Indie games have been making a huge splash recently, thanks in part to XBLA, PSN, and all-inclusive gaming conventions like PAX. Fresh off the plane from PAX East in Boston, Adam was so impressed by all the independent games he saw on the floor he decided to use them as the subject for this week's Soapbox. Do you regularly browse the Indie Games section on XBLA? Do you read about small indie projects on gaming blogs and track their development until they find a method of publishing? Let us know what, if anything, indie games mean to you.
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sandboxgamer
great soapbox i remember when i saw footage of shank last year at PAX an I couldent wait to play it glad its getting the attention it deserves cant wait to download that one on playstation network
mrzero1982pt2
one, i agree with what he is saying. everything begins with a dream. what was shown behind him? "i made a game with zombies in it" is part of microsoft's dream-build-play contest/program to bring in tons of independent game developers. they have their own indie channel on xbox live. sony, i cant say what they do and everything, but sometimes, game sales for xbox live's indie games spill over into the best selling main xbla list. its obvious some companies want you to choose, or let you decide on ratings(xbox live has 3 ways to determine what you want to buy; best selling, top rated, and title) but otherwise, i go on what i think is cool. so far i have bought the dishwasher(which reminds me of a super hard japanese beat em up) and the zombie game because it is a buck. indie developers are like indie artists, they make what they want, how they want, and if it is good, the gamer gets it out there with word of mouth, which is why zombies has sold like 200 thousand copies since launch. many companies should take a look at indie developers because they know what gamers want, and how to make it affordable, and fun
AlantheMighty
Sorry, Adam I was so busy watching that awesome zombie and blob shooter in the background, anyone know what that is?
BlainN
Maybe someone already mentioned it, and I just missed it, but db.tigsource.com is also a good indie site. Since a fair amount of indie games come from mods, moddb.com is worth watching as well.
Between all the sites mentioned in this thread, gatherings like The PAX 10 and The Independant Games Festival, and occasional mentions on sites like Game Set Watch and Rock, Paper, Shotgun, I feel that indie games get decent coverage, provided they're for the PC. I'm mostly a PC gamer, so this may just be a function of the media outlets I choose to follow, but it seems a bit harder to find anyone sorting through Live Arcade, PSN, and WiiWare. Area 5 falls in love with console indies fairly frequently.
The problem is that it takes a large amount of time and effort to sort out the best games. And any articles that result aren't going to drive page views initially, so that effort's hard to justify. If a site gave people enough awesome picks that they absolutely /had to know/ what new gem had been unearthed, it could start to drive traffic. But how do you build critical mass covering games that don't come come out on a regular schedule, appeal to varied tastes, and are frequently platform specific?
tl;dr - PC indie coverage seems decent, but for other platforms, it's problematic.
UltimaBlackMage
Honestly I think that indie developers games are some of the best games. Remember some of the more popular game series were made by indie developers and now those companies are huge. I wish more indie games could be released on XBL and PSN because to be honest, a lot of mainstream titles are becoming generic and half assed. Indie games add flavour to the gaming market and they are cheap to download when they are available on XBL and PSN so there is no excuse to miss out. I hope to see more indie games in the spotlight but there's no E3 for indie games.
SDwiz
There needs to be some sort of info magazine,or etc to tell more people about indie games.I think that game Shank looked pretty interesting.But they do a good job of putting it available for demos and purchase on consoles,they just need a little boost from game critics to help people make the judgement on if they should get it or not,just like the games we buy at stores.
Vicous Vertigo
As a indie developer, it's nice to see someone share the sentiment that they need to be supported more.
I'd agree with Tmidilan, the comment above me, for one reason only though:
I'm sick of this perceived "Awww, how cute, it's an indie dev. Hey, I know, let's give this game a good score so we can seem chic and fair".
I'm not saying X-Play has done this (Mainly some other sources), but if indie games are gonna grow (which they have in the last year or so met with some more mainstream attention), than we are going to have to get out of this need for a security blanket where all our games our side-scrolling platformers. Braid is a masterpiece. Splosion Man is good. But when everyone decides to go the "artistic side-scroller approach"...are you really innovating or doing yourself and gamers a favor?
Thanks for the Soapbox, Adam. Been a fan of yours for years. Massive ass comment is done lol
BlackLable69
Hahaha dang that sucks Sess
Vicous Vertigo
As a indie developer, it's nice to see someone share the sentiment that they need to be supported more.
I'd agree with Tmidilan, the comment above me, for one reason only though:
I'm sick of this perceived "Awww, how cute, it's an indie dev. Hey, I know, let's give this game a good score so we can seem chic and fair".
