In my last post I wrote that it was 1 of 2 of my commentary on genres. The first part was about "Serious Games" and can be found
here. Here is part two: Indie games.
There is an "Us vs. Them" mentality inherent to a large number of indie and triple A developers. It's gotten into our heads that triple A games are corporate drivel and, to counter-act this, the bold indie developers have stepped up onto their digital distribution platforms to spread the revolution of new mechanics and deep story that those corporate meatplows won't take a chance on. Viva la revolution!
Triple A games are frequently lambasted for paper-thin stories, muddy brown/grey graphics, and no innovation in their mechanics. If you don't think there's an attitude of superiority about indie games vs. mainstream games, you need look no farther than Gamasutra's own sister site
IndieGames.com. Let's take a look at those quotes:
"The indie game movement is the most important transition this industry has seen since the rise of the internet." - Andy Schatz
"For the mainstream industry, everything goes in one direction: bigger, shinier, 3D-ier. Indie games go in every direction, and it's exciting as hell. We'll keep 'em honest." - Derek Yu
"I believe - fiercely and with passion - that the independent video game scene is in the midst of a startling rise to prominence. Why? Because innovative artistic games made by small teams finally have the ability to be easily played and enjoyed by gamers. Viva la indie revolution!" - Simon Careless
These guys know all about the mushy browns and greys of modern gaming. They see through the shiny veneer of bloom and specular mapping. To illustrate the state of modern mainstream gaming, I've made the following image.
Ugh. Bloom and brown. Indie games on the other hand, are often praised for their deep stories, unique art styles, and innovative mechanics. This is what the industry should be striving for! So I've constructed another handy diagram for us, similar to the last.
Wait a second... Those all look alike too! They're cartoony, abstract, and clearly fans of bright colors. What gives? Where's the revolution? Well, maybe they might look like one another, but certainly they have the upper hand in terms of mechanics. No first person shooter clones over here.
Braid had ingeniously clever platforming, time shifting puzzles and it's hand painted art style certainly hasn't been replicated. World of Goo was a physics game that took the "simple to learn / impossible to master" mechanic to heart, with a delightful aesthetic. No game has been able to capture the same emotions that Blueberry Garden has. This is certainly the kind of stuff that the mainstream can't take a risk on.
These mechanics and aesthetics are all unique in their own right, and it would be unfair for me to lump them all together and claim that the indie games industry is stagnating. It isn't. Neither are the big games either. Just as those indie games introduce new and unique concepts, so do just as many triple A titles.
Mirror's Edge introduced the world of gamers to parkour and to a new sleek aesthetic. Portal gave us a whole new way of thinking about 3D spaces with its portals and its boldly unique narration. Left 4 Dead gave us a new way to think about multiplayer shooters; no one had seriously attempted a shooter designed from the ground up to be cooperative before. I don't even need to talk about Bioshock: we've all played it for a reason. You can't tell me that triple A games are stagnating when you look at these (and more) titles.
As a student who's worked on a number of small projects, I
know that it's easier to do abstracted art styles with simple mechanics on small teams. That's what small teams are good at, so that's why a lot of indie games are that way. Indie games aren't a revolution and will not change the face of gaming. They're just a subset of the industry.
The bottom line is that we all make artistic works. Those works draw inspiration from all manner of sources; that's part of the creative process. We draw this inspiration from each other, from different mediums, and from the natural creativity of our own minds. Triple A games, Indie games, and every type in between
together form the whole of our medium. Why do we bother with delusions of grandeur for our own style of design?
Indie games can be unique and mind blowing and triple A games can be stagnant, indistinguishable clones, but just as often the opposite is the case. There's no magic trick. Throwing tons of money at a game could produce something terrible, or give us the next Portal. A small indie team could push the boundaries of what we think is possible with design, or it could be boring and frustrating. When consumers or developers give into the hype surrounding indie games they're harming themselves and the industry. Let's leave the cliques in junior high and get back to making great games.
Of course, the key is really to convince the producers, and game companies that it is a worthy investment to take risks, and make more sophisticated games. Much like with your last commentary, I think it's more "the man" (or producer-marketting machine, if you will) that is the thing that's holding the industry back more than anything else. The designers can innovate, they just need the freedom to do so.
