly the same in the recording and film industries. It also works this way in the book industry, though that's a little weirder, since books are such an individual work (though editors don't mind chopping them up!).

You can have weirdness where a VC funds you (and maybe even for some reason trusts you to do it right! His mistake), or where you made tweaks for a publisher or something, or real odd things like Blizzard where the indie company is a massive publisher itself (which puts some dependie in there, since you know there are suits at the company who hem and haw about stupid issues, cutting into the artistry of creation), and those all make it a little grey (nothing's black and white, people! Except that Lionhead game), but the essence of the difference is simple to me.

And I know this: just like Blink 182 before they were 'discovered', I'm definitely an Indie, and it's a label I treasure for all the nifty connotations as well as the factual freedom it provides.

As for whether Wild Earth is indie, I don't know, but it sure as hell shouldn't have won the IGF. Blech. Innovation!=Pokemon Snap clone. But anyway, the IGF has rules over what you had to be to enter, and it met those rules (they defined Indie for their contest in a specific way, so that's all that matters), doesn't matter if that changes in the future (in fact, they have a specific timeline over which you have to meet their conditions to be enterable!).

EDIT: While I was typing this monster, four or five people said it all much more succinctly. But at least I got to introduce you all to the term dependie, which I love!

I love the term dependie. Nice :)

Independent is simple: Independent to make your own creative decisions. No one has bought the right to make those decisions for you.

Of course, any indie trying to make a living is dependent on the market he or she serves. People buy puzzle games = lots of indie puzzle games.

Im still far from convinced.

So, we've narrowed it down to:-
Paying for your own development & freedom to make your own decisions.

So whats the difference between a bank loan, or an advance on royalties from a publisher? Either way, as a developer, its borrowed money.
And if we do have a publisher, BUT still make our own decisions with no infulence from them? Are we still 'indie'?

What if PomPom have 5 games, of which 1 is signed to a publisher, and the others are not .... are we 'semi-indie' ?

Silly term! ;)

Maybe it just means we write smaller, cooler games ;)

Cas :)

Thre is a big difference between a bank loan and an advance from a publisher.

The bank doesn't care if your game makes money, as long as you pay them back, with interest. How you use the money, and how you make it back is up to you.


An indie game developer develops indie games. They might also make software for Microsoft, make games by commission for advertising campaigns, own an oil refinery, or be a clown in a circus.

Indie game is easy to define. If you make them, even if you also make some dependie games, you're still an indie game developer.



My simple black-and-white opinion.

It's quite simple:

An independent developer makes all its own decisions, and therefore also fund all of its own development. How it gets published afterward is irrelevant. The game itself was *created* without the funding or control of a publisher.

Here's a way to distill the idea:
If I quit my job (or work in my spare time) to create a game working in my garage, and after a year of toil on my OWN, I submit my finnished product to a major publisher and they pick it up and put it on an end-cap at CompUSA, I am most definitely an independent developer.
---------
If my development team signs a contract with a publisher to *develop* a title (with or without their input and control) and they advance my team funds to pay for development (and I guarantee you this will mean the publisher takes some control of the direction of the project at least), then I am definitely NOT an independent developer.

Now the two above examples are intentionally extreme to illustrate the difference. But the idea is this: if you pay your own way and do everything your self (or your selves in the case of a team) without funding and control of another entity, you are indpendent. If your project is under some direction of an outside entity and/or your project is funded from outside, you are not independent. -- It has nothing to do with where or whether your product sits on the shelf at the store, and nothing to do with how much money you make. Nor does it have to do with the quality of the end-product.

I would go with Hamumu's definition.


Do we become non-indie if we release console games?

Yes if you have to change any part of your game to please the console manufacturer.

Do we become non-indie because a publisher puts our game in a box?
Yes if you have to modify your box art because the publisher thinks your art sucks and wont sell.

Do we become non-indie because we managed to secure some kind of development funding?

Yes if you have to scruff yourself clean to give a milestone demo ;)


So whats the difference between a bank loan, or an advance on royalties from a publisher? Either way, as a developer, its borrowed money. And if we do have a publisher, BUT still make our own decisions with no infulence from them? Are we still 'indie'?


You are if there is absolutely no influence.


What if PomPom have 5 games, of which 1 is signed to a publisher, and the others are not .... are we 'semi-indie' ?


