Monday, January 28, 2008
Indie Gaming Comes of Age - And What That Means To You.
Indie Gaming is coming of age, according to some - a little faster than it happened in other media, but just as significantly. At Wired.Com, Clive Thompson discusses this explosion in indie gaming, and announces that this is the reason his "best of indie games" yearly feature has gone away. He states:
"Two years ago, I wrote my first column celebrating the best indie games: small, offbeat titles, programmed usually by a single auteur and given away for free. I figured I'd make it an annual affair. For 12 months, I'd scour the net for independent games that had a spark -- some innovative bit of design or gameplay -- and gather a list of the top 10.I noted in December that the number of indie RPGs alone was very impressive - particularly for a genre known for its difficulty in development. Granted, not every one of them were big 30+ hour epics of story and character and world-exploration, but they are still not easy feats of development."But I've decided it's impossible.
"This is not because I can't find any games to praise. It's because I can find too many. Two years ago, the number of people making genuinely polished indie games was pretty small, numbering in the dozens or scores. A single columnist could reasonably hope to sample the year's offerings and make some picks."
However, I think some of this "explosion" may be as much a matter of discovery and attention as an actual increase in releases. And part of the explosion of indie games is just a subset of the substantial growth in video gaming in general - indie gaming is just shadowing what big brother is doing. Chris Dahlen writes today in "What Indie Games Can Learn From Little Miss Sunshine" at GameSetWatch that indie games may actually not be that far off from mainstream... and when that happens, they may then truly explode.
So what does this mean to you?
Gamers
As a computer gamer, this is almost completely a Good Thing. Especially if you are a fan of a genre that is ill-served by the big publishers. Indie games are getting more press coverage these days, which means you are more likely than you were before to hear about the best indie games. Note that "more likely" is only an improvement over a wretched state of obscurity before. The quality of the best indie games will improve.
Just look at how fans of traditional RPGs were served this year. We sometimes lamented the availability of good RPGs... and now... wow! There were more RPGs coming out of both indie and mainstream channels than I have time to play!
On the downside, you will also have to deal with brain-crippling choices without so much guidance (for a while) as to what's worth your time to even bother to download and play. And this means suffering through a bit more crap - and believe me, your definition of "crap" can reach new lows with indie game. I love them, but a friend put it this way the other day: "If you rate mainstream games an a scale of 6-10, then the ratings for indie games go all the way from 1 to 12."
So - you'll have to go through more work, and suffer through some more lousy game demos. The nice operative word there is "demo" - almost all indie games let you try them for free before you buy them, so you'll be more reasonably assured that your money is going someplace that will yield a decent entertainment value.
As a console gamer, you'll continue to enjoy the screening the big companies have given you. This means you'll have to deal with a lot fewer bad games, but you will also not see a bunch of the rough gems and brilliant-yet-flawed ideas that the computer gamers enjoy. But many of "the best" will make their way to the consoles where you can enjoy them at a budget price.
Game Publishers
If you are a game publisher - well, look no further than the success of Portal to see what kind of benefits indie gaming can bring. The indie gaming field is becoming Darwin's playground, and you can try to pillage the best ideas, perhaps hire / contract the best developers, and sign on the best games to add to your stable of releases. The best PC indie games have made the transition to console several times already, and I expect that trend to continue. There are lots of ways publishers can take advantage of the rise of indie games.
On the flip side, some publishers will try to fight the indies, because indie games are once again rising to challenge mainstream as serious competition. We saw this back in the glory days of Doom and Duke Nukem, and I think we're seeing it again. If indie games get the kind of visibility they need, they will raise the challenge to the big boys for the consumer dollar.
Not that mainstream publishers really need to fear the indies, but they would be best off to figure the indies in their plans, if they aren't already.
Game Developers
On the plus side for game developers, the surge in indie gaming means more media attention, and greater benefit for the top games. The pie grows. This much is a good thing. Tools, engines, content, and services will also target the "indie price range" more. In fact, I think this is part of the reason we're seeing the growth of indie games now (though it's insignificant compared to the rise of digital distribution).
This also means more competition, a lot more games fighting for attention, and a lot more... well, cruddy games choking up the limited attention of gamers. Whether ad-supported or traditionally sold to consumers, more indie games means things become ever more hit-driven and niche-driven. The bar for quality is going to go up, and the "average" indie game is going to be a commercial failure.
Portals of various kinds will continue to rise, some will fall. What we've seen happen in the "casual" arena will occur along other lines and business models - as we're seeing now with Manifesto Games, InstantAction, and Kongregate. Whether that's good or bad will depend upon how the developer plays their cards.