Perhaps these views are becoming dated, though, in light of some of the stuff that's come out recently. I'd be curious to hear what present industry professionals have to say about that.
Great article.
@Tim
Is this totally a problem? WoW is in many ways conceptually stagnant (Diablo II set in Warcraft III) yet is one of the most enjoyed games on the planet - there are tens of millions of sculptures but only one David.
@Vorderkunz Portal wasn't developed by a small team. Narbacular Drop was developed by a small team of seniors at Digipen. At the Digipen showcase, Valve took interest in the unique mechanic of the game and invited the team to come show it to the people at Valve. Valve hired the team, integrated them into their own, and the rest is history. It's not actually an indie game, but you could argue that the idea came from indies. Though I don't know if students really count, since they were probably just trying to get jobs at Valve anyway.
Good article! My point was that Portal was developed by 10 people (employed by Valve, but not using up the bulk of Valve's resources) - Mass Effect, a great example of an innovative Triple A, had a dev team of 160 (including play testers). In that sense Portal was an "indie" (in the same what that many "indie" films get made by A list actors and directors with backing from major studios). It all depends on how you're defining the terms...
Not to mention, I think comparing it to Mass Effect is absurd. Mass Effect, by design, is a game spanning 40+ hours, thousands of lines of dialog, writers for all of the quests, etc. Portal, by design, is a 4 hour game (max) with one character who has dialog. Portal doesn't NEED 160 people.
From all the definitions I can find, Indie is: "the process of creating video games without the financial support of a video game publisher... developers that are not owned by a controlling interest like a publisher or umbrella organization." Portal does not fall into that category.
I think Portal falls into a grey area, and is actually an excellent example of where the strength of Indie lies. Big corporations don't want to risk money on new concepts so they regurgitate reliable profitable IP over and over again. Most new and innovative AAA titles have their origins in Indie designs.
This follows for the movie industry too.
Similarly, just like the music industry the big game publishers are more interested in the bottom line.
Indie devs are interested in concepts and new ideas.
Looking at artwork and screenshots alone is a very shallow way of comparing the two genres.
Sorry man, I wasn't tryng to attack you or your great article. In refering to the "10 people" I'm going on what Wikipedia states (gasp! I know, Wiki can be pretty unreliable at times); if you have insider knowledge that invalidates what the Wiki sez i'm cool with that.
Also, I don't think the Portal/Mass Effect juxtaposition (slightly different than a comparison and definitely not an opposition) was "absurd" - Mass Effect validates your point about large companies being willing to take risks on big projects , whereas Portal was not a big project (a point you make very well) and thus in my book (my "you" in the "you're" in my last post being a universal one) it's not a Triple A title - as Stephen N says its in a grey area that represents the best of both worlds.
Also, given the definiton of Indie given above - isn't Post-Vivendi Vavle an indie?
For me, there's two problems with AAA titles. The first is the need to pander to the existing audience - both by offering new challenges and by maintaining continuity. The second is the ever-increasing cost of production, which in turn means that anything deemed high-risk has to be avoided. Between the two, AAA titles tend towards incremental improvements and extreme reliance on sequels rather than significant changes and/or new IP.
Indeed, the two "mainstream" games quoted in the article (Mirrors Edge and Dead Space) were produced by EA specifically to try and introduce new IP and gaming concepts. Perhaps ironically, sales have been far from spectacular, but I'd expect the sequels to do much better...
Meanwhile, the thing with indie games is the sheer volume of games produced: it's like someone's set a genetic algorithm going, with each iteration throwing up thousands of new mutations which then feed into the next cycle. Some may succeed, many may fail, but quantity has a quality all of it's very own.
@ Juice
This is a surprisingly accurate analogy and a good way of looking at things. What you said about Triple A and Indie games is true, indie's churn out tons of games a huge number of which go unnoticed. Triple A much less so, and they work changes in much more gradually. That is, in a way, what I was getting at here. More so, they're working off two different models, but they're both producing equally quality games.
@ Stephen
"Looking at artwork and screenshots alone is a very shallow way of comparing the two genres."
Absolutely. That was the point I was trying to make here. Indie games tend to ignore the innovations in Triple A games for the sake of lumping them together as some sort of corporate drool. It would be equally unfair to do that to the Indie developers, who are just as easy to make fun of. That's all I was getting at with the comparison.