“Indie” = “Startup”
There is a recurrent topic in the our community: what makes an indie game or studio?
I generally don’t discuss much on threads with this topic since they can easily tend to become flamming threads as game developers, passionated and proud of what they do, are very sensible on this point. However, a recent post on Google+ by George Clingerman as well as an entry on Tom Miller’s blog made me thought and I believe I made my own opinion which I’d be interested to get feedback on. So here it is:
In my own personal opinion, and I hereby apologize if anyone disagrees and feels outrage by it, “Indie” is simply a translation of “Startup” or if you prefer, “Indie” is synonym of “Underground” or “Garage company”.
I’m not inventing anything really, just comparing our industry with other entertainment ones such as the music industry or even to companies using the web as their primary source of revenue. Actually, there are no “Indie” games nor studios: “Indie” is defined by the anticipation of your game.
Most people do get wrong because they misuse “Indie” when they should actually use “Startup”. Every said “Indie” game studio either composed of an individual or a team, working for free or paid, are all in the startup mode like the web did more than a decade ago. Why? Just because thanks to some of these said “Indie” studios’ success, one’s feel prouder to say he’s forming an “Indie” studio than saying he’s launching a “startup”.
Garagegames.com choose their company name quite smartly: that’s all about it, people making games in their garage or “home studio” like many musicians do.
And I believe what XBLIG is fronting today is massively related to that simple confusion: game studios that are putting a lot of effort, invention and polishing on their games aren’t on the right market.
These studios should accept their talent, their will to make it thought and most of all the risk associated with launching a good product on a market that is highly competitive to switch their mind from the “garage” mode to the “startup” mode as a business strategy.
They should go for money where it stands, put more efforts finding a publisher that will bring the visibility they need and accept the loss of freedom brought by the XBLIG environment. This will bring them to where they should be, closer to mainstream.
I really have no doubts: XBLIG is made by the community for the community; anyone expecting to get more from it shouldn’t target it.
WP7 App Hub is really different because Microsoft decided not to make any difference between serious companies and hobby developers. As for Apple’s Appstore, you can find there professional applications or games as well as crappy software. Why? Because, it is not a game only market and people use their phones for other application types. If it was a game’s only market, Microsoft would have placed the exact same business model as on the Xbox 360 to get money from Publishers such as EA, TakeTwo, Activision or Ubisoft to name a few.
Microsoft brought us a great technology with XNA and somehow opened their Xbox 360 development environment to us but we should just take XBLIG for what it is and either embrace it or move away to something closer to our business obectives.
Minecraft is a pretty good example: it all started as a one man game developed at home and facing the interest it got on social media, it transformed into a startup company with a small difference on the business model, instead of raising cash from investors, they presale their game to players because the anticipation was so high that it could go down this way.
Kickstarter supports this business model as well and it should be used if your game innovates and if you’re not willing to mary with investors or a publisher.
FortressCraft is slightly different thow: while it markets XBLIG, the team behind it could have been more successful if they found a publisher and went for XBLA instead. I can’t tell for sure but I believe that getting Minecraft on XBOX360 announcement lately is partially due to the success of FortressCraft in XBLIG: they could have made much more than the current 250k sales if they would have gotten the exposure brought by Microsoft in the XBLA channel.
There is still a huge market in the “Indie” world but not for game studios, rather for tooling or game engine companies. The lower entry barrier to game development created a huge market of developers and game maker enthusiasts in the need for better tools to make their games.
Unity understood it right and they probably won that battle. I wish the best to SynapseGaming SunBurn on the XBLIG, XBLA and WP7 AppHub markets 
Those are just some conclusions I ended up with and getting on the “Indie” mood isn’t pejorative at all: it should just not be considered otherwise than a small market made for small games by small teams/individuals that want to make their game as a hobby or to get some playtesting on their games before going to bigger markets.
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I don´t think that every startup can be considered an indie. If some business person decides that the success of minecraft could be copied and selects a couple of programmers and artists, sends them some rough design papers and tells them to copy minecraft then it would be zero indie in my eyes.
If a small developer produces fart or date or massage apps with the single intention of making money, then it´s zero indie in my eyes.
But I agree that your definition would yield a high hit rate (thank god!).
That’s what I expressed in my blog, “Indie” is often used in a “subjective” way: I can easily translate your “in my eyes” to “in my heart”.
But in the business reality, “Indie” is just another startup even if they make it solely for money and copying successful titles. At least, from my point of view.
love your avatar/logo by the way!!
I guess we have to agree to disagree on that one. Business reality is just the thing most indies don´t even consider.
Thanks for the avatar/logo. This was a character I was intending to use in a 2D game (I may still use it when I finish the current project
)
I agree to disagree with you on that one
Well, first off, I really enjoyed the article! I agree, indie is more or less a term used for most game dev start-ups these days. The idea behind calling SNS an independent company in my case, was because we aren’t looking for outside funding or intending to sell solely through a single publisher. So in my eyes, we’re an “indie” company because we’re independent from any requirements that may be imposed upon our game creation, other than those we set for ourselves.
The term is entirely too loaded to be well defined if you ask me. I’ve always considered “Indie” to be short for “Independent”. If no one outside of your team (ie, a publisher) has any creative say in your game, then you were an “Indie” in my eyes. I think someone can be both an “Indie” and a “professional” at the same time as well.
I do believe you can be “indie” and “professional” but I believe it just means you aren’t targeting the same markets
As soon as you want to get your game with a bigger audience, for me, you just lose the “indie” status because you’ll need help from bigger than you to get it working.