You graduate to a small developer I guess.

Obviously if one wants to claim that the definition has no meaning, what in life has any meaning?

hamumu: first, Blizzard is not indie :) Vivendi owns their asses!

In the industry is commonsense to say Indie = not OWNED by publisher. But that doesn't mean they can't take advances from them or work with them, as long as they are NOT OWNED by them. Few big studios are not owned by publishers now a days, and as such are indies.

quote:
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Do we become non-indie because a publisher puts our game in a box?
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Yes if you have to modify your box art because the publisher thinks your art sucks and wont sell.

I'm not so sure about this. I mean, is box-art design really considered a fundamental part of game development?

Okay, Blizzard USED to be Indie... don't leave it up to me to pay any attention to the corporate side of the industry!

Vivendi is not a publisher per se as far as Blizzard is concerned. Blizzard publishes under their own label, Vivendi just owns their ass. :) They bought Blizzard in the early 90's under the conditions that Blizzard gets to do whatever they want as far as games go. Vivendi probably just scoops up most of Blizzard's profits, but doesn't interfere with their game development. That's quite different from a traditional publisher which controls every aspect of a game they're funding. Actually, Vivendi is a huge media conglomerate with games making up just a small portion of their empire. They only own a few other game companies except Blizzard, such as Sierra and Black Label.

Love the discussion as always, and I'll let the developers hash out what they think.

As far as GT is concerned, Indie is a term that lets the public differentiate the games we review. If the public cannot refer to it with a concise term, they'll just call the site "the site with those weird/cool games that you cannot find in stores," which is a little too long to market. Independent is marketable. I still believe as I've written about at length on my site, that the market will need to be created to some degree in order for it to be valuble for developers. That entails fixing a definition to the term for the public.

I think I'll adopt the IGF definition of Independent for my site, at least the funding portion of it, as the funding/control argument as it has been presented in this thread is reasonable to me.


STILL wondering if anyone is willing to put down their opinion on the game in question OMF: Battlegrounds. Indie or not Indie?

Originally posted by Punchey
An independent developer makes all its own decisions, and therefore also fund all of its own development. How it gets published afterward is irrelevant. The game itself was *created* without the funding or control of a publisher.
I think I've always adopted the above description for an independent developer. I would, however, choose the more general term "investor" as opposed to "publisher" because I believe that anyone investing in your game or company for the purpose of profit or ownership is compromising your independence. A business angel can cause as much damage as a publisher, and more.

With that in mind, if development of OMFB was funded by Diversions Entertainment itself and not influenced by any investor or publisher, then it's an indie game in my opinion. I believe it's also their own IP since they developed the original OMF. I think Epic was just the distributor at the time.

EDIT: "indie game" meaning, a game produced by a developer who qualified for independent status throughout the game's development cycle. :)

I think Battlegrounds is Indie, they just represent the next stage of Indie. The first One Must Fall: battlegrounds was one of the definitive PC fighters. I absolutely loved it, as did many others. It was released via the traditional shareware model (By Epic) but at that time being released by epic was about the same as getting published by dexterity. It was all shareware marketing.

They made a ton of money off the first OMF and they've been working on this most recent one ever since then. Sure they even pulled a DNF and re-wrote the thing from scratch a few times. However if you check them out their still a pretty small little company 15-17 people. As stated above they made the game exactly how they wanted to and didn't make any compromises. They just kept working on it until it turned out the way they wanted it to.

I think they represent the 2nd stage of Indie, once a few successful products are complete and the developer has managed to gain some financial independence, I'm sure you'll see a big step up in the production values, while still maintaining creative control over their projects.

While they may not be 3D games, I’m sure dexterities next titles will have very high production values, now that they can more easily afford them.

The "indie" label generally signifies an underdog and the reason we hang on to it is because it gives a distinction between those who could use help from the community and those who don't need it. As "indies" we rarely (if ever) have access to the mainstream marketing machine.

Personally, I think the "indie" label should only apply to an individuals first couple of products, a way to help out newbies to game development. If after 3 games you still require help with marketing and aren't being recognized by even the periphery gaming press then you need to reevaluate your products or business plan.