Indie developers - besides having to make either higher quality (read: more expensive) or more targeted games - will also have to become more business and media savvy, in order to help get their games noticed in the crowd. And yeah - we're gonna see more and more "indies" that more closely resemble their "non-indie" cousins. The line between "indie" and "non-indie", as fuzzy and ill-defined as it already is, will be further blurred.
We are facing some interesting times, to say say the least.
Labels: Indie Evangelism
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:37 AM (Permalink)
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Maybe I'm just cranky because I've been working late, but it always seems to me that the active and vibrant interactive fiction community gets short shrift in discussions of the growth of indie gaming. There are some truly excellent and innovative games that have been developed in the field over the last five or six years (probably longer). But they're rarely mentioned.
Well, I'd certainly agree with that, john.
Interactive fiction has a number of problems, though, that the community has yet to solve:
1. I think IF is still, to a degree, stuck in the old "interpreter-gamefile" structure, which can be tough for non-gearheads to jump into. Games are distributed as separate files, which also require an interpreter. And there are several interpreters out there, which don't necessarily play all types of game files. Spatterlight (for Mac) is a good start, but there's still a long way to go before it's a simple matter for newbies to get started.
2. There is still a prevailing reputation (correctly or incorrectly) that text parsers are difficult to use, and that "guess the verb" puzzles are still a huge problem.
3. The community is still really small and not well known. Some really well written games have come out in recent years, but most people don't even realize the community exists, much less actually still produces good games.
4. I may be making this one up, but I think there might still be a sense that sitting down to play an IF game is closer to sitting down and reading a book than it is to sitting down and playing a game. Perhaps a lot of people these days are more likely to associate the desire to play a game with something visual rather than sitting and reading. Just a thought, though.
Interactive fiction has a number of problems, though, that the community has yet to solve:
1. I think IF is still, to a degree, stuck in the old "interpreter-gamefile" structure, which can be tough for non-gearheads to jump into. Games are distributed as separate files, which also require an interpreter. And there are several interpreters out there, which don't necessarily play all types of game files. Spatterlight (for Mac) is a good start, but there's still a long way to go before it's a simple matter for newbies to get started.
2. There is still a prevailing reputation (correctly or incorrectly) that text parsers are difficult to use, and that "guess the verb" puzzles are still a huge problem.
3. The community is still really small and not well known. Some really well written games have come out in recent years, but most people don't even realize the community exists, much less actually still produces good games.
4. I may be making this one up, but I think there might still be a sense that sitting down to play an IF game is closer to sitting down and reading a book than it is to sitting down and playing a game. Perhaps a lot of people these days are more likely to associate the desire to play a game with something visual rather than sitting and reading. Just a thought, though.
I was afraid to comment because I think I give 'em the short shrift, too. And I don't want to, as those were how I got introduced to gaming in the first place. But I am not yet plugged into that community well enough to know all the goings-on there yet. I've only played a handful of the newer IF games (newer as in, "within the last 5 years," which is kinda sad by itself).
I think all of what Rubes says here is true (he'd know better than me), but I'd also suggest that the IF community might need to reach out a bit more and publicize what's going on. In addition to being small and not well-known, it feels (to this outsider at least) a little insular. The produce the games for themselves.
And while there may not be a lack of "entry-level" IF for beginners to help them break the ice and get sucked into the form, those are not readily identified as such. Maybe because it would be embarrassing to have your IF work labeled as "For Beginners" - and therefore probably ignored by the IF community that forms their primary audience.
If anybody would like to help me out as far as publicizing "indie (graphic) adventure & IF news" like I do for indie RPGs, please do! I'd love to add that as a semi-regular feature!
I think all of what Rubes says here is true (he'd know better than me), but I'd also suggest that the IF community might need to reach out a bit more and publicize what's going on. In addition to being small and not well-known, it feels (to this outsider at least) a little insular. The produce the games for themselves.
And while there may not be a lack of "entry-level" IF for beginners to help them break the ice and get sucked into the form, those are not readily identified as such. Maybe because it would be embarrassing to have your IF work labeled as "For Beginners" - and therefore probably ignored by the IF community that forms their primary audience.
If anybody would like to help me out as far as publicizing "indie (graphic) adventure & IF news" like I do for indie RPGs, please do! I'd love to add that as a semi-regular feature!
But then you might start losing your identity as the champion of the indie RPG.
Either way, I think that would be fun to do.
Either way, I think that would be fun to do.
I never really thought of the interpreter-gamefile things as being hard to get into -- but then, my first computer games were cartridges. And yeah, they're tough and small, but in that respect I'm reminded of early computer RPGs. (Dungeon Master was not exactly a gem in terms of its interface, but it's kind of the grand-daddy of a lot of the current crop of not just RPGs but first-person shooters)
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