The number of indie developers in North America is on the rise, according to the Game Developers Conference's State Of The Industry survey, with 53 percent of respondents now calling themselves "indie."
The 2013 survey also found that 51 percent of these indie developers have been indie for less than two years, signifying that 2012 saw a notable indie uprising in the industry.
Additionally, 46 percent of those surveyed said that they currently work in companies of 10 people or less, while only 24 percent worked with a publisher on their last game.
And what of the games they're currently working on? As it turns out, 20 percent of respondents are working with a publisher on their current project.
The graph below shows how developer interest is weighted towards platforms that are friendlier for independent game development (click for larger version):
The Game Developers Conference polled more than 2,500 North American game developers who attended the conference in 2012 or plan to attend GDC 2013 in March about their development practices, revealing several notable trends with regards to platforms, money, team sizes and more.
The GDC intends to field a similar survey each winter, in advance of the conference in San Francisco.
Organized by the UBM Tech Game Network, GDC 2013 will take place March 25-29 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.
You can check out all the information from this year's State Of The Industry Survey here on Gamasutra.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.
Most developers are "indie" developers, if you are making a game for yourself whether you have a day job or not, you are an indie developer. So I think it's the term or the buzz word "indie" which is on the rise more than what it's meant to describe.
There's also the prospect of being either a dimwitted EA slave who's forced to make their game, in whatever genre, into an action call of duty thing with multiplayer and in app purchases and always online DRM always mandatory. Or just saying "Screw this shit!" and going to make whatever it is you actually want to make.
Plenty of actual indie developers out there, many of them former triple A studio employees fed up with things.
Does anyone else think 2X more support for Vita than 3DS indicates something is seriously wrong with the way platforms are being prioritized? At least among those attending GDC.
This is a distorted number. Due to PlayStation Mobile allowing basically anyone to develop on the Vita as opposed the the 3DS closed environment. Some people may say, "Yes, I'm making a Vita game" when then mean PS Mobile. Others might say, "No, I'm not making a *real* Vita game."
Plenty of actual indie developers out there, many of them former triple A studio employees fed up with things.