One look at the omf.com website and I see coverage from Gameshark, GamerTV, Game Vortex, E3 coverage, etc. They have an outlandish amount of coverage for such a generic product. They don't really *need* more as there is obviously some very professional marketing and back scratching going on in their favor already. Since the Game Tunnel label is "the indie underground" that makes me think it would be a disservice using up space that could otherwise be dedicated to indies.

ON THE OTHER HAND, as a webmaster you have to consider that coverage of "One Must Fall" is going to bring in more new traffic than coverage of, for example,"Power Mad" :) and that traffic will raise awareness for other games that appear on your site. If reviewing One Must Fall will lead to sales of more worthy games like "Samurai" then I think it's worth sacrificing the indie ideals.

Regardless of how much we want to foster an indie community we also have to realize that we are all in *business* and that often means doing the smart thing as opposed to doing the "right" thing.

I think this is straight forward, who knows why some people think "independent" has some different meaning in games, it doesn't, maybe it's just becoming more of a buzz word for small dev teams selling their titles online. I seem to think independent means just that, you have no dependancies, if you are tied down with someone/some company then they become your dependents, you need them, you depend on them, if they have no control over you as such and you can go with whoever and whatever publisher and you don't depend on who you are working for, surely that means your independent.. it's doesn't matter how much money you make or anything.

or has the world change to quickly for me to understand ?? I am hungry too so maybe that making my brain malfunction :)

"indie" is a *developer* classification, not a game *genre*.

-David

Thanks for the perspective as always Kyle. Thinking at it that way I would be a fool not to do a review or preview of the game on my site. The potential for more indie game exposure to those who are playing this game makes it extra helpful.

I think of indie games as a game category not a genre. Sports games are a genre. Sports games by independent developers are just indie sport games. I always look back to the movie industry. There have been some indie films that have done well in the mainstream theaters. They were still indies. People going knew that. People knowing that increased interest in other independent movies. Independent movies are those made by companies that are not the major studios in the industry...though occasionally they are released by the major studios...


So I stick by the term, though I understand many of the people who make games may disagree with it, or me doing so, I hope it doesn't turn them away from being involved with my site. Again some of it is branding so that people who visit my site can categorize the games...or have a way to refer back to them when they hopefully share them with their friends. However, I didn't come up with the independent branding. This forum is for indie development, the IGF has indie in the title...I'm just continuing use of a word I think helps further understanding of what the type of games is to the gaming community at large.

This is an interesting coversation because in light of Nikster and DavidRM's definitions I have to wonder, who the heck cares if a product comes from a true "indie" source or not? Certainly the customer doesn't. What is the purpose of the "indie" definition anyways?

I would just hate to see the day when one of us submits a game to Game Tunnel (the indie underground) only to have them say "sorry we're reviewing Unreal Tournament 2004 right now, there's no room for you".

A genre is a category (check a dictionary), so the distinction between "game category" and "game genre" makes no sense.

There is simply no way to draw a clear distinction between games produced by independent developers and games produced by non-independent developers. In either case, the end result is a game, and players like it or they don't.

-David

So many of us have posted with so many different views has convinced me even more that the term 'independent' is simply not suitable.

Surely the fact that we can come to no agreement is proof enough that the term is no good!?

As I understood it the topic of the thread was if Battlegrounds was independently developed or not. Independent has a well-defined meaning in other industries like music and film.

Creations that were created without the controlling influence of a big publisher, producer, record label etc.

I fail to see why when it comes to games people have a tendency to try and draw artificial boundaries. For example, “any developer that makes an MMO game can't be indie, because indies don’t make MMO's”. Or “Indie's don’t make fighting games. I think this is what David’s speaking to in his posts.”

I've also noticed a tendency for developers to try and gauge how Indie other developers are, or are not. This has shades of some bizarre cultist fanaticism. One where the least successful and struggling Indies claim the title of "Indie" and point fingers at the other successful developers who are independently developing video games and accuse them of selling out to make a profit.

The end result of this line of thinking is that beginning Indie developers separate themselves from the successful ones with a form of elitism that makes them feel better about their own mediocre successes. The experienced Indie developers have no motivation to share their experience with the younger (in experience, not age) developers and it leads to a polarization of the community.