I'm not saying X-Play has done this (Mainly some other sources), but if indie games are gonna grow (which they have in the last year or so met with some more mainstream attention), than we are going to have to get out of this need for a security blanket where all our games our side-scrolling platformers. Braid is a masterpiece. Splosion Man is good. But when everyone decides to go the "artistic side-scroller approach"...are you really innovating or doing yourself and gamers a favor?
Thanks for the Soapbox, Adam. Been a fan of yours for years. Massive ass comment is done lol
greyfox077
I agree that there is great and creative potential within indie games. There really needs to be some way to get these great types of games out to the public.
Tylerbear
@spicypooptastic
you clearly missed my point and obviously know nothing of communism or socialism. there's no way you can argue against the fact that big companies buy smaller, independant companies thereby assimiliating the indie company into the big company. which is what happened to Bungie. when this happens the indie company loses it's independance because the big company essentially owns them and always asserts thier will upon the smaller company in exhange for the much need cash the indie company needs to make the game or games they want. so supporting indie gaming is still giving your money to the big developers therefore there's no point to support indie games.
capitalism puts personal wealth and achievement over everything else. the greatest good is that of the individual. hence why it is essentially pure greed. look into communist and socialist countries you will not find a stifling of the arts where everything is the same and no one can be unique. btw selling out dumbs down artistic creativity more so than anything because the artist is no longer themselves, they HAVE to listen to thier owners influence lest they lose their funding for their artistic endeavours. so, without selling out it's more than likely we would have a more diverse and pure state of art in the world and not the crowded generic apathetic garbage it is today.
NocturnalX
I have been going to tigsource once every day for the past two years. It's a great place for indie news, and there is a great community within the forums as well. I recommend anyone interested in indie games check it out.
g4fan247
I agree with Adam about indie games. There should be a show in G4 that is dedicated to indie games so more people and know aout them.
DigitalGibs
@Sessler - I think it would be great to see more indie titles get exposure. Unfortunately, "indie" games suffer from a lack of funding. Lack of funding often leads to lower quality visuals, a distinct lack of polish in strangely familiar areas (like animations, of user interface), and an overall feel of incompleteness. That is not to say that these games are not good, but they lack the qualities that make them marketable to the people who judge a game by it's screen-shots and teaser trailers.
After all, marketing a game for the masses requires that the game LOOK like a competitive title when standing next to the Gear of Wars, and the Killzones, or even Flower. So toss out any hope of console development, and lets move on the PC. On the PC, your product is now limited to the 100K or so people who might still play games on their PC (minus soccer mom). No one wants to publish that, or even talk to you because they'll never make a dime if they try to advertise and promote through the usual channels.
Okay, the mammoth-sized elephant in the room *drum roll*, most "indie" developers are working out of their garage, and 90% of the time ALONE. If they can't find a partner with a common interests, and opposite talent like artist vs. programmer, they are forced to pay contractors (with $ they don't have), and develop the rest on their own.
All of this basically means that the success stories often stem from individuals (typically from outside of gaming) with mass amounts of cash burning a whole in their pockets, or the diamond in the rough loner who squeaks out a success; usually through lucky viral antics... I wish there was a better way too, but the Golden Rule always wins (whoever has the gold, makes the rules). =(
PennStater
Adam,
Great soapbox and I agree with you 100%! It's amazing how many good games there are out there that need more support. "Imaginarium" and "Critter Crunch" are two that I absolutely love.
I, too, wish that there was an outlet to let people know more about the indie games that deserve our attention. Up until last year, I used to rely on Game Tunnel, but they stopped giving their monthly list of notable indie games in September. I would say that this is something that G4 could address, but with all due respect I doubt that Comcast gives a flying you-know-what about such an endeavor.
DAGDA
i want to clarify something i wasnt saying anything negative about g4 i think they are awesome i was wondering why the video wasnt sesslers soapbox just a reminder to watch feedback and that usually shows up after the video is over but here it showed up before and thats all it was once again i was asking a question about why it was on here as sesslers soapbox earlier it wasnt working properly
maicus
Anyone interested in playing an excellent indie game should check out Aquaria. It won a few awards a couple of years back and it's one of the few adventure games I go back to again and again.
Best thing about it is that it was made by two guys,a coder and an artist, who didn't even meet until it was about 6 months into development!
spicypooptastic
I am sorry but I think Indi games are lame
bluepheonixia
Gotta love the love for I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 in the background. One of my favorite XBLA titles ever, and a hell of a fun time with friends.
Blood_Fox
i think adam has developed a perfect way of brain washing viewers
i catch myself staring at the game in the background while being subliminally assaulted by adams words, and because of that i can remember everything he said during this episode, and for most of the other episodes as well..
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