I think people want to hold the moniker Indie like a badge of honor so they can feel good about thier "art" while it doesn't sell well. It seems they feel that Indie is "cool" and synonymous with poor to average sales. It's so foolish to have this connotation for Indie when Indie has nothing to do with WHAT is produced, but HOW it was produced. If the indie production method tends to produce smaller more original titles, then so be it. However that does not change the definition of the word Indie.

Frankly who are we to determine if some other developer developed their title independently. If they say they that it was, then that's all there is too it. Who knows better then them? It's not like Indie is this great brand that people are falling over themselves to "Steal" or "use inappropriately". It's a fallacy to try and make Indie into something it's not. Like to say that Indie games are fun, small, quirky games. The minute you do that you've attempted to make Indie into some kind of descriptive term that defines a category of games (aka. small, original, unique games). Which it absolutly isn't.

Sure a lot of Indie titles fall in that category, but that doesn't mean that games that are from different categories aren’t independently developed. So when you see someone trying to qualify Indie with things like "marketing exposure" or "production values" you are running into this ever-present "cult of the Indie developer".

The idea behind independently developed titles is simple, as defined above; they are creations that were created without the controlling influence of a big publisher, producer, record label etc.

However, as David suggests, the line that distinguishes how much "influence" a big publisher/producer/record label exerts on a creator before it ceases to be an independently developed production is a little unclear.

Which is which is why it's best left up to the developer themselves to say if their game was independently developed or not. If you want to have a debate, debate the placement of that line. But don’t debate the religious implications of the term Indie with the cult of the Indie developer. ;)

I say, if they are independent of any non-developer (artist, programmer, etc.) having a say in their actions they are 'Indie'. Just my two cents anyway. (I didn't read all of this so if someone else said it *shrugs*)

As for that game, I would say its probably Indie unless the creators/devs were under the influence of the Dark Side (Buisnessmen, Middle Managment, Marketing Professionals, Lawyers, Politicians, etc.) Which cannot be certain since we haven't talked to them directly...

Well Dan, thats good enough for me. :)

I say just email them and ask who is funding the development of their game.

I guess it does raise the question : If PomPom we're to recieve some funding for our next game, would sites like Game Tunnel not review us? Would we still be welcome on this forum is we got our lucky break, and got some kind of deal going on?

Maybe there really is some kind of sick elitism going on in the minds of the 'independent' community.

Nah, that's just normal human behaviour to try and gang together and then exclude people when a critical mass gets reached, usually at the point that it is perceived maximum return per individual is reached.

Imagine another 10,000 indie PomPoms suddenly turning up and churning out games. You'd start thinking of some way to describe yourself as being better and more elite pretty sharp I'd bet.

But no worries - the good news is that for every 1000 people that want to write games only 1 ever seems to make it.

Just India to worry about then ;)

Cas :)

Still, its a strange community. Its almost as if nobody actually wants to see any of us succeed unless we do it completely without help. If we get help, we're sell outs, and not 'allowed' to call ourselves 'independent' anymore, and thus get chased out of the community by an angry mob with pitchforks ( Pitchforks v1.2.2 Gold ) ;)

Ahhhh, who cares. As long as our games rock, thats all thats important.

Or you could view it the other way around - we want to see *all* of us succeed, and therefore don't want to waste our efforts promoting someone who's already apparently found their lucky break... we want to push up the NEXT lucky-break-to-be. :)

Yeah, me :)

Cas :)

Cas! Get to the back of the queue!!! Ive been waiting longer than you!!! ;)

Originally posted by BongPig
Cas! Get to the back of the queue!!! Ive been waiting longer than you!!! ;)

*writes a program to move him to the front of queue and put Cas in the back*

ha! Now I'm next muhahahaha!

It's not even about funding; Lots of independent filmmakers do fundraising. I've herd of them doing bake sales, I even heard of an independent film maker getting people to adopt a min of his film for $100 to raise money. It actually worked too.

I work for a large employer in the Pacific Northwest; does that mean I am not independent? in essence they are funding my Indie development....

No, Indie development is not about funding. It's about creative control. About building games the way you think they should be built without anyone telling you how or when to build them.

Yes, but generally when someone directly funds a development project, they have a say in the creative process. If they don't, then that's certainly an exception.

I like the idea of using a similar definition as is used for the word "independent" when applied to musicical artists etc.. It seems to be a fitting model for more intents and purposes.

Generally you are correct. People who make a significant financial contribution to a project often want some control. The point I was trying to make is while there may be a high correlation between developers who are financially funded by and outside source and developers who no longer have creative control of their projects, that does not imply causation.

It is possible to be funded from the outside and still maintain complete control of your game's development.

Therefore the definition for Indie cannot be delineated in terms of funding, the only thing that really makes sense is to define it in terms of creative control.

Well, if by "funding" you include the traditional publishers, I'd say that "funding" could be descriptive. I mean, sure, you can't say, "if you're funded from without, you're not indie," because "from without" is too vague. But, IMHO, you could say, "if you're funded by a traditional publisher (you know the ones), you're not indie," since that imlies the creative limitations that pretty much always go hand in hand with such funding. So yes, it does boil down to creative control. With one exception:

Let's say you live in some theoretical world where you have a publisher that's willing to front you the money for development without placing any creative restrictions on you whatsoever. ID might very well have been in such a situation, I don't know. Anyway, on with my point... Now let's say that for whatever reason, this publisher decides to drop your funding. If you, as a developer, have to fold and abandon the project due to lack of funding from outside, then you're defeinitely *DEPENDENT*. Sure, nobody exerted creative control of your project, outside of the fact that lack of funding meant that your project would go kaput.

So for this reason, I think funding is an important issue. It's about how much you *depend* on the funding. Hence dependent vs. independent.

Well i can't see any reason why the project would go caput in such a case, only extend the time it took to complete the project. If the developer kept rights to all their IP and everything that they developed while being "supported" by outside capital, then there would be no reason for them to stop. Sure they might have to get day jobs like a lot of other Indies, but they could certainly continue working on the game until it was done, albeit at a slower pace then they were when they were funded.

The idea of working a day job while working on a game is not all that uncommon amongst Indie developers. :) Your right though, it’s a very hypothetical situation, no publisher would ever just “Grant” you money to work on a project without controlling the IP, or the design decisions for the project.

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/independent

of course you can find contridictions like many people have. but all in all. as I have said before independent means independent :)

Yeah, but I know I've heard of many such projects where the developers just "gave up" when their funding was cut. Ofcourse, that probably had some to do with IP issues that their publisher. But it also had alot to do with the fact that the developer wasn't actually indpendent. I mean, they didn't have an independent mind-set. Their mind-set was, if we can't get funded by this publisher, then we'll find jobs with another developer that has an active deal... or move to another project that interests the same or a different publisher. I've seen it happen.

I think the problem in such cases is a lack of an entrepreneurial mentality and more of a "work for the Man" mentality.

You're right punchy, there is a certain "ethic" that's associated with independent game development. I would agree that if the developer kept everything (IP, source code, etc) but scrapped the project because the money wasn't "easy" anymore then they would be violating this seudo "Indie ethic". However, their project would still be an independent project, just a failed one. Failed for stupid a stupid reason that wouldn't stop most Indies, but failed just the same.

If the same situation happened with another team and another project, but this team stuck with the game, then by your standards this game would be Indie but the first one would not be. All of a sudden your defining "Indie" in terms of "reason for abandonment". Independent refers to how something was created, not how it failed, or how it looks, or what ethics the developers have, or even what type of game it is. The minute we start defining other then the process by which the game was created (free from outside controlling influences), then we are right back in religious holy war territory.

I see what you mean, and I agree to a point. But I do maintain that there's a grey area created when the developers do not even conisder supporting the project *independently*. If the developers maintain the attitude (call it a policy) that the game must be financially supported from outside entities (and in the absence of this, the project is cancelled), it's tough for me to swallow the idea that it's independent since, by virtue of the officially adopted policy, it is *dependent* on outside entities. Thus I reiterate, it is not solely about creative freedom, it's also about financial independence.

I'm not saying we should evaluate the "indy" status of developers based upon some kind of "ethic". I'm just saying that what may appear to be an indy developer might prove to have not been independent at all once its funding is cut. But then again, we live in the Real World (TM) where outside entities typically don't spend a dime unless they get some or both creative influence and/or IP rights. So this hypothetical scenario is just that.

I registered the orginal OMF a street fighter type game bak in 98 and I sent a check to a guy in Panama City Florida thats about 1 hour from Tallahassee Where I am now. I loved it BTW :) Im glad to see he has enough of a folowing to